Introduction

Many of our readers may be unfamiliar with the Xigmatek brand. Xigmatek is a relatively new company that began by offering excellent thermal management products to enthusiasts. Xigmatek was launched as a branch of parent company 'Micro Technology' in 2005 and they quickly expanded to offer more solutions for the DIY market such as computer cases and power supplies. Xigmatek's company philosophy is simple; ICE. This stands for Impressive, Creative, and Essential.

The unit that we have on the test bench today is the Xigmatek NRP-MC1002 power supply. It is the latest in their NRP series of PSU's. NRP stands for No Rules Power. Sometimes having no rules can be a good thing, but other times it's best to abide by them. In this case it would be the ATX V2.3 standards.

The unit offers 1000W of power to feed enthusiast machines running up to three graphics cards and dual processors. The NRP-MC1002 features a single 12V rail and DC to DC circuit design. Xigmatek claims that the NRP-MC1002 will help you go green with its recycled packaging material and 80Plus Bronze efficiency rating. Let's move on and see how well the NRP-MC1002 follows the company's ICE philosophy and just what you can expect out of the unit.

Specifications, Availability and Pricing

Taking a look at the NRP-MC1002 on paper proves to be promising (isn't this always the case). The single 12V rail of the NRP-MC1002 is capable of providing a majority of the power supply's DC output at 80A. Both the 3.3V and 5V rails are rated for 30A each with a combined total output of 175W. Total combined output of the Xigmatek NRP-MC1002 is 1000W.

As we continue to take a look at the features of the NRP-MC1002, we see just what we would expect out of a 1000W power supply...almost. The NRP-MC1002 is filled with all of the protections that you can ask for. It features both native and modular cables, all of which are sleeved in black. It features both an ATX 4+4 and EPS12V connector for dual processor systems. The only thing that the NRP-MC1002 lacks is the 100% continuous output at 50C. The unit is instead rated at 40C. This is better than nothing, but any power supply of this caliber is meant to be installed in an enthusiast machine and will likely see these higher temperatures than most other machines.

The Xigmatek NRP-MC1002 has an MSRP of around $220USD. Doing some searching, we were able to find the NRP-MC1002 available for about $181 after shipping from Newegg. This puts the NRP-MC1002 right in the middle of the road for 1000W power supplies and towards the more expensive end of the spectrum for 1000W power supplies with an 80Plus Bronze rating. The warranty period for the NRP-MC1002 is 3 years. It would be nice to see this a little bit higher as the power supply industry seems to be moving towards 5 year warranties for enthusiast products.