Pricing and warranty

As we come to the end of the article we like to have a look at how much money these products will cost you. Lower price is very often a driving factor for purchasing a power supply, though do remember that quality comes with higher prices, utterly cheap power supply's might turn to be a worse choice afterwards if you know what I mean...

In the tweakers.net pricewatch we found the following prices:

OCZ ModXstream 600W: € 69,95

CoolerMaster Silent Pro M600: € 82,95

Zalman Extreme Power ZM660-XT: € 119,95

In the Alternate webshop we found them at following prices:

OCZ ModXstream 600W: € 75

CoolerMaster Silent Pro M600: € 89

Zalman Extreme Power ZM660-XT: €159

Crawling the web we found following warranty offers:

OCZ ModXstream 600W: 3 years Powerswap

CoolerMaster Silent Pro M600: 5 years

Zalman Extreme Power ZM660-XT: 3 years

With the Zalman unit delivering more output power I'm in no way surprised to see the higher price, though the little extra power does cost you quite a bit more. At around 80~90€ it would stand out much better against the tough competition. OCZ units go really low priced and can be found for as low as €70, sharp price for 600W units which once was considered high-end class. We did catch rumours explaining that OCZ was actually selling below their estimated price, but this is not confirmed. Anyway, if it's good for the end-user, does it matter?

Conclusive thoughts



We had three well know brands on our testbed each delivering in between 600~700 Watt output power. Once these units were the high-end but ever since the release of these 800~1000 Watts units they have become midhigh-end instead. With prices mostly below €100 they have also become more affordable then few years back. In the end we must say that we were pleased with what we saw from the tested product, all three of them are quality products but we did find few differences which might play a deciding factor when shopping for a good power supply for your high-end rig.

Aesthetics is one of the things Zalman really paid attention too, the ZM660-XT looks really cool with the build in LEDs and it's in no way overdone, it's not too fancy. Tastes differ though, if led's are not your thing then you can skip the Zalman already. But do know that from the contestants Zalman offers the most connectivity plus their cables reach longer compared to the other contestants so the Zalman is a perfect choice for large pc housings. Downside, as mentioned before is the ATX plug which might be incompatible in some circumstances.

On the other hand we have the OCZ ModXstream power supply. No spectacular design nor high connectivity, though with 4 molex and 6 SATA plugs still more then enough to pleasure the larger part of the mid-highend market.

CoolerMaster delivered a product in between Zalman and OCZ, less connectivity then the ZM660-XT but more then OCZ's power supply plus it also has longer cables then the ModXstream. Furthermore the CM's unit makes life little easier for the end-user when it comes down to properly stressing the unit, with only one 12V rail you don't have to worry that quickly about overloading one of them.



In electrical performance all contestants scored very well, we tried 20%, 50% and 100% load and in our tests they all scored a 83% efficiency or higher. All together the efficiency results are so close that it won't really matter which of these power supply's you take as there are always small fluctuations happening during the tests. Inrush current was quite high though with the Zalman unit, remarkable more then OCZ's and CM's unit. The larger power supply and higher power rating play a role in there off course but after all the results stay well within specs. Power consumption is great, all units have less then 1W power consumption during standby and due to their high efficiency they won't waste too much energy even at full load.

Noise wise we did not yet obtain any results but stay tuned for an upcoming roundup where we add another bunch off 600W units. In my test setup with fans disconnected the power supply's did remain very quiet, only at high load the fans begin to spin up but I don't see anyone cooling his 600W rig with passive heatsinks, the cpu/vidcard fan will very probable produce more noise then these power supply's.

All together I must say the Zalman unit probable is the most favourable of the contestants, connectivity, cable length, noise, efficiency, it scores best in all categories. Though the ATX plug is not really favourable and can be annoying. At a price of €120 or more I do think it's a little overpriced, CoolerMaster's Silent Pro M700 can be had cheaper and offers more output power. The Silent Pro M600 offers less output power but also comes with great connectivity, long cables and great efficiency and noise results, all for a much nicer price: 80~90 euros. But you can still get it cheaper, OCZ has their 600W ModXstream unit priced roughly another 10~15 euros cheaper while offering nearly same noise/efficiency results. Do know that you have only 4 molex connectors available which isn't that much, but if fits your needs then the ModXstream will certainly please you as price/performance it's one of the best power supply's out there.

That's it folks, before you go let me thank CoolerMaster for having us using their expensive load testing gear and thanks for René for all his advise and help during the day. I would also like to thank Tobias from OCZ for sending us their review sample, same goes for Marloes from CoolerMaster and Brian from Zalman. Catch you later!