Date:
Thursday , October 16, 2008
Author:
Paul Johnson
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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Xigmatek NRP-MC851 850w Power Supply

No Rules Power! That makes for a good product tag line, but we all know damn well that power without rules makes for a terrible computer power supply. Does Xigmatek's NRP 850 watt PSU play inside the rules when it comes to serving up 850 watt?

Introduction

The Xigmatek brand is one of the newer faces in the enthusiast DIY market having been launched in 2005. However, Xigmatek’s parent company may be more familiar to the storage minded individuals as Micro Technology Concepts, Inc. or MTC Direct which has been around since 1989. With the establishment of the Xigmatek brand Micro Technology Concepts, Inc. has expanded into some new niches as they now brand products that include CPU coolers, VGA coolers, fans, and power supplies. Having moved away from their roots of distributing storage products Xigmatek has chosen Channel Well Technology as their OEM partner for the NRP series of power supplies. Today’s item of interest, the Xigmatek NRP-MC851, is the largest capacity unit in Xigmatek's line of MC “No Rules Power” units that is currently shipping (a 1020w unit is coming soon).

Channel Well Technology was founded and began manufacturing power supplies in 1993. Since 1993 Channel Well Technology products have shown up under various guises including Antec, Xclio, 2theMax, CWT, Thermaltake, Corsair, Koolance, and Xigmatek among many others. While most familiar to our US users under the Antec brand CWT is one of the more complete OEM manufacturers as they have a fairly high level of vertical integration providing transformers all the way up to their well designed independently regulated SMPS.

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Déjà vu?

Rules are meant to be broken, and today we have the opportunity to review the second product from Xigmatek’s No Rules Power branding of power supplies, albeit a MC unit as opposed to a HC unit this time. The first of the No Rules Power PSUs that we reviewed was the NRP-HC1001 which, ironically enough, adhered to all the rules. During that review we did poke a bit of fun at the marketing behind the unit, but ultimately the NRP-HC1001 was a unit that passed all of our testing. So today, on the second go around the NRP-MC851 comes up to the plate to give us a peak at a slightly less powerful unit from the same marketing campaign but from a different model line at the OEM level (CWT PSH vs. CWT PUC) and brand level (MC vs. HC). So what does this No Rules Power unit promise us, and how does it differ from the NRP-HC1001?

No Rules Power, NRP-MC851, complies with the newest Intel standard ATX 12V V2.2 and SSI standard EPS 12V V2.91 simultaneously. The advanced features, including bead core protection fro(sic) PCI-e connectors, worry-free power failure detector and an over 80% efficiency rating, enable NRP-MC851 to the stable and clean power. No Rules Power proves to be a spectacular performer, and full product line also provides various choices for different kinds of consumers.

The NRP-MC851 product page is almost a carbon copy of the NRP-HC1001's product page, and as such is hauntingly familiar. Overall, the NRP-MC851 promises us a relatively good experience with a few added touches in its worry-free power failure detector and over 80% efficiency. All of this is welcome and was certainly present on the previous Xigmatek unit we reviewed, and as such things are certainly starting off with good paper impressions at least. For now, let’s move on and see what we have to look forward to when we purchase the Xigmatek NRP-MC851 power supply in terms of documentation, accessories, cable count, rail layout, output characteristics, and general build quality.