This is an impressive first entry into the popular 750 W category by XPG. These guys were smart enough to hire a PSU expert (Mr. Alvin Chan) with a long history in the field. He used to work for Bitfenix and was responsible for their top-grade Whisper and Formula lines. The Core Reactor series slots in after the RMx and Focus Plus lines, offering equally high-performance levels and the same warranty of 10 years. Great attention was paid to a silent operation, which the corresponding Cybenetics LAMBDA ratings reflect. Build quality is also high—I was very pleased to see lots of high-grade electrolytic capacitors on the secondary side and a fluid dynamic bearing fan. The most important parts of a power supply are its electrolytic caps—polymer caps are much more tolerant to high operating temperatures—and the cooling fan. For those who do not pay a lot of attention to the cooling fan's quality, I should point out that if it fails, your PSU will be trouble—many sensitive components will be put under a lot of stress until over-temperature protection, if available, kicks in and saves the day.

The Core Reactor 750 W has lots of positive aspects, including its adherence to the strict requirements of the most recent ATX design guide (v. 1.42), which, among other items, asks for efficiency to be over 70% at 2% load. This unit is also compatible with Alternative Sleep Mode (ASM), and although only a few available mainboards support this feature right now, this will change soon. PSUs, at least good ones, last for many system builds, so it is nice to have a power supply that it is future-proof.

The two EPS connectors are great nowadays as many mainboards require more power in the CPU socket area. Back in the day, only high-capacity PSUs used to have two EPS connectors, but now even mid-capacity units have more than one. It is better to have a pair of EPS and two PCIe connectors than a single EPS and four PCIe connectors. Not many users install more than a graphics card in their systems, so more PCIe connectors are not required unless you want to build a workstation for specific purposes that actually use multiple GPUs.

If you need or want something different from the popular choices (Corsair RMx and Seasonic Focus Plus Gold) that is future-proof, operates quietly, is compact, and of good build quality, the XPG Core Reactor 750 W is an excellent choice. At a slightly lower price, it would be even more appealing; however, all PC hardware components are currently expensive because of their limited availability.