Making a backup of steam games and running RTHDRIBL at the same time. For those that can't tell, it says 11.89 on the LCD.

Another test that I did was to have Steam making a backup of the games that are in its account (fills a DVD) and have RTHDRIBL (or Real Time High Dynamic Range Image Based Lighting. Now that is a mouth full.) This HDR program is for showcasing the HDR capabilities in real time graphics by using Shader Model 2. This tool is taxing on the graphics card, especially with all the bells and whistles turned on and on high res. Valve's Steam client was used to make the hard disk work a bit as it required reading the game files from the hard disk and then making them a single .EXE file to be burned on a DVD. (They changed it after this test was done, into making a lot of smaller files, that are more compatible with recording software.)

The graphics card power line dropped to 11.89v and that was the lowest it could get this power supply to go.

A list of the stuff the PSU was powering at the time of measurement.

AMD64 3200+, a GeForce6800GT (AGP), an Audigy 2 ZS, a TV Tuner card, CD-RW, DVD RW, 2 IDE hard drives (120GB & 200GB), 1GB DDR400 RAM, VF1 Plus cooler, Zalman CNPS7700-Cu, mobile phone docking station and a A4 scanner. (Those last two are USB powered, don’t have an off button but should have a “sleep” function when not being used.)

The Verdict

Some might be worried about the results from the power rails/lines. The parts in a PC have a safety margin of ±5%. That means that, before the system starts having stability issues/ hangs up or fries, the voltage level has to go lower than 11.4v or higher than 12.6v for the 12v rail. This unit didn't go anywhere near those regions, it stayed at 11.89v when stressed and do keep in mind that this is the smallest unit of the line. I've been using this PSU ever since I received this sample (I have the PC on for most of the weekdays - I don't shut it down unless there is nothing to do) and have played games as well as used the PC generally with no problems at all.

All I can say is that its rock solid. It delivers what it promises on the scale that it promises. It doesn’t say that its SLI certified, even though that it does have 18amps on each 12V rail, which that is enough for an SLI system, and on a low-mid level gaming PC (at least that is what I think an AMD64 3200+ and a GeForce 6800 GT is) this unit works really well. With support for motherboards that use the 8 pin CPU power cables, and support for 20/24 pin motherboard connectors out of the box with no adapter and stable performance, you can’t go wrong at this price level.

If I were to go on a dual core CPU / SLI system, then I would consider buying a PSU with some more wattage/ampage but for the kind of system I have it is more than enough. It is stable and well recommended. Sytrin have made the grade with their Nextherm PSU460.

The Nextherm PSU460 power supply 
Manufacturer: Sytrin (www.sytrin.com)
Product: Nextherm PSU 460 (ICS 8200)
Price range: $69.99