OCZ vs BlueStorm

[LifeStealer]

Hello, I've been watching the forums from the background for a while now and never really saw the need to register until now. I have done as much reasearch, read as many reviews and asked as many owners as I could but I am still having trouble deciding what to buy.

I don't want a PCP&C because I don't want to spend that much money on a psu I more than likely won't be using in my next build. So, the choises have come down to two options. Either the OCZ 520 or the Bluestorm 500. A few things have me leaning towards the OCZ,

1.) The OCZ has 33a on the 12v rails while the BlueStorm only has 30a running wide open.
2.) OCZ customer support (ala the customers) seems to be top notch and I really like the 3 year power swap warrenty.
3.) The reviews on the 400w Bluestorm were less than stellar.

Aside from that though, a few things the Bluestorm has over the OCZ is that it has seperate rails (Although I heard the OCZ had 3 seperate rails from someone on the board..), its fully sleaved and its.. fortron.

Just wanted your opinion, I've heard from some people that have been using both psu's to power 6800GT SLI rigs so they're both good enough for what I need them for.

Also might want to mention, mwave has the Bluestorm for $75.
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA20828

 

[Stratcat]

I have one OCZ 520 & am looking for another one. Never had the Bluestorm, but it does look pretty sweet for the price. Almost too good.

Couple other diffs I didn't see you mention, but I noticed from the spec sheet:

OCZ has externally adjustable rails - I didn't see any mention of adjustability on the Fortron (pls correct me if I'm wrong).

OCZ has 1% regulation at its rated outputs. Fortron has 5%.

I absolutely love my OCZ 520, and anything that can hold its rails virtually unchanged during a CO stepping Prescott OC is definitely a brute!!! I might consider the Fortron for a general build, but would definitely go OCZ for anything serious.

LOL - I just noticed your nick. We just exchanged some PM's. Welcome to the forums, & good luck!

Strat

 

[LifeStealer]

Yea but I figured Fortron ussually understates what the PSU will actually do and all Fortrons I know of have adjustable rails "under the cover."

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Welcome to the forums!

The OCZ has one 33A 12v rail... the Fortron having two 15A 12v rails is actually an advantage IMO since the one that powers the CPU will be seperate from the one running any externally powered video cards. The 3A advantage on total 12v power means close to nothing - even 30A is plenty for most systems. I also like the 120mm fan on the Fortron.

Not sure about the pots on the AX500-A... I've heard they're in there, but not many folks have these yet. Spec sheets still mean little to me - my 530w is supposed to stay in 5% tolerance on the 5v and 3.3v and 10% on the 12v, but it actually does less than 1% on all in day to day use. My old CWT was the same way.

The advantages on the OCZ amounts pretty much to warranty and features like the external pots... I haven't seen much else in the past few months to convince me to sell the Fortron and go out and buy OCZ myself. The OCZ units are still quite good though - I'd buy whatever looks best for your needs.

Edit - forgot to mention, though I have not seen a good review yet on any of the Blue Storms, rumor has it SilentPCReview has one in their labs. Perhaps it would be a good idea to keep watching that website