Corsair HX750i 80 PLUS Platinum PSU Review

[Guest]

When enthusiasts talk about high-efficiency power supplies, they're often referring to PSUs with big output ratings. We wanted to round up a handful of more mainstream units with claimed 80 PLUS Platinum certs to compare. First up: Corsair's HX750i.

Corsair HX750i 80 PLUS Platinum PSU Review : Read more

 

[Amdlova]

I think i will pass the corsair products...

 

[MasterMace]

I appreciate the article, but I'm a little lost on a few things.

What temperatures were used in these testings? Were they hot tests? Cold Tests?
The device's operating temperature claims up to 50C. Why wasn't this tested?
What devices were used to test them?
Efficiency was tested. What levels were the rails loaded to test this?
Why weren't crossloads tested?
You claim good hold-up time on this unit, but didn't put the results in your review, what is the hold-up time?
You claim good inrush current, same thing as above, what is the inrush current amperage?
If you're testing hold-up time, you're likely testing transient responses, why aren't those listed, or (if not) why aren't they tested?


Just a few questions I came away with.

 

[wabba]

my questions are at witch watt or temp does the fan turn on?
claim is 300w and you test at 200w and 375w, i still dont have a answer from your test if the 300w claim is any good, and how about electrical noise? is there any at any load? my corsair ax 850 got coil whine like hiss noise at very low wattage, when i load a youtube video or read from the ssd.

 

[thundervore]

As someone who own a few Corsair products that is integrated with Corsair Link I only have one question.

Did you install the Corsair Link software on a Windows 8.X computer and get it to work without calling tech support or vising their forums? Bet you didn't, you failed to realize most customers buy the "I" products form Corsair because they want the Corsair Link integration with other Corsair Link products like a H100i.

 

[Nintendork]

I still don't get why manufacturers can't realease PSU with plat/titanium rating aimed to low/medium power PC's. 250-300-350-400w would be awesome

Many people buy high end cpu/gpus and run them @stock without overclock. A 4690+GTX970 PC should be taking less then 250w at full power. A 65w i5 + GTX760 less than 170w. AMD APU systems with the 7850 around 90-120w.

 

[jshcastle]

Nintendork, I'm not sure where you are getting your figures, but all of the combinations you listed seemed to account only for the CPU/GPU at full load. You also need to calculate in the power needs of the motherboards, HDDs, fans, etc. that would be in each system. In actual use scenarios all of the components that you listed there combined with the remaining parts will pull quite a bit more that what you said. Regardless of that, it is generally ill-advised to build a system with a power supply that meets or exceeds the systems power requirements by only a small margin. What you end up with is a system that puts an overly excessive strain on the power supply, which will most of the time result in shortened lifespan and reduced reliability.

 

[jshcastle]

Nintendork, I'm not sure where you are getting your figures, but all of the combinations you listed seemed to account only for the CPU/GPU at full load. You also need to calculate in the power needs of the motherboards, HDDs, fans, etc. that would be in each system. In actual use scenarios all of the components that you listed there combined with the remaining parts will pull quite a bit more that what you said. Regardless of that, it is generally ill-advised to build a system with a power supply that meets or exceeds the systems power requirements by only a small margin. What you end up with is a system that puts an overly excessive strain on the power supply, which will most of the time result in shortened lifespan and reduced reliability.

 

[mamasan2000]

"But for system builders who prefer multi-rail supplies, you can configure the PSU to operate that way via Corsair's software (for our testing, we stuck with a single-rail arrangement)."

Did you test the software? Would be interesting to know, especially since Corsair Link is VERY hit and miss. Not the best software company in other words.
I just skimmed the article so sorry if it was mentioned.

 

[MasterMace]

[quotemsg=14852458,0,205977]I still don't get why manufacturers can't realease PSU with plat/titanium rating aimed to low/medium power PC's. 250-300-350-400w would be awesome

Many people buy high end cpu/gpus and run them @stock without overclock. A 4690+GTX970 PC should be taking less then 250w at full power. A 65w i5 + GTX760 less than 170w. AMD APU systems with the 7850 around 90-120w.[/quotemsg]

I don't know where you get your numbers, but they are wrong. According to XBitLabs, the i5-4690 pulls 172W in Linpack, according to Toms the GTX 970 peaks at 250W on the 12V oced, the i5 4690 at stock. I imagine at reference it would be less than 250, but you'll be hard pressed to find a stock review with peak power consumptions recorded. That's 422W on the 12v rail by themselves, not including the aforementioned rest of the computer. Considering you don't want to blow up your Power Supply, you do not want 422W to be the maximum output on your 12v rail. You'd need 44A on the 12v rail, and thus be looking at a 550W PSU.

That being said, if your rig is using an i5 4690 and a GTX 970, you're overspending if you are looking at a Platinum PSU. $170 on a PSU when you spent $550 on your CPU+Graphics, and are looking at a $900-$1100 build is a bit out of whack.

 

[Gundam x]

can it run sly gtx 970

 

[raheel136]

^Total system power consumption with a single 970 is 300watt and 970 sli will consume around 500watts... so this 750w psu is enough

 

[MxMatrix]

About half a year ago I had issues with the HX750, predecessor of the i version. Sadly no i model was available then so I went for the EVGA equivalent. The LINK software that uses the i options and displays them, makes the devices tune able and regulates operation is a boon to me. I like quiet operations, but when power usage comes in I want the machine to respond properly and not from about 50 to 100 in one step (in sound production). The i option makes it possible to gradually increase fan speeds. And react pro-actively on sudden heat increases.

Only drawbacK; you'll have to circumvent windows 8.1 to get is working, that's a bit too much for a lot of people.

 

[sportfreak23]

Low-Power Efficiency??? This review just became a joke. So many features about the PSU weren't even mention and tested. When does the fan turn on? at what load? Even Johnny Guru gave it a perfect score beside value as its an expensive PSU but you get what you pay for. I still prefer the Ax lineup that is keeping 4 of my PC's running silent. Also not sure why people are suggesting 400w wouldn't be enough for a system running at stock. I'm running a seasonic plat 520w 4930k+780 overclocked and no troubles so far. Only reason you should consider more power on a PSU is to increase the threshold where the fan would remain silent under use.

 

[InvalidError]

Unless your test equipment and methodology have better than 0.01% overall accuracy, 0.04% is too close to tolerances to call a pass or fail. You could probably cause results to change by more than that by wiggling connectors and cables.

 

[beetlejuicegr]

there was a nice article about power consumption in tomshardware and it was pretty recent. What i personally learnt is that it is completely naive to count watts to decide for a PSU.

 

[Jay Liu]

Too much gimmicks. I can get a Seasonic Platinum 1250W for less than the HX750i. What the hell do you need to control on a PSU anyway?

These useless features are like their rainbow color LED lighting on mech keyboards, useless fluff. My friend's HX750 failed on day 1. I think getting PSUs to do what they're supposed to do is more important than upselling useless crap.

 

[dovah-chan]

So many people confusing TDP with actual power consumption.