Looks and functions:

The PSU is a visually appealing black which matches nicely my black system case and certainly makes a change from the boring silver of a few years ago.

The rear of the PSU hasn’t in fact been nibbled by mice but has holes there intentionally for airflow and heat dissipation.

The underside has a 120mm Fan which lights up a very nice shade of blue, which matches the LED fans in my PC and a nice contrast to my red LED USB cables.

All the cables are sleeved in a nice black wire mesh which helps to keep the cables tidy and also helps with shielding, something that many power supplies lack as even some of the well known brands don’t shield all of the cables. The cables when the box is first opened are strapped together with a black Velcro strap which you can reuse if you wish to tidy up un-used cables later on inside your PC.

You also get rather a lot of connectors’ available right from the start.
• The usual 20 & 4 pin motherboard connector
• 4/8 pin BTX/EPS12v cable
• 2 x 4 pin CPU power cables (needed by some motherboards including mine)
• 2 PCI Express power cables (for high end SLI or Crossfire graphics cards)
• 6 standard 4 pin molex connectors (or not so standard if you carry on reading or go look at the picture)
• 2 Floppy drive style connectors (no idea why they have these on PSU’s these days to be honest)
• 6 SATA power connectors

This should be more than enough for most people if you ask me. One feature missing is the ability for modular connection where you can remove the cables you don’t require which some brands of PSU offer (OCZ make the midstream for this purpose), this can help keep your case tidy and improve airflow.

A great feature of the PSU is the easy disconnect Molex connectors, which I haven’t personally seen before on a PSU until now. Very handy as I am sure many of you have experienced the grief and hassle of trying to remove one of these cables when its locked in tighter than a gnats bottom, and usually the component its wedged in doesn’t take too kindly to being bent or mangled to get the damn cable out. With this new improved setup all you need to do is squeeze the top and bottom of the black connector end and they pop out. If only they had these a few years ago I would have less pc upgrading battle scars.

The SATA and PCI-E power cables actually have writing on them, something that surprised me, a nice touch. if you can’t accomplish this part you may want to get your mommy or daddy to come setup your PC instead or maybe train a pet monkey or squirrel (red or grey doesn’t really matter which) to upgrade your PC instead.

The cables are rather long so fitting this PSU in the larger full tower and cube cases should not be an issue. You may need to invest in some cable ties once you are satisfied with your cable arrangement so that you can tidy up your case and minimize all the clutter and help your cases airflow.

System noise level is very quiet something that is becoming more and more important these days with an increasing amount of people wanting a quiet machine that doesn’t sound like a 747 has just landed on your desk. Although the Game XStream is not completely silent you will not really notice the noise unless you can hear a pin drop from several miles away or have the ears of a Brazilian brown spotted bat. The only time you would really hear it is if you have a water cooling setup for your graphics cards or some other such setup. It is certainly the quietest PSU that I have ever used.