PCToys PowerMAXX 520W PSU
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Power supplies are probably the most understated piece of hardware in a computer. They very rarely get a mention even though they are the backbone of the whole machine. All the cool hardware in the world is worthless unless it has the power that it needs to run, and components are demanding more and more power all the time.
That being said, it is very hard to evaluate a power supply. It's not like you can really run any benchmarks or anything. The power supply doesn't make your computer run faster, but it can definitely make it run better. I recently ran into a situation where my existing power supply came up lacking, so I contacted the fellas over at PCToys.com and hit them up for an upgrade.
The power supply they sent me was too much of a monster to just stick it in a case and forget about it, so I decided that a proper review was in order. But how do you really review a power supply? I did a bit of research on the subject and decided on my approach... I hope you guys like it.
What's in the box?
I was quite impressed when I first opened the the PowerMAXX 520's box. The first thing that caught my eye was the very cool looking black aluminum casing. I am quite enamored with my modded (black) Wahoo Strategem cube case, and I immediately pictured the swanky PSU nestled neatly behind the lighted window in said case. This is not the kind of power supply that you stick in a boring old beige case... It just begs to be looked at. With it's polished fan grills and translucent fan blades, I can only imagine if someone was industrious enough to light the power supply internally. But, I digress.
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On the topic of fans, this PSU has you covered. Not content with just the cool black aluminum casing, these guys added not one, not two, but three fans. In addition to the one exhausting out of the case in back, PCToys' monster has one on the front (blowing through the PSU) and another on the bottom (also blowing through the PSU). In all of my testing under some pretty extreme loads the power supply never even felt warm to the touch. One unfortunate side effect of three fans is, of course, noise. They did do the best they could to fight the noise by adding a fan speed selector to the back of the PSU. Even at the lowest setting the fans were pretty loud, drowning out the rest of my (seven) case fans easily and easily distinguished from 4-5 feet away from the case.
When it comes to connectors, the Power Maxx 520W has you covered. With ten MOLEX plugs and two FDD plugs, even the most overloaded case should have connectors to spare. On top of that, the supply comes prepared for just about any motherboard and configuration in existence. With a 24pin (EPS12V standard) main power plus, a 24pin > 20pin adapter, 8pin, 6pin and 4pin connectors, this beast is ready for anything you can throw at it (except the Tyan Thunder K7 and K7X boards).
Cable length is also very good. there is not a corner of even a huge tower case that can't be reached with a connector of some sorts. Although the wiring can become unmanagable in a smaller case, it's nice to see that a beefy power supply like this, geared towards a beefy machine would also accomodate a monster case. The wires are pretty neatly bundled and the main wires are wrapped in the now standard black mesh held in place with zip-ties.
The Specs
As I mentioned before, it doesn't really matter what the power supply looks like. What is really important is how well it powers your machine. Let's break down the specs a bit and see what's what. For all intents and purposes, this is just a rebadged Vantec Stealth 520W PSU, so the specs might seem familiar. Anyway...
| Maximum Power Output (W) | |||
| +3.3V | +5V | +12V | Total |
| 260 | 336 | 520 | |
| Maximum Current (A) | |||||
| +3.3V | +5V | -5V | +12V | -12V | -5V Standby |
| 26 | 52 | 1 | 28 | 0.8 | 2.5 |
Unlike some power supplies, Vantec chose to combine the +3.3V and +5V lines, at least for the output wattage. A shared line could spell trouble if you have a bunch of devices using the +3.3V and/or +5V lines as they will effectively be stealing power from each other. We'll see if it matters in our tests later on, but it's worth a note.