Verdict:

The otherwise good design is let down by a noisy fan.

This is the first time that we've tested a Xigmatek PSU. The company was only founded in 2005 but, in that short time, Xigmatek has branched out into PSUs, and air and water-cooling products.

The NRP-MC851 is the mid-range 850W model of the MC series and has four 12V rails, the first two of which are each rated up to 18A, while the latter two are each rated up to 30A. The maximum combined output of all the 12V rails is 62A. The power is divided up with 12V1 powering the motherboard and disk drives, 12V2 powering CPU1 and half of CPU2, 12V3 the other half of CPU2 and two of the 6-pin PCI-E modular sockets and one 6+2-pin PCI-E modular socket, while 12V4 powers the third 6-pin PCI-E modular socket and the two remaining 6+2-pin PCI-E modular sockets.

The inner workings are cooled by a loud, temperature-controlled, blue LED 140mm fan that continues to spin for a few minutes after shutdown. Unusually for an 850W PSU, the NRP-MC851 has two 8-pin EPS12V connectors, so it can support high-end dual processor motherboards such as the Intel D5400XS (Skulltrail).

Unlike the 1.5kW NRP-HC1501 reviewed opposite the NRP-MC851 proved to be100 per cent stable in all our tests and was also reasonably efficient, averaging 83 per cent at full load.

However, despite these good results, and the large number of modular cables and very useful post-shutdown cooling, the noisy fan makes it hard to recommend the NRP-MC851 in a market filled with so many other more desirable 850W PSUs.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• Intel DG45FC - Motherboards
• Intel X25-M Mainstream SATA SSD - Hard disks / storage
• OCZ Core Series 30GB - Hard disks / storage
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games