jmke

Corsair is known in enthusiast circles as a premier supplier of high performance memory and has risen to become one of the most talked about power supply brands around. Corsair was able to establish such an amazing presence in such a short time through the use of quality OEM’s (Seasonic and CWT), rigorous standards, and excellent support. Since its entrance into the PSU field, it has established a number of lines of power supplies to address (and overlap) just about every market segment with their GS, CX, VX, TX, HX, and AX lines. Today, Corsair brings us another member of their newest line of power supplies, the AX series, in the dress of the AX850 (CMPSU-850AX) that is produced in conjunction with Seasonic. This is a departure from the Flextronics produced AX1200 we recently reviewed, and it seems that Seasonic is producing not only the AX850 out of the AX line, but also the AX750 as well.


How best to put this......the Corsair AX850 is an outstanding entry into the 850W segment that's only real competition, that we have reviewed and is readily available at this time, is the Corsair HX850. The single best, and most distinctive, feature of the AX850 is not its efficiency as the unit's marketing and color scheme may indicate, but rather the unit's amazing DC Output Quality. The peak value that this unit posted during any of our tests today was just ~10mV of ripple/noise. 10mV, just 10mV. This was coupled with efficiency that was excellent as its marketing suggests, as well as the same outstanding build quality that we have come to expect from the Seasonic X Series platform that this unit is based on. The load testing results were excellent in general but a bit more of a mixed bag compared to these other aspects. The Transient Load Test results were not all they could be, yet during the units regular load tests it posted voltage regulation of right around 1% (just barely trailing the HX850). This isn't bad in totality, but if we were to pick out something that could use work it would definitely be the Transient Load test results. This unit is an overall outstanding unit and with it currently coming in at a price of $189.99 at both Newegg and TigerDirect after $10 MIR it and is a true premium offering that delivers the goods. The only drawback however, continues to be the Corsair HX850 which can be had for $149 after $20 MIR. Due to this unit's OUTSTANDING DC Output Quality though, this unit is still as good as gold even when facing such prestigious competition as the HX850.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/..._supply_review

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