We installed the Lian Li Maxima Force 750W PSU into our Thermaltake Spedo without a problem. The 12v aux connector had to use the extension cable provided with the case to reach under the back of the motherboard, but the original cable wasn’t off by that much.

Test rig

On Review: Lian Li 850W Maxima Force

To load the PSU as much as possible the following applications were run simultaneously to stress each subsystem of the PC:

• ORTHOS StressPrime - to max out the CPU and tax the memory
• Virus Check, Spyware Scan – To tax the hard drive
• Importing a CD to iTunes – To load both the CD drive and the HD
• Playing back the imported CD from the hard drive
• ATI-Tool’s 3D View – To stress the graphics card

Reading from the voltage rails were then taken from the PSU directly with a digital multimeter (DMM). As the 12v rail split isn’t documented, I took readings at 4 important places for stable 12v power.

Results

The Maxima Force 750W’s voltage regulation is pretty good with most rails only budging 0.01v under load. The exception however is the 12v 4/8pin connector, but I am suspecting that this result has something to do with the quality of the 4/8pin power extender we had to use to make the cable reach the motherboard.

ATX spec allows for voltages rails to be within 5% of the target voltage, most enthusiast PSUs are tuned to within 3%, but this PSU is well under 1% tolerance on every rail. Great job Lian Li!

Next Page – Conclusion