Cables:

Notice the tabs

20pin locks 4pin in place

    The cables come wrapped in black mesh material that stiffens up the cable quite a bit. The mesh is secured in place at the ends with a zip tie and heat-shrink tubing. Now let's get a breakdown on the eight cables that come from the power supply. First up is the main power trunk for the motherboard, which has the 20/24 pin connector. The 4 pin connecter that makes up the 24 pin plug isn't attached to the main 20 pin plug. Upon further inspection the 4pin plug has 2 little tabs that stick out mates up with the 20 pin plug, so when using the 24pin setup plug the 4pin plugs in first, then the 20pin plug. The 20pin plug will help lock the 4pin plug in place.

    Next up is the 4/8 pin 12v plug for the CPU, then two separate PCI-E power cables so one can be tucked away if not used. Next are two cables with three SATA plugs on each lead; the same setup is used on the cables for the Molex plugs, with the exception that at the ends of the cable for the Molex plug, a FDD plug is also included. So we have six SATA and Molex plugs, two FDD plugs and two PCI-E plugs. This should be plenty of connections for the standard system setup, and Y cables can be used if needed.

Inside:

I'm not scared	Now I'm scared	LED Fan	Close up
Side view of Caps	2 of 3 heatsinks	Close up	Rubber washers

    Ahhh... yes: the "Warranty Void if Removed" sticker. Usually, I can just peel it back, but this sticker is so fragile it just breaks apart. Oh, well. The readers want to see the guts of the power supply, so I'm not going to let a simple little thing like that stop me from showing what the readers want. After removing the four screws and lifting off the cover we can see how the components are laid out. The fan wires are hard wired in to the circuit board. Three separate heatsinks sit just under the 120mm fan which is provide by Protechnic Electric. The fan is isolated from the power supply enclosure with rubber washers. Thermal paste is used on all of the components that are connected to these heatsinks.

Installation and Testing:

Cool blue glow

Rear view

Wattage

PF rating

    Installing the OCZ GameXStream power supply is like installing any other power supply. Slide the power supply into the proper location and use the four supplied screws to secure the power supply to the case. Now for testing. Since we at VH can't afford to spend $50,000 on a Chroma C8000 Automatic Power Supply Test System and Dice refuses to get one for review, we can only really test the PFC rating of a power supply. I did this by generating a 160W power load, along with the power load from the computer hardware listed below. Also showing voltage readings under idle and load conditions don't mean a thing without the proper test equipment so my test for now on will just show the Power Factor.

• ECS RC104L/800M

• Intel P4D 930+ 3.0GHz CPU

• ASUS EAX1950Pro Graphics Card

• 2GB DDR2 RAM

    Seasonic Power Angel will be used to read the efficiency of the power supply under load. With my system setup, there is no way I'm going to get near the max wattage rating of this PSU, so we shall see the PFC rating under a normal system.

Results:

    During the Test I created a total of 239 watts of a passive load over three of the four 12v power rails and ran this for several hours. The OCZ GameXStream 850W power supply barely got warm. The fan is extremely quiet; I would have to guess it's under 20 decibels. The blue LED fan is a nice touch and it doesn't overly bling out the power supply. Instead, it casts a nice blue glow that isn't real intense.

    Now back to the 850 watts of power. The question is, do we need it or want it? The answer is a simple NO and YES. Right now, the need for a high wattage PSU is not really there. A system with dual CPU and GPU would maybe use 50% of the capable wattage from the OCZ GameXStream. Now, with the future of quad systems, then a PSU of this caliber is a must. In that case, what we want are high quality parts that run flawlessly and efficiently, and this line of GameXStream PSU's from OCZ does just that, and does it well. Dice reviewed the 700W version of the GameXStream  a few months back and loves it. I will have to agree with him, 'cause I love the 850W version. Just like he mentions how he can recommend the 700W, I can recommend the 850W. Hi-end gamers running dual CPU's and GPU's will appreciate the extra head room they have. I would like to thank OCZ for sending out this unit for VH to review.