CES — OCZ will be expanding its SSD lineup in 2009 with a focus on multi-level cell flash. Rather than rebranding units from other manufacturers, all of OCZ’s MLC-based drives are developed in-house. The company’s latest creation is a new high-end drive called the Vertex. This SSD uses a new storage controller from Korean firm Indilinx, and OCZ claims it delivers 200MB/s sustained reads and an impressive 160MB/s sustained writes. The Vertex will arrive in 30, 60, 120, and 250GB flavors, and we expect get our hands on one for testing soon.
Later this year, OCZ will add a second Vertex model to its SSD quiver. The sequel will use four storage controllers configured in RAID to deliver even better performance. Expect the Vertex 2 to arrive this summer or possibly even earlier.
In addition to fresh SSDs, OCZ also has new power supply units on the way, including an updated version of one of our favorites. PC Power & Cooling’s Silencer has been cranked up to 910W, promising more power with the same low noise levels as the original 750W unit. The 910W Silencer has a single 12V rail capable of handling up to 74A, and with four eight-pin PCIe connectors, it’s ready for multiple high-end graphics cards. Expect the Silencer 910W to sell for $199 with a five-year warranty and 80 Plus Silver certification.
At the more modest end of the power supply spectrum, OCZ has a new line of EcoStream PSUs at 550 and 650W. Both models carry 80 Plus Silver certification, but only the 650W flavor has dual PCIe connectors and SLI certification.
Not content to stop at PSUs, OCZ also showed a PC Power & Cooling UPS dubbed the Pro-Source 1500VA. The Pro-Source uses a pure sine wave rather than a step wave, which OCZ says is more appropriate for the power factor correction circuitry built into modern PSUs. There’s enough juice under the hood to deliver 10 minutes of backup power at a 600W load, and should the lights go out, the Pro-Source can send alerts via email or SMS. OCZ says the Pro-Source will sell for $299.
In a bid for further expansion, OCZ will be getting into the enclosure business, too. The company had an early prototype chassis on display that looked about par for the course as far as modern enthusiast-oriented chassis go, with the exception of a sinister-looking matte black finish. As if that weren’t enough, the company also showed us numerous peripherals, including an appropriately-named Behemoth gaming mouse that actually fits my meaty, Neanderthal hands. On the keyboard front, OCZ has a slick gaming model with nine programmable OLED keys. The OLEDs can only display a single color, but the keyboard itself will sell for less than $200, so it’s not in Optimus Maximus territory.
Oh, and OCZ still makes memory. In fact, the company has a new Blade heatspreader that’s considerably more subdued than its previous designs. Blade coolers will arrive on new DDR3-2000 DIMMs rated for tight CAS 7 latencies at a Core i7-friendly 1.65V. Memory chips capable of that combination of clock speed, latency, and voltage are apparently few and far between, so don’t expect these modules to be cheap.