Introduction

We would like to thank Xilence for supplying the review sample.

Xilence was founded in 2003 and is a German-Chinese manufacturer which as its name implies is specialized in components for cooling and noise reduction in PC systems. The range of products they make consists of cases, PSUs, case fans, notebook coolers and coolers for all components of a desktop PC (e.g. CPU, HFF, GPU, RAM etc.)

Today we will focus on their newest PSU offerings which belong to the XQ series. The three new PSUs have 750W, 850W and 1000W capacity and the smaller one is 80 Plus Gold compliant while the two stronger XQs feature platinum efficiency. In this review we are going to fully test the new XQ series 850W unit and see if it is worthy of your money and if it is truly silent following Xilence's philosophy.

Briefly, the XQ-850W unit utilizes a fully modular cabling system along with a special design which makes it stand out from the crowd of all other PSUs. Due to this design the unit is not equipped with the classic top fan but instead uses two smaller 60mm fans located on its rear side, near the modular panel. These fans are engaged only when the internal temperature of the unit reaches a specific threshold and afterwards they are temperature controlled in order to keep output noise as low as possible. Here we should note that Xilence states that the PSU goes fanless at less than 20% load but during our tests we figured that the operation of the fans is not load dependant but relies on the temperature of the unit's internals, something that it is the most suitable design choice for a semi-fanless PSU.

But enough with the prologue, let's cut to the chase and put this weird looking unit on the test bench.