Final thoughts and rating

HEXUS Snapshot:

...We're fans of high-quality kit that just does what it says on the tin, and Corsair's Platinum-rated AX860i fits that bill.

The arrival of Corsair's premium AXi power supplies in, dare we say, sensible capacities is a logical move after introducing a 1,200W model in the summer.

Taking all that's good from the DSP-controlled AX1200i and bringing it down to mainstream enthusiast levels results in the £175 AX860i, which is a Midi-Me of the range-topper. Excellent voltage regulation and very tidy ripple performance are augmented by silent-fan running at low loads, while the cabling is bountiful enough for everyday needs.

We're fans of high-quality kit that just does what it says on the tin, and Corsair's Platinum-rated AX860i fits that bill. There are certainly cheaper supplies that do a commendable job, including Corsair's own, but users wanting a top-class build for their next PC should keep this PSU in their thoughts.

The Good

Excellent all-round performance
Software feedback is great for geeks
Silent at reasonable loads

The Bad

Expensive for an 850W PSU, but that's the nature of the Platinum beast

HEXUS Rating

Corsair AX860i Digital PSU

HEXUS Awards

Corsair AX860i Digital PSU

HEXUS Where2Buy

Corsair AX860i Digital PSU is available to purchase from Scan Computers*.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.

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Produce a 400W version for us sane people, -£100, and then yes. I'd pay the premium.

I love my ax1200i, I may get one of these babybirds when I upgrade my htpc after Christmas…on the note of upgrades has anyone upgraded to win8 and made use of the windows media centre, any difference to the win7 version?

aidanjt
Produce a 400W version for us sane people, -£100, and then yes. I'd pay the premium.

I'd be interested to know if there's support for this (i.e. a low wattage Platinum unit, with or without the DSP). The benefits of the extra efficiency would diminish at lower loads, or is it simply a case of wanting the performance/features, efficiency aside?

Blackbeard
I'd be interested to know if there's support for this (i.e. a low wattage Platinum unit, with or without the DSP).

I can't speak for everyone, but I think it would be worth looking into. I can't imagine the ‘modest desktop/gamer’ market to be small by any means. And certainly there's no shortage of people looking for high efficiency units for low powered boxes to power their ITX rigs, servers, HTPCs, etc. I'd humbly leave it to your market research bods to figure out how warmly it'd be received. ;)

Blackbeard
The benefits of the extra efficiency would diminish at lower loads, or is it simply a case of wanting the performance/features, efficiency aside?

A bit of both, but less of the former and more of the latter. I mean most machines realistically really don't draw more than ~300W. I've never had more than 1 mid-high-range GPU and really not interested in overclocking, haven't been since the Core 2 Duo days. But I would be interested in a high quality, high efficiency, clean power PSU. It doesn't really make any sense for me to splash out £175 for a 860W when I don't use half that at full load with CPU and GPU burners, stacked out with drives etc, and likely wont unless I win the lottery or something and go a little nutty with a silly high-end SLi rig. So for me at least it's a value/utility proposition thing, and a ~£75/~450W unit would make a heap of sense.

But I really like the look of the AX series, you've turned out another fantastic PSU series. Bravo.

Blackbeard
I'd be interested to know if there's support for this (i.e. a low wattage Platinum unit, with or without the DSP). The benefits of the extra efficiency would diminish at lower loads, or is it simply a case of wanting the performance/features, efficiency aside?

I don't need one imminently, but yes, definitely. I don't think I would want more than 500W, it's just wasted money on capacity I'm never going to need. As much as I like these digital PSUs, there's no way I'd fork out for 760W. I had an HX520, and currently use an AX650, but even that's a bit much.

If we're buying a quality PSU like Corsair make, we won't need to buy an 800W PSU to power 300W of kit - the 400W will properly handle it.