We decided to disassemble this power supply to see how it looks like inside, what is the design used and what components are used. Please read our Anatomy of Switching Power Supplies tutorial to understand how a power supply works inside and to compare this power supply to others.
In this page we will have an overall look, while on the next pages we will discuss in details the quality and rating of the components used.
We can point out several differences between this power supply and a low-end (a.k.a. “generic”) one: the construction quality of the printed circuit board (PCB); the use of more components on the transient filtering stage; the active PFC circuitry; the power rating of all components; the design; etcetera.
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Figure 4: Inside OCZ ProXStream 1000 W.
As we mentioned previously, this power supply uses two printed circuit boards stacked, as you can see on Figure 5.
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Figure 5: Inside OCZ ProXStream 1000 W.
On the lower board we have the primary section of the power supply plus the +5VSB power supply – this output, also known as standby, is always independent from the rest of the power supply, being produced by a separated circuit, because this output is turned on all the time, contrary to the rest of the power supply, which is turned on only when you turn on your PC. The primary section includes the transient filtering stage, the active PFC and the switching transistors.
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Figure 6: Lower printed circuit board.
On the upper board we have the transformer and the secondary stage, which includes rectifying, filtering and protection stages.
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Figure 7: Upper printed circuit board.
Let’s now take an in-depth look on the primary stage from this power supply.
