Introduction

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

So far, Akasa's Venom Power series only included two models with 750 W and 550 W capacity. In the past, we reviewed the smaller of the above, and we can't say that we were left satisfied by its performance and its features, although it came with a fair price. Recently, two new Venom PSUs with 850W and 1000W capacity were released to address higher-end systems and the enthusiast user. Contrary to the older Venom PSUs, which weren't certified by the 80 Plus organization, the new ones carry the 80 Plus Gold badge, meaning that they are based on a much more advanced platform.

The new Venom Power 850 W will be the test subject of this review. Let's take a quick look at its characteristics before we put it on the load tester. For starters, many users out there will be very happy with the fact that this PSU only has three native cables: every other cable is modular. Surely, they could all be modular, but that would influence its total cost, and Akasa took the middle road, which is fine with us. This unit has a single and powerful +12V rail that can deliver up to 70 A of current, so it will easily power a high-end system. The only downside here is that Akasa chose to equip it with only four PCIe connectors instead of six, which limits you to two graphics cards with dual PCIe sockets each. Of course, you could use some molex adaptors to gain a couple extra PCIe connectors, but we don't recommend the usage of such tricks when it comes to graphics cards since the 4 pin molex adaptors only use a single +12V wire, while the PCIe ones have three. Finally, a sleeved-bearing fan, painted yellow, handles the unit's cooling, and its color matches that of the dark casing pretty well.