Corsair CS850M 850W Power Supply Review

[ykki]

At least Corsair continues to provide labeling sufficient for us to determine what models to avoid. "CS - Cheap S _ _ _"

X stands for DO NOT BUY.

RM stands for RMA soon.

Lol what about HX,TX, and AX/i ?

 

[damric]

At least Corsair continues to provide labeling sufficient for us to determine what models to avoid. "CS - Cheap S _ _ _"

X stands for DO NOT BUY.

RM stands for RMA soon.

Lol what about HX,TX, and AX/i ?

Not sure, but those are pretty good.

 

[ykki]

All are made by seasonic aren't they? 'Cept AXi. amiright?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The very excellent HX759/850 as well as the dogs known as the HX1000/1050 were made by Channelwell. They also made most of the TX series

Seasonic made the TX V2; Flextronics made the AXi series.

 

[MasterMace]

TX used to be the gold standard for power supplies. not so much anymore, as they did similar crap to that series.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Before the AXi / HXi arrived, the HX was Corsair's best (Grade A) PSU for those looking for the highest overclocks..... the TX was the 2nd tier (Grade B) and then the TX V2 came along which was somewhere between B+ and A-.

 

[TechyInAZ]

A very funny PSU if you ask me. Having a PSU that expensive with cheap components is defiantly not going to help sales. Since you can buy way better PSU's from EVGA or Seasonic for the same price.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

This is a common tactic among suppliers .... build up a reputation for a few years and once established, cash in by selling inferior / overprices products with the same brand name. With the PC market shrinking, companies are trying to keep their stockholders happy ..... some have taken the approach of gaining market share with increased quality and small margins (think EVGA), while others have chosen to cut costs while keeping prices the same (or higher). Corsair has tried to pawn off several model lines as successors to the TX V2 series but in reality they just don't come close.

Everyone benefited fro EVGAs aggressive pricing and I wondered how they could continue to maintain selling that quality of a unit (G2) for that low of a price. Well the certainly got our attention and one had to wonder, would prices rise or quality drop....then it was leaked that EVGA was switching some OEMs from SF to Seasonic and that wondering intensified .... but given prices in recent weeks, looks like they went with higher prices.

IBM ruled laptop market .... every generation, mags would review the new A-20p and rate it as the best in the world. IBM didn't sell a lot of them, but forum posters and consumers would parrot those reviews and peeps would buy lesser quality models paying quite a price premium. When IBM bean counters decided to drop the A20p because of small sales, no rave reviews lead to IBM tanking and disappearing from market.

Monitor companies pull the ole switcheroo sending out new models for review and since, unlike other components, there's not a new model every year, after 6 maybe 12 months they switch to a lower cost panel supplier ... and of course, they don't tell anyone nor apply a corresponding price reduction.

RAM ... see monitors

GFX Cards .... several techniques used here ... EVGA makes the Classified and gets rave reviews and somehow, as with IBM, this translates to a c0nsumer mindset that the SC series must somehow have some of the same genes. It doesn't; historically the SC series has mostly been a reference PCB with a nice cooler and factory OC while competitors have had custom PCB,s additional cooling add-ons such as thermal pads, better chokes / caps, bigger multi phase VRMs and such. Asus used to be the leader here peaking w/ the 670 TOP. But since then, they have usually had the slowest clocked non-reference and one of the highest priced cards among the Big 4. With MSI / Gigabyte getting all the buzz thru the 7xx and 9xx series, I expect changes from both EVGA and Asus to recapture some of that mind share.

MoBos... again the biggest change here has been from Asus where they have dropped the RoG logo boards down to price points that would have been unthinkable .... The Hero maintains a $200+ price tag tho boards with close to identical features and componentry sell for $70-$80 cheaper. The Asus flagship Rampage has the highest % of warranty returns for the last two reporting periods (8.80 % / 9.65%) . The other "weird thing" ... Asus created Asrock as a subsidiary to be able to sell to the low price builder market segment w/o it reflecting on their enthusiast reputation. It was then spun off and became a competitor, improved quality and started competing with Asus in the enthusiast niche. And yet, Pegatron (Asrock's parent company) is not only building Asus brand laptops now but also handling Asus support.

My assumption is that with the lagging economy an slumping PC sales, the "bean counters" in these companies are holding more and more sway in policy and marketing decisions.

 

[Sakkura]

This is a common tactic among suppliers .... build up a reputation for a few years and once established, cash in by selling inferior / overprices products with the same brand name. With the PC market shrinking, companies are trying to keep their stockholders happy ..... some have taken the approach of gaining market share with increased quality and small margins (think EVGA), while others have chosen to cut costs while keeping prices the same (or higher). Corsair has tried to pawn off several model lines as successors to the TX V2 series but in reality they just don't come close.

Corsair doesn't have any shareholders since it's privately held. Same goes for EVGA.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Ummmm ...... Companies have stockholders / shareholders regardless of whether privately or publicaly held. A cmpany can have a single shareholder..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_held_company

A privately held company or close corporation is a business company owned either by non-governmental organizations or by a relatively small number of shareholders or company members which does not offer or trade its company stock (shares) to the general public on the stock market exchanges, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned and traded or exchanged privately. More ambiguous terms for a privately held company are unquoted company and unlisted company.

 

[ykki]

A very funny PSU if you ask me. Having a PSU that expensive with cheap components is defiantly not going to help sales. Since you can buy way better PSU's from EVGA or Seasonic for the same price.

The problem is that people don't know that. They would probably think- "Whoa! A Corsair GOLD rated 850w psu- surely it must be better than the cheap Evga/Antec/XFX units laying around"

 

[damric]

A very funny PSU if you ask me. Having a PSU that expensive with cheap components is defiantly not going to help sales. Since you can buy way better PSU's from EVGA or Seasonic for the same price.

The problem is that people don't know that. They would probably think- "Whoa! A Corsair GOLD rated 850w psu- surely it must be better than the cheap Evga/Antec/XFX units laying around"

Corsair must have a genius marketing department. Literally they must be magicians to be able to pull off this ruse with such success.

 

[ykki]

They don't need magicians - just people making fake profiles on newegg and giving every new corsair product 5 star ratings - and the sales kick off!

 

[JackNaylorPE]

It has much more to do with forum users parroting posts they read 5 years ago and note putting them in current or even actual context from 5 years ago.

Reading a post ... "The Corsair HX850 is a great PSU" becomes "Corsair makes great PSU's" 5 years later.....despite the fact they they don't actually "make" PSUs