| Tuesday, November 14 2006 |
While I was traveling the San Francisco Bay Area last week I visited the memory experts at OCZ.
There were quite some interesting upcoming products, two of which we were allowed to show.
The first is this 1 Kilowatt Power Supply, called ProXStream. It is engineered by the same team that built the award-winning GameXStream and EvoStream PSUs. What makes this unit special is that it is sized like a regular ATX PSU. All other manufacturers that have 1 kW PSUs need to use a longer case which may not fit all computer cases. The ProXStream will have four independent 12V rails with 20 Amps each.
The PSU will be available next month.
Also available next month will be this memory cooler. Even though the design is quite simple, you can see that the engineers are enthusiasts and have been thoroughly testing that design.
Inside the light-weight aluminum assembly you find two transparent fans that are connected to the motherboard using one fan cable. The cable length is long enough to go across a motherboard, so even if you have no fan headers right next to your memory, you will sure find one a bit further away on the motherboard. When the fans are spinning several LEDs in each fan light up the cooling assembly.
Here we installed the cooler on an ABIT AW9D-MAX. The cooler is mounted by attaching it to the little plastic clips that hold your memory in place. This means it is universal and will work on any motherboard.
If you look at the corners, you see that one corner is cut off. This has been done to make sure that you can mount the cooler even on motherboards with tall chipset heatsinks. When you unlock the screws on both sides you can move the upper portion of the cooler independent from the mounting clips. This is useful when you have a big CPU cooler going over one memory slot for example.
Being there, I of course wanted to see how OCZ "works". Unfortunately some areas were off-limits, but that's to be expected.
When you enter the OCZ building, you step into this room which has a nice waiting area. Also on display here are several products and awards.
This is one of the memory qualification labs. All OCZ memory modules are tested here on multiple platforms and motherboards to make sure they are working as intended.
A small meeting room. Here marketing and product engineers sit together and come up with new products.
What a cool bike! It goes to the top sales person in the company - nice way to motivate people.
There were quite some interesting upcoming products, two of which we were allowed to show.
The first is this 1 Kilowatt Power Supply, called ProXStream. It is engineered by the same team that built the award-winning GameXStream and EvoStream PSUs. What makes this unit special is that it is sized like a regular ATX PSU. All other manufacturers that have 1 kW PSUs need to use a longer case which may not fit all computer cases. The ProXStream will have four independent 12V rails with 20 Amps each.
The PSU will be available next month.
Also available next month will be this memory cooler. Even though the design is quite simple, you can see that the engineers are enthusiasts and have been thoroughly testing that design.
Inside the light-weight aluminum assembly you find two transparent fans that are connected to the motherboard using one fan cable. The cable length is long enough to go across a motherboard, so even if you have no fan headers right next to your memory, you will sure find one a bit further away on the motherboard. When the fans are spinning several LEDs in each fan light up the cooling assembly.
Here we installed the cooler on an ABIT AW9D-MAX. The cooler is mounted by attaching it to the little plastic clips that hold your memory in place. This means it is universal and will work on any motherboard.
If you look at the corners, you see that one corner is cut off. This has been done to make sure that you can mount the cooler even on motherboards with tall chipset heatsinks. When you unlock the screws on both sides you can move the upper portion of the cooler independent from the mounting clips. This is useful when you have a big CPU cooler going over one memory slot for example.
Being there, I of course wanted to see how OCZ "works". Unfortunately some areas were off-limits, but that's to be expected.
When you enter the OCZ building, you step into this room which has a nice waiting area. Also on display here are several products and awards.
This is one of the memory qualification labs. All OCZ memory modules are tested here on multiple platforms and motherboards to make sure they are working as intended.
A small meeting room. Here marketing and product engineers sit together and come up with new products.
What a cool bike! It goes to the top sales person in the company - nice way to motivate people.
User comments
Wow that ram cooler is quite nice....i bet it might be a hit.
Indeed. thanks for sharing:)
That psu is ready for everything!
My Ocz ram is seposed to work real well with the ds-3 board.
That psu is ready for everything!
My Ocz ram is seposed to work real well with the ds-3 board.
the Psu 1kw in a standerd sized Psu, will rock every gamers mind espically with 4x20A 12+ rail.
the ram cooler, i think its 50~60mm 2x fans, not only that, they also done the XTC shield style on them, i think many people will complete PImping there PC with this new Ram cooling
the ram cooler, i think its 50~60mm 2x fans, not only that, they also done the XTC shield style on them, i think many people will complete PImping there PC with this new Ram cooling
There is a good reason to use an ATX+ size PSU case for a 1KW PSU. The fact is you can't fit quality sized 1KW PSU components in a standard ATX PSU size and have proper cooling. Yes you can stuff under-sized components or give up cooling, but anyone needing a 1KW PSU should have the smarts to buy a quality PSU and not the trick-of-the-week stuff dumped in the marketplace for the technically challenged.
While some may argue that a ATX+ sized PSU won't fit in every PC case, it fits in the majority of PC cases with no problem. Certainly if you need a 1 KW PSU, you are using dual or quad Video cards and likely one or more dual-core CPUs. The last thing you want to do is fry the hardware by placing it in a cube or under-sized PC case that has insufficient cooling. To me the 1 KW ATX+ PSU case goes hand-in-hand with a proper sized PC case for maximum PC performance and cooling.
The 20 amps per 12v rail may not be optimal depending on your hardware power draw. It's good to see OCZ is NOT using the modular plug arrangement on this PSU as that is a definite no-no for high current load situations. You don't need or want modular plug connections causing high resistance and hot spots in the PSU cabling to the max performance mobo or PC system.
While some may argue that a ATX+ sized PSU won't fit in every PC case, it fits in the majority of PC cases with no problem. Certainly if you need a 1 KW PSU, you are using dual or quad Video cards and likely one or more dual-core CPUs. The last thing you want to do is fry the hardware by placing it in a cube or under-sized PC case that has insufficient cooling. To me the 1 KW ATX+ PSU case goes hand-in-hand with a proper sized PC case for maximum PC performance and cooling.
The 20 amps per 12v rail may not be optimal depending on your hardware power draw. It's good to see OCZ is NOT using the modular plug arrangement on this PSU as that is a definite no-no for high current load situations. You don't need or want modular plug connections causing high resistance and hot spots in the PSU cabling to the max performance mobo or PC system.
lIghts could also be added at the ram coolers. damn it would be nice.
ah i forgot to mention the fans have leds :)
aren't you gonna edit?
The fans are kewl.
But I gotta say I dont look forward to ever using a 1KW PSU.
They gotta lower the power consumption on these GPUs, like they did for the CPUs
But I gotta say I dont look forward to ever using a 1KW PSU.
They gotta lower the power consumption on these GPUs, like they did for the CPUs
I like this buisness alot, Just looking at how they influence there workers, there work and idea areas are great, I love that bike and I wish I had it. I like the upcoming products, especailly the ram coolers, and the PSU of course, But Im glad I got to see this news post, just shows you that these people influence there employees to work hard and get a reward from it! Good post.
by: -=SNIPER=-Probably 6 x 20A 12V rails...nothing is set in stone for the specs...still making some decisions.
the Psu 1kw in a standerd sized Psu, will rock every gamers mind espically with 4x20A 12+ rail.
I wonder how much 1kw will cost to run over a 24hr period, might get one of those new spangly wind turbines for the roof, its windy enough at the min lol not good for me and my motorbike...
this is from a review i've been working on:
10% of efficiency come down to a yearly difference of $4.08 in power cost. This is assuming $ 0.10 per kWh, which is an accepted average value for power cost in the United States. We assumed 8 hours of PC usage per day, 5 days a week at 200W system average power draw.
10% of efficiency come down to a yearly difference of $4.08 in power cost. This is assuming $ 0.10 per kWh, which is an accepted average value for power cost in the United States. We assumed 8 hours of PC usage per day, 5 days a week at 200W system average power draw.
Interesting how I've seen memory coolers pop up several times in the past weeks. However, the others were specifically to cool FB-DIMMs.
FWIW, I pay around $0.12 per kWh, and running my system loaded down (like 3DMark06 looped), draws around 280W at the wall, which costs me roughly $0.04 per 75 minutes. Leaving it on like this for 8 hours a day, 365 days a year results in $93.44 of electricity for the year. High but not bad.
by: Alcpone
I wonder how much 1kw will cost to run over a 24hr period, might get one of those new spangly wind turbines for the roof, its windy enough at the min lol not good for me and my motorbike...
You only use as much power as you use. Just because a power supply is 1.21 gigawatts, doesn't mean it draws that much all day. If you only use 200w, you only use 200w ( not taking into account power lost through heat )
by: overcastAhhh, I wasnt aware it didnt suck that full kw all the time, only when under load!
You only use as much power as you use. Just because a power supply is 1.21 gigawatts, doesn't mean it draws that much all day. If you only use 200w, you only use 200w ( not taking into account power lost through heat )