Continuing on with our run of NZXT products, we are now taking a look at two of their power supplies; the Performance Power 600 and Performance Power 800. In case you just woke up that is a 600w rated PSU and an 800w rated PSU. NZXT is pretty new to us still and I have never seen their name on a PSU before. Hopefully these two new units will live up to their Performance Power name and impress us.
{mospagebreak title=Package}
Product: NZXT Performance Power 600/800
Author: Jason Hambly
Reviewed on: August 26, 2008
Product Cost: $69.99(PP-600) / $129.99(PP-800)
Manufacturer: NZXT
Spelling and Grammatical editor: PlanetX64 Staff
NZXT ships these PSUs in a pretty standard cardboard box, the same that most PSUs would come in. The outside has lots of specs and information regarding the units and adds a couple of pictures. If you give the box a shake you will notice my next concern. There is no padding inside the box to keep the PSU from sliding around. The PP-800 is a little larger and has more wires coming out of it so it doesn’t move very much but the smaller PP-600 moves around quite a bit. A single small piece of foam would prevent this.
{mospagebreak title=Specs and Features}
Specifications and Features:
Performance Power 600
Connectors:
1x Main ATX (24 pin)
1x 12V (4+4)
8x Molex
6x SATA
1x Floppy
2x PCI-E (1x 6pin, 1x 6+2 pin)
-Complying with Intel ATX/BTX Standard
-Gold-Coated Connectors
-Output Over / Under / Short / Overload Protection
-78% Efficiency at Load
-Smooth Matte Black Finish
-Industry Standard ATX 2.2V (PP-600)
-Low noise 120mm fan (PP-600)
-Two +12V Rails (PP-600)
-PCI-E 6/8 pin, SATA, EPS12V Ready
-SLI and Crossfire Ready including support for nVidia 8800GTX and ATI 2900HD
Performance Power 800
Connectors:
1x Main ATX (24 pin)
1x 12V (4+4)
8x Molex
6x SATA
1x Floppy
4x PCI-E (2x 6pin, 2x 6+2 pin)
-Complying with Intel ATX/BTX Standard
-Gold-Coated Connectors
-Output Over / Under / Short / Overload Protection
-78% Efficiency at Load
-Smooth Matte Black Finish
-Industry Standard ATX 2.91V (PP-800)
-Low noise 120mm and 80mm fans (PP-800)
-Four +12V Rails (PP-800)
-PCI-E 6/8 pin, SATA, EPS12V Ready
-SLI and Crossfire Ready including support for nVidia 8800GTX and ATI 2900HD
{mospagebreak title=Overview}
Overview:
Holding the NZXT PSUs in your hand you will see a pretty solid unit. It is not the sharpest looking PSU but the matte finish will prevent you from leaving your fingerprints all over it during installation. The PP-600 and PP-800 are very similar in design, the PP-800 is slightly longer to allow for the 80mm fan that is not included in the smaller PP-600. Neither unit has a modular design so you are stuck hiding all the left over cables inside your rig. The only cables that are sleeved are the 12V 4+4 and the 24pin main ATX connector. One thing to note about the 24pin connector is that it is not a 20+4; the last four pins will not break away so anyone still rocking an old ass mobo will be out of luck. The PCI Express cables are double ended so on the PP-600 there is only one cable for both of the PCI-E connectors; the second of which has the extra +2pins for an 8pin video card. The PP-800 has two cables similar to the one on the PP-600. There are lots of Molex and SATA connectors. With all hard drives using SATA connectors now there are almost too many Molex connectors still coming with PSUs. An additional note on the PP-800 is that it is SLI certified for anyone planning on running two cards.
{mospagebreak title=Performance}
Test System:
Asus P5Q-Pro P45
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ stock 3.16GHz
4GB G.Skill PC2 8500 DDR2-1066
BFG 8800GT OC 512MB
2x Seagate 7200.9 80GB in RAID 0
Razer Barracuda AC-1 Sound Card
Danger Den Water-cooling
Thermaltake Armor Chassis
Performance:
To test out the performance of these PSUs I ran several applications and a game all while measuring the draw from the wall using a P3 Kill A Watt meter and a digital multi meter to check the individual rails. The apps that I ran were Cinebench, 3DMark Vantage, HyperPi, RTHDRIBL, and the game was Bioshock.
First off is a straight up measurement of wattage and voltage at idle in
|
|
Wattage |
3.3v |
5v |
12v1 |
12v2 |
12v3 |
12v4 |
|
PP-600 |
141 |
3.327 |
5.10 |
12.02 |
12.03 |
n/a |
n/a |
|
PP-800 |
146 |
3.398 |
5.16 |
12.16 |
12.17 |
12.15 |
12.15 |
The next app I ran was Cinebench followed by 3DMark Vantage.
|
|
Wattage |
3.3v |
5v |
12v1 |
12v2 |
12v3 |
12v4 |
|
PP-600 |
195 |
3.323 |
5.11 |
11.98 |
12.00 |
n/a |
n/a |
|
PP-800 |
199 |
3.397 |
5.16 |
12.15 |
12.15 |
12.12 |
12.15 |
To try and push the PSUs a little harder I ran HyperPi on both cores along with RTHDRIBL. RTHDRIBL (Real-time High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting) is a demo created a few years ago to show DirectX9 textures and Pixel Shader 2 real time HDR rendering.
|
|
Wattage |
3.3v |
5v |
12v1 |
12v2 |
12v3 |
12v4 |
|
PP-600 |
174 |
3.325 |
5.10 |
12.00 |
12.02 |
n/a |
n/a |
|
PP-800 |
183 |
3.397 |
5.15 |
12.14 |
12.16 |
12.13 |
12.14 |
Finally I played a bit of Bioshock to see what would happen.
|
|
Wattage |
3.3v |
5v |
12v1 |
12v2 |
12v3 |
12v4 |
|
PP-600 |
199 |
3.324 |
5.09 |
11.99 |
12.01 |
n/a |
n/a |
|
PP-800 |
204 |
3.395 |
5.15 |
12.14 |
12.15 |
12.11 |
12.12 |
As you can see from the charts above, both PSUs remained very stable while powering an average gaming machine.
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Price and Warranty:
These power supplies are available online and can be found for $69.99(PP-600) and $129(PP-800). NZXT offers a one year warranty for its power supplies.
Conclusion:
After running each power supply for a couple of weeks, I have nothing really negative to say about either of them. They both run very quiet and the power remained very stable. Modular cables would have been nice but I can live without that for a reliable unit. The PP-800 is SLI certified so that is definitely a bonus for that model. The PP-600 is priced very well at $69.99 and will allow just about any budget gamer to have a reliable PSU. They have a nice matte finish so you don’t need to worry about finger prints all over them after you wrestle it into your case. So overall for NZXT’s first shot at the power supply market I think they hit just the right spot.