In this day and age, manufacturers are having a hard time presenting a PSU that would be radically different from the solutions already present on the market, even within their own gamma. What all buyers expect, and manufacturers tend towards, is a rounded product which will bring superior performance, meaning excellent voltage regulation, high efficiency, continuous power supply and an acceptable price. OCZ has shown that they can make a noteworthy product on numerous occasions, and the latest addition to their Champ1on series, namely Fatal1ty 1000 W, is no exception. Jonathan Wendel, the legendary gamer better known as Fatal1ty, has been cooperating with motherboard, graphics and sound card manufacturers for years, in order for the companies involved to create a strong brand and appeal to gamers and enthusiasts. OCZ branded their latest PSU generation Fatal1ty Champ1on, which says enough on the positioning and class of the models in question, as well as expectations created in potential buyers – nothing but top quality and performance. Fatal1ty 1000 W has more than the huge power stated in its name; there are also the gold energy efficiency certificate, a powerful +12V rail, specially coated cables, but also a 5-year warranty, which contributes a great deal to the perception of the product.

The box of this PSU is rather large, even for a high-end product, the most prominent position on it occupied by Wendel, of course, but also the key features. The packaging itself already divulges what makes Fatal1ty 1000 W “professional equipment”. One of the most important features is the production quality, and consequentially product durability, so OCZ opted for Japanese capacitors, which have a much longer lifetime, but also “behave” better at high operational temperatures. Another very interesting feature of this PSU is that all cables are individually coated, i.e. every wire of a given cable is isolated by its own separate net, which is the first time ever to be seen on a mass market product, instead being available only with aftermarket, custom-made cabling. This only goes to show how much attention OCZ’s engineers have paid to every detail. Previously an exclusive for the modding community, the so-called indy-sleeved cables are now finally available to the common buyer. Of course, in order for the exterior to complete the extravagance, the 140 mm fan is equipped with red-lit LEDs, which is certainly in line with the product’s target market. Besides, the said fan is thermally controlled, so that its RPM rate depends on the current temperature of the components it’s cooling, which provides the minimum of noise at all times.

As already stated, the sizeable box contains a pretty rich bundle. The box itself is split in two sections internally, one containing the PSU itself, while the other one houses the linen bag hiding all the modular cables. That’s right, the PSU is modular, or more precisely, semi-modular, as certain basic cables are fixed after all. The packaging also contains the manual, a set of plastic zip cable-tighteners, an AC power cable and a set of black screws. The PSU itself looks very attractive, not least due to its high-quality matte black finish and Wendel’s portrait and signature on the plastic side sticker. The front contains the typical “honeycomb” net at the end of the exhaust system, and there’s also the massive on/off switch. The bottom contains the already mentioned 140 mm fan, while the back houses the modular panel with a set of red connectors for modular cables and a few fixed ones (24-pin ATX, two PCI-E and one EPS connector). It should be noted that the PSU is among the longest ones on the market, measuring 180 mm across, so naturally taking up most of the bottom/top section of the enclosure. As for the cables, the configurations are numerous, and we believe that even the most demanding of users will be satisfied with their number and length alike. Up to six 6+2-pin PCI-E connectors can be connected to the base, but there are also two 4+4-pin EPS 12 V cables, a total of twelve SATA, eight MOLEX and two FDD connectors. You’ll agree that such a kit can hardly leave anyone in the lurch, even in heavy multi-GPU scenarios; what’s more, this PSU was built precisely to cater to that sort of audience. We’ve also mentioned the 80 Plus Gold certificate, which, according to the manufacturer’s specs, guarantees that the unit is capable of delivering maximum power even at a temperature of 50 degrees Centigrade. The internal architecture is a single +12V rail, which means that there’s only a main +12V rail, through which the PSU can supply up to 83 A of power. Of course, the plethora of built-in protection systems is as present as ever, concerning overload, overheat and other undesirable effects (OVP, UVP, OCP, OPP and SCP), which further reinforce the notion of this PSU being one to last a long time, and provide the same for the components too.

Although all these features sound great, all that matters is actual real-world performance. As you can see from the accompanying chart with our test results, the voltage regulation is outstanding indeed, with even the highest voltages we’ve been able to “torture” our test system remaining quite stable, with a low degree of fluctuation. Fair enough, the system was barely going over 600 W at maximum load, which is far off the maximum 1000 W as specified by OCZ, but have in mind that the strongest hexa-core Core i7 CPU and two Radeon HD 7970 cards in CrossFireX are about as real-world as high-performance PCs get, so we doubt that any mortal would be able to really test this PSU to the max. In accordance with that fact, the side effects such as noise and heat were something that we had a lot of trouble detecting even in traces, so that’s a definite go as well.

In short, OCZ has presented the enthusiast and gamer market with a product satisfying all possible needs – a mammoth-strong PSU that’s bound to last for ages. The high quality of internal components (most obvious in the use of Japanese capacitors), a total power sufficient for a quad-GPU system and a 5-year warranty are what makes Fatal1ty 1000 W one of the very best PSUs money can buy. Unfortunately, not everyone has that sort of money, and even if they do, they may consider other similarly-priced and similarly powerful PSUs by other manufacturers, but we’re quite confident in this model’s success, having in mind its uniqueness in terms of cabling, and to our knowledge, being the only PSU on the market with ready-made indy-sleeved cables.