The power supply housing is in line with pretty much every power supply you see these days. The housing is well ventilated with a quiet 120mm cooling fan.

     Cable length is very important in computer systems that revolve around gaming. Gaming systems almost always require more power, more cables, longer cables, and great looks. The idea of going above and beyond with a power supply may seem foolish to some, but to the hard core gamer or computer enthusiast, getting the best of the best is a requirement. It's no different than building a race car; if you want to go fast you have to go with the best.

Installation

     Sometimes purchasing a power supply is a lot like driving blind, you just don't know what you're going to run into until it's too late. As I said before, cable length is very important. It's even more important when you have a really sweet case that has the power supply mounted in the bottom of the case instead of at the top. My Antec case is just one example. The Antec P180 has the power supply mounts in the very bottom of the case and most motherboards have the power connectors located in the very top. Therefore, if you don't choose the correct power supply, your SOL. I'm very happy to report that the OCZ GameXStream fits this case perfectly and has plenty of slack in the cables for proper routing.

Test System

     For this review we'll be using an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe motherboard which is based on Intel's 975X chipset. Here is a basic rundown of the test system:

     By using ASUS's voltage monitor, I could view the voltages and voltage fluctuation. Although these Windows based voltage monitors are not perfect, this one does show that the voltages are only fluctuating by only .01 to .02 volts.

     Next I check the voltage readings in the bios setup utility. The numbers were different from the ASUS Utility, but they too only show a .01 to .02 voltage fluctuation.

     Next I ran a voltage monitoring utility called SpeedFan. SpeedFan allows the user to monitor voltages over time. In this case I used a 10 minute window for each test while running the CPU at full utilization.

Vcore

The Vcore monitor shows a voltage fluctuation of little over .02 volts.

+12v

Here we have the 12v line. It stayed very steady with a power fluctuation of less than .1v.

3.3v

The 3.3v line fluctuated more often, but only by about .05 volts.

Conclusion

     One thing is for sure, 850 watts of power is just huge. It gives new meaning to the saying "go big or stay home". With that much power, the GameXStream 850 is not your average power supply...not by a long shot. Big power supplies like this one are only built to serve one purpose, and that is to power extreme gaming machines. If you have an average computer with average needs, there is no reason to shoot for the moon, but if you are into competitive gaming using multiple video cards, extreme overclocking using power hungry cooling devices, or just want the ultimate computer, the GameXStream 850 is definitely a power supply you should consider purchasing. As for the price, we are still uncertain what the exact price will be once this SPU hits the streets, but OCZ has a MSRP of $195 stamped on this baby. I'm certain that once the GameXStream reaches on line retailers like NewEgg.com, the price will drop considerably. But for an 850w power supply that is 80% efficient and comes with a 3 year warranty, $195 isn't a bad price at all. 

Innovation:	9.0 out of 10
Performance:	9.5 out of 10
Quality:	9.0 out of 10
Stability:	9.0 out of 10
Overclocking:	N/A
Software/Drivers Pack:	N/A
Value:	9.0 out of 10
Overall Rating 9.0
Project Skill Level (10 being most difficult)	4 out of 10