facebook rss twitter

Corsair Professional Series Gold PSUs sail into retail

by Pete Mason on 26 August 2010, 14:54

Tags: Corsair Professional Series Gold AX1200, Corsair

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qazrp

Add to My Vault: x

Corsair unveiled its new Professional Series Gold power-supplies back at Computex, but only now are they being made available at retail.  The high-efficiency models have achieved 80 PLUS Gold certification and are based on a mission-critical server-grade architecture for maximum reliability.

The three PSUs being released are the AX1200, AX850 and AX750 which are capable of providing 1200W, 850W and 750W of power, respectively.  Each has met the Gold efficiency-standard, meaning that they are 92 per cent efficient at half-load when used with a 230V mains supply, or 90 per cent when used with a 115V supply.

Clearly aimed at the upper-end of the market, the Professional Series Gold PSUs all feature a fully-modular design.  Unlike some other modular power-supplies, every cable can be detached, including the 20/24-pin ATX cable.  This should give maximum flexibility when trying to build a neat and tidy PC.

Other features include a hybrid cooling-system that won't engage the 120mm fan at under 20% load, a single 12V rail and high-quality components designed to ensure maximum reliability.  In fact, Corsair believes so strongly in the quality of its workmanship that it backs each PSU with a seven-year warranty.

While the 1200W PSU isn't capable of passive-cooling, it has a larger 140mm fan for quiet operation and is certified by NVIDIA for use with multi-GPU configurations, including three GTX 480s in SLI.

The Professional Series Gold PSUs are available immediately starting at around £140 for the AX750, £155 for the AX850 and £235 for the AX1200.

HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
Posted by kalniel - Thu 26 Aug 2010 16:09
Gorgeous, but where's the 350W option? With such efficiency and quality that's all most of us need.
Posted by sammorris - Thu 26 Aug 2010 16:29
That's not how efficiency works :P

These are very high-end units and also very noisy, and overpriced. To me it seems like Corsair exploiting its status as a reliable PSU manufacturer, and them overcharging on that basis. Why they refuse to replicate one of their best-selling features, quietness, of the HX520/620/VX450/TX650 in any of their other units baffles me. The AX units are horrendously loud, as are the HX1000 and CX400. This fact has seen me switch to Nexus and Zalman for my PSUs as they do the same job about 20dB quieter, be it for 120W or for 700W.
Posted by Noxvayl - Thu 26 Aug 2010 17:56
kalniel
Gorgeous, but where's the 350W option? With such efficiency and quality that's all most of us need.
Enermax have a highly efficient 350W option. Only 86% efficiency but it's better than other PSU's at the same output. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/350W-Enermax-ECO80plus-Efficiency-86-ATX12V-v23-SpeedGuard-SafeGuard-AirGuard-GAMING-ready!-24-740C

sammorris
These are very high-end units and also very noisy, and overpriced. To me it seems like Corsair exploiting its status as a reliable PSU manufacturer, and them overcharging on that basis. Why they refuse to replicate one of their best-selling features, quietness, of the HX520/620/VX450/TX650 in any of their other units baffles me. The AX units are horrendously loud, as are the HX1000 and CX400. This fact has seen me switch to Nexus and Zalman for my PSUs as they do the same job about 20dB quieter, be it for 120W or for 700W.
I agree. Although I use Enermax almost exclusively now, less than 18dB across their new range> http://www.anandtech.com/show/2920/10

The older Modu/Pro 82+ units were also very quiet.

PS: Most computers use less power than the recommended PSU for their components. Manufacturers always say their products require more power than it actually does because they can't control the quality of the PSU's customers have. IE an Enermax Modu82+ 525W with it's 3x 12v rails at 25A each can easily handle a GTX280 while a Powercool 550W with only 2x 12v rails at 16A each would battle.
Posted by this_is_gav - Thu 26 Aug 2010 21:42
I'm still not convinced with my Enermax (I've got the Revolution85+ 850W - the only Revo85+ I could get at the time). I'm getting random and very infrequent reboots (once every couple of weeks or so)… but only at idle, and never under load - and my PC is under load quite often. I can't think of anything else it could be and 90% of the components have remained the same from my previous PSU - if it were hardware elsewhere you'd usually get a BSOD and a crash dump to play with, but it's a clean reboot with zero warning.

For reference, my previous Seasonic refused to work correctly with motherboards which went beyond specification at boot. I thought my Gigabyte board was faulty, only to replace it with a DFI and then found out that DFI themselves said that their boards were incompatible with Seasonic PSUs - as close as you'll get to them saying “our boards don't stick to specification on power-on… you'll have to get a PSU which allows us to pull more than it should”.

Shame, as that X-series Seasonic is epic stuff. Still, the Revo85+ isn't bad, so long as it's not the cause of my random idle reboots.


Edit: I'd say the high-end Enermax PSUs are 2nd only to Seasonic, and it's to Corsair's detriment that they don't openly publish who makes each supply - even it's only a subtle ‘S’ or ‘C’ in a model name. I wouldn't buy a Corsair (with or without a 7 year warranty) if it were made by CWT, but if it were made by Seasonic it would be 2nd on my list only behind Seasonic themselves. As a result of them not publishing official lists, I'm less likely to buy any Corsair PSU, as you're never entirely sure. There are lists, but I heard (or imagined?) a month or 2 back that Corsair were moving away from Seasonic (presumably for cost reasons), so how up-to-date are those lists? What if it changes in a few months? As a result I'm unlikely to buy any Corsair PSU - I want to know who makes it without any doubt… that 7-year warranty doesn't cover my hardware and data…

Given that Corsair PSUs are aimed squarely at enthusiasts and not Joe Public, it's the sort of information you should be getting, at worst in product releases, ideally in the product name.

For the record, I've nothing against CWT, but they're no Seasonic or Enermax - in my mind they're solid without being excellent. Just behind FSP in my pecking order. The 3rd tier behind the heavy-weights.
Posted by saltyzip - Thu 26 Aug 2010 22:09
Does Seasonic make this PSU for Corsair, I know they have with various models in the past?

The Corsair equivalents of the Seasonic range have always been cheaper than Seasonic's own brand which makes me think they must be built with inferior components. Seasonic bound to keep the best components for their own PSUs.

I've always bought Seasonic PSUs they seem to be there or there abouts when it comes to awards, I've got them currently in three machines, one has been running 24/7 in my server for 4 years now without a glitch. I believe in sticking with a brand that designs and builds the PSU themselves, albeit Corsair might well have done that in this case.

SEE NEWER »