XFX 850W Black Edition Modular Power Supply Review

Taking a look at the unit in some detail, the first thing you will notice is the crazy colour scheme which will be favoured amongst Nvidia users. The PSU is encased in a gun-metal grey casing with green fan. The mesh used for covering the fan can only be explained as a spider web design, and the “Play Hard” logo takes centre stage in the middle.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=#000000]The fan is a quiet 135mm ball bearing fan that XFX claim to give superior cooling and comes in an optional choice of green or grey fans which are offered when purchasing this power supply.

The side of the unit features the XFX logo, slogan and tells us once again that it’s the Black Edition unit. This is all placed on a “cut-out” style background and positioned on the side.

The other side of the unit gives some more information as to the figures involved with this power supply. It gives us the model name and number again, in case you had forgotten, as well as the AC Input/DV Output table again. We also see the standard caution label and serial number/part number bar codes for easy deciphering, this may come in handy for RMA purposes and customer support.

The back of the unit features the favoured honeycomb design that many power supplies adopt for the best ventilation. The XFX logo is featured here for some self-promotion at the back of your case, just in case it wants to get friendly with your wall and can’t think of an easy ice-breaker. The power cable connector and on/off toggle switch is also present here.

As with the majority of modular power supplies on the market you will find that a few cables and connectors come hard-wired.

The hard-wired cables that come included are:

(1) Main Power ATX 20+4-pin
(1) ATX 12V/EPS12V 4+4-pin
(1) EPS12V 8-pin
(2) PCI-E 6+2-pin

The rest of the cables are modular as we showed earlier. Some of the cables use 6-pin connectors (much like a PCI-Express connector) which are used for the Molex and SATA cables whereas the 6+2-pin modular cables use an 8-pin modular connector. The connector ports themselves adopt the same green styling as seen on the fan. There are 6 x 6-pin connector ports and 2 x 8-pin connector ports which should be more than sufficient for even the most extreme systems but extender cables can be used if necessary.

All cables including the hard wired and modular are braided in a semi-transparent black material, which aids in keeping the cables tidy. It’s just a shame that the braiding doesn’t reach the end of the cables.