Need opinions on this PSU

[juggalodarkclow]

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Series-Fully-Modular-Performance-compatible/dp/B004NMJ9ZI/ref=sr_1_15?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1330827913&sr=1-15

I'm thinking about purchasing this psu tomorrow and was wondering if anybody has had any experiences with this model, this company, etc.

[Inaba]

I have several... they are fine.  OCZ is fairly decent about their warranties.  They had some shitty PSUs in the past, but I think that's behind them, at least for their top end stuff.

I do have one that has a funky failing fan (high pitched whine) that I haven't tried RMA'ing yet.  I planned on doing that this weekend, so we'll see how that goes.

You just a missed a sale at Newegg on that PSU for $169 after rebate. 

[someone703]

Yea, I've noticed that Newegg tends to cycle their 15% off sales or so on the PSUs fairly frequently.

If you're not in a rush and can wait a bit they'll either have an OCZ, Seasonic, or Corsair brand sale going on at some point.  That or you could get an Amazon GC from one of the people here for a 10-15% under face value and just buy it off Amazon.

Friend of mine had an OCZ ssd that went bad and RMA'd it with no issues.

[juggalodarkclow]

I changed my mind about this psu, mainly due to the fact Amazon wanted to charge an additional $20.38 in taxes.
I ordered this http://www.amazon.com/Antec-Power-Quattro-1200-TPQ/dp/B002EP30GK/ref=sr_1_15?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1330877753&sr=1-15

[sveetsnelda]

I have several... they are fine.  OCZ is fairly decent about their warranties.  They had some shitty PSUs in the past, but I think that's behind them, at least for their top end stuff.

I do have one that has a funky failing fan (high pitched whine) that I haven't tried RMA'ing yet.  I planned on doing that this weekend, so we'll see how that goes.

I had to warranty one of these recently and it was *very* quick/straightforward.  They even sent the new one with everything in sealed retail packaging.

Are you sure it's the fan whining?  I have 12 of these PSUs and most of them have pretty bad coil whine at high loads.  Search "OCZ ZX coil whine" and you'll find a zillion results.  (A zillion, I tell you)

Coil whine aside, these have been very good PSUs for mining so far though (9 months of 24/7 mining).

[Inaba]

Well the problem one I have only whines intermittently when there is no load. If I load it up with a pair of 6990s or play a game the whine goes away, so I had assumed it was the fan whining at low rpm.

[malevolent]

Well the problem one I have only whines intermittently when there is no load. If I load it up with a pair of 6990s or play a game the whine goes away, so I had assumed it was the fan whining at low rpm.

Maybe the whining is drowned out by the 6990s fans spinning? Or sth could be wrong with the bearing.

[Inaba]

My 6990s are silent. I have have 2200w water cooling loop.

[sveetsnelda]

Well the problem one I have only whines intermittently when there is no load. If I load it up with a pair of 6990s or play a game the whine goes away, so I had assumed it was the fan whining at low rpm.

I'll bet it's just coil whine.  I have an identical load on almost all of these (same hardware anyways).  Some whine, some don't.  There are a couple of them that I would have easily mistaken for bearing noise if I didn't know they were notoriously noisy.

[Inaba]

So you're saying the coil will whine when there's virtually no load on it?  It only whines when I'm drawing less than 400w from it.  Shouldn't coil whine be the reverse?

[sveetsnelda]

While coil whine generally tends to be more pronounced at higher loads, it has more to do with frequency than anything else.  I just figure that these PSUs are notorious for it and they use very good Yate Loon ball bearing fans (D14BH-12), so it seems more likely that it isn't the fan.  That certainly doesn't rule the fan out entirely though.

There are quite a few enthusiasts with silent PCs who try to narrow down coil whine at low loads on some PSUs.  A lot of the time, they disable C1E/C-state and the whine goes away.

[rjk]

While coil whine generally tends to be more pronounced at higher loads, it has more to do with frequency than anything else.  I just figure that these PSUs are notorious for it and they use very good Yate Loon ball bearing fans (D14BH-12), so it seems more likely that it isn't the fan.  That certainly doesn't rule the fan out entirely though.

There are quite a few enthusiasts with silent PCs who try to narrow down coil whine at low loads on some PSUs.  A lot of the time, they disable C1E/C-state and the whine goes away.

+1, a resonant feedback problem can occur at any load level, since the PSU is a switching design - which means the intermediate power pulses change width based on load and voltage droop.

[Inaba]

Let me throw something else into the mix:  The whine comes and goes... once the load is taken off and the unit cools down a bit, the whine will start slowly, then increase in pitch and warble until it reaches a peak, then it goes away for a bit and the cycle repeats.