Gigabyte Odin GT 800W

Verdict: Includes everything but the kitchen sink.

Like SilverStone, Gigabyte has named its top-end PSUs after an ancient mythological deity - Odin, the leader of the Norse gods. However, unlike Zeus (SilverStone's classical deity of choice), Odin didn't have a habit of frying mortals with lightning bolts. Quite why SilverStone thought this imagery was a good association for a power supply clearly eludes Gigabyte as much as it does us.

The Odin GT isn't made by Gigabyte; instead, it's made by Channel Well Technology, one of the largest PSU manufacturers in the world. Rated at 800W, it has four 12V rails, 12V1 and 12V2, each rated up to 18A, and 12V3 and 12V4 up to 25A. These rails distribute power as follows: 12V1 to CPU1, 12V2 to CPU2 and the red modular PCI-E cable, 12V3 to the motherboard and two hardwired PCI-E cables, while 12V4 powers the drives and blue modular PCI-E cable. In our tests, the Odin GT was completely stable at all load levels. It was also very efficient, averaging 82 per cent. Its single 140mm fan ran quietly, although the top of the case became warm after a few minutes.

In addition to its modular cables, the Odin GT has another trick up its sleeve: health monitoring. Unlike most PSUs - which are effectively black-box components, since you don't know what's going on inside them - when the Odin GT is connected via USB to the motherboard, you can monitor the output from all the rails, check the temperature, adjust the fan speed and manually control the output of the rails via a software applet. However, these features are more of a gimmick than a useful innovation - if a PSU is about to fail, you don't need a piece of software to tell you, since your PC will simply crash. The control of power output in particular strikes us as foolish; overvolting specific components to specific (and different) levels is fine if you know what you're doing, but overvolting your entire PC is only for those who like the smell of burned-out hard disks and melting sound cards.

Conclusion

As an 800W PSU, the Odin GT does a remarkably good job, being quiet, efficient and completely stable. However, Gigabyte has weighed down an otherwise good product with gimmicky extras that add to the cost for very little gain.