Cracking It Open!:

   **Do Not Try This At Home**

   Once the initial fluff pictures were over, it was time to immediately crack this power supply open and subsequently void it's warranty. Well that's what we do so you don't have to.

   Looking inside the GameXStream I noticed something right away: small heatsinks on the PCB. Is this a bad thing? Well, no it's not a "bad" thing per say. OCZ was going for a more compact power supply with this unit and more and bigger heatsinks would've meant a bigger and heavier power supply. Are large heatsinks inside the power supply that big of a deal? Well not when there's a 120mm fan blowing cool air onto it from 1" away! So don't let that bother you one bit. I've been using this GameXStream 700w PSU for about 5 days now on my main system and it's been running 24/7. Granted it's sitting in my Tech Station, but I feel no heat concerns at all.

   Otherwise inside the unit it was very clean and neatly laid out. I'm not an electrical engineer so I won't pretend to know what every little trinket in there is. However I will say that the cables are sleeved all the way into the power supply (which is nice). Also the 120mm fan is not soldered to the PCB. Instead it's connected via a 2-pin connection. That'll make it much easier to replace should you ever need or want to.

Efficiency Testing:

   Efficiency testing was done using my trusty Seasonic power angel. It will test the Power Factor of this unit. What that means is it will tell us exactly how much of the power drawn from your wall socket is actually being used. The higher the percentage of the PFC, the better. Let's take a look at the whole scope of recent power supply reviews.

   Well writing this conclusion will be one of the easier ones I've written lately. The OCZ GameXStream 700w is just a powerhouse of a power supply. I couldn't get it to break a sweat. It's a compact unit compared to other meaty power supplies out there so fitting this into your mid tower or larger micro-ATX case should be a breeze.

   It's also lighter in weight than a lot of units out there, which is nice because in this case quality isn't sacrificed for it's light weight. I found the OCZ GameXStream 700w to be an outstanding unit with rock solid voltages, ultra-high efficiency, and solid build quality.

   I know some of you are wondering when I'm going to embellish the fact that it's not a modular power supply. Well, quiet honestly I like this power supply so much, I can't bring myself to defile it with the controversial topic of modular cabling. Sure if it was modular, it would be more convenient to some, maybe most. However remember the most important about modular power supplies: there's a chance of losing voltage throughput the more breaks in the cabling. So, just driving a screw into a piece of wood the first time: it's really tight. however when you tighten and loosen it a bunch of times, it's bound to wear out. Same goes for modular cabling. The more you connect and disconnect the cables, the greater the chance of signal lose. Now I'm not trying to scare you away from modular by any means, just stating the facts.

   In closing, I can whole heartedly recommend the OCZ GameXStream 700w power supply to all out there. From the power gamer running dual core CPU and SLI graphic cards, to the web surfer that wants a high quality, and highly efficient power supply. Although 700w is overkill for a web surfer :)

   A big thanks go out to OCZ Technology for not only making this review possible, but also for making the grade and becoming the new power for my main system!