Are Corsair Power Supplies Any Good?

While I have had no issues with my TX 850 (3 years pretty heavy use) - it is a bit loud, I'd look elsewhere next time, like everyone else has said, look for Seasonic build.

4-5 years ago Corsair was the PSU du jour, it's Superflower now for enthusiasts I think that says a lot really.
 
pastymuncher said:
Corsair were good when they first launched and some of their psu's still are very good. Other's however, are poor. Corsair have never made their own psu's. When they first launched they used Seasonic as their OEM and all their units where high quality. Once they got established they changed to several cheaper OEM's and ended up with inferior units while keeping prices the same or higher. The CX series are a prime example. The original was the CX400, a unit built by Seasonic and capable of delivering 360w on the 12v rail. The replacement, the CX430, built by CWT despite being supposedly a 430w unit could only deliver a pathetic 336w on the 12v rail. The worse case was the CX600 which could only deliver a hopeless 480w on the 12v rail. Any modern decent psu should be able to deliver, or near to, it's full output on the 12v rail. Recent revisions have improved things but the CX range still cannot do this.

Now we have a even lower entry series called the VS. The CX series is built with cheap internals so god knows what is inside the VS series. There are no reviews available despite them being out for a while now.

Seasonic still make a couple of psu's for Corsair (HX650, AX760, AX860) although I can't see it lasting much longer before they swap to a cheaper OEM on those too. Other OEM's are CWT, Great Wall, Chicony Power Technology and Flextronics. See full details here also linked to by cactusweasel. It's a excellent site with details of who makes what, 12v rail power and links to reviews. It should be the first stop for anyone considering buying a new psu.

Corsair RMA's outside the first year have to be sent to the Netherlands so can cost around £25. Any failures in the first year should be dealt with by the retailer it was purchased from and delivery charges for returning should be refunded.
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http://hardwareinsights.com/wp/corsair-vs450-review/

The VS series is another CWT based unit that's been stretched to work at it's label power. Aishi and CapXon caps too. Urgh.
 
this makes interesting reading, got slightly burned with a gs700 [that fan noise], shame because otherwise it seemed fine.

got an ax860 now, so fingers crossed. seems fine thus far, ironic that i got a reference 290x at the same time, swapping one buzz for a hoover lol
 
This made for an interesting read, i didnt know that Corsair had been using CWT. Does anyone know if the HX750i is made by CWT? i really liked the look of it but this info kinda puts me off which is a shame.
 
I didn't realise Corsair were not the PSU they used to be. I built my gaming rig last year and didn't even consider any other brand (I put in a fairly expensive HX850). The PC gets very little use - several hours at the weekends maybe, but the PSU is buzzing away already. It has a seven year warranty, so I'll put up with it for now and see if it gets any worse. Next time it will be a Superflower or Seasonic!
 
Id be looking at the evga platinums if it was time for me to change. 10 year warranty even on their top model its only 20 quid a year superb value
 
Basically avoid Corsair at all costs now.

Look at;

Seasonic
5 years for 80+ Bronze to Gold ranges
7 years for 80+ Platinum

Superflower
3 year warranty for 80+ Bronze
5 year for 80+ Gold & platinum ranges

EVGA (produced by Superflower)
3 year warranty for standard 80+
5 year for 80+ Bronze (80+ Gold NEX 650w also)
10 year for 80+ Gold & platinum ranges

There are others but these three are always my first options.
 
darwin said:
I didn't realise Corsair were not the PSU they used to be. I built my gaming rig last year and didn't even consider any other brand (I put in a fairly expensive HX850). The PC gets very little use - several hours at the weekends maybe, but the PSU is buzzing away already. It has a seven year warranty, so I'll put up with it for now and see if it gets any worse. Next time it will be a Superflower or Seasonic!
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The HX850 is Seasonic OEM, 1 of the last Seasonics from Corsair iirc.

A nice cheap buy to add to that list is the XFX core/black editions both are Seasonic OEM and can be had cheap!
 
No it's not. The HX850 is a CWT unit and always has been. Seasonic only did the 450-650w models and all but the 650w are discontinued. The only Seasonic units left are the HX650, AX760 and AX860 and I don't expect those to last much longer either. See here for a list of OEM's, links to reviews plus other useful information.
 
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Surprised we haven't seen a Corsair vendor rep jump into the thread to defend the brand!

I wouldn't normally buy Seasonic PSU's for my PC's but last time around I gave Corsair a try and got a AX650. So far it's been pretty good (although my PC has been on the blink for the past 6 months, than you royal mail), the fan doesn't spin up until it reaches 50% load but after reading the press and seeing they are using cheaper suppliers I will probably switch back to using Seasonic own brand PSU's.
 
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