XFX, the traditional video card manufacturer, is now entering the power supply arena. Their first release is a high-end 850 W power supply manufactured by Seasonic and based on their award-winning M12D model. Let’s take a look on this new release.

Externally XFX 850 W Black Edition has a very aggressive looks, with the fan and connectors from the modular cabling system in lime yellow, matching the color pattern used on other products from XFX.

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Figure 1: XFX 850 W Black Edition power supply.

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Figure 2: XFX 850 W Black Edition power supply.

XFX 850 W Black Edition isn’t a very long power supply, being 6 19/64” (16 cm) deep, using a 135-mm fan on its bottom and featuring active PFC, of course. As mentioned the reviewed unit has a modular cabling system, with five cables permanently attached to the power supply:

• Main motherboard cable with a 20/24-pin connector (20 7/8” or 53 cm).
• One EPS12V cable (21 7/8” or 55 cm).
• One cable with two ATX12V connectors that together form an EPS12V connector (21 7/8” or 55 cm).
• Two auxiliary power cables for video cards with one six/eight-pin connector each (23 ½” or 60 cm).

These cables have a nylon protection that comes from inside the power supply.

The modular cabling system has eight connectors and the unit comes with nine cables:

• Two cables with one six/eight-pin auxiliary video card power connector each (21 ½” or 55 cm).
• Three cables with three SATA power connectors each (21 ¼” or 54 cm to the first connector, 6” or 15 cm between connectors).
• One cable with two SATA power connectors (13 ¾” or 35 cm to the first connector, 6” or 15 cm between connectors).
• Two cables with three standard peripheral power connectors each (21 ½” or 55 cm to the first connector, 6” or 15 cm between connectors).
• One cable with two standard peripheral power connectors (13 ¾” or 35 cm to the first connector, 6” or 15 cm between connectors).
• One adaptor for converting one standard peripheral power connector into two floppy disk drive power connectors.

All cables use 18 AWG wires, except the main motherboard cable, which use thicker 16 AWG wires, which is always nice to see.

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Figure 3: Cables.

The number of cables is terrific for the high-end user, however if you want to install more than two very high-end video cards you will need to use adaptors, since each very high-end card takes two auxiliary power connectors each and this power supply comes with “only” four of them.

Let’s now take an in-depth look inside this power supply.