Corsair PSU AMA Starts Friday December 9 at 1 PM EST - Submit Your Questions Now!

[deahjuve84]

I want to know what are the biggest consideration for designing mini ITX cases and do you have a forecast for this area. Thank you

 

[RobtheRobot]

Does Corsair see a future where they provide an onboard backup battery, alongside the PSU?

 

[TheOriginalTuck]

I recently built my first PC in the Corsair Crystal 460x RGB and had some issues with the fully modular power supply I'm using even though this is a mid size ATX tower. The case doesn't provide enough room for all the PSU cables and using the 3.5 inch hard drive cage at the same time, so my HDD is floating free amongst a lot of cables. What advances is Corsair making to manufacture smaller ATX PSU's that pump out the same wattage as their full size brethren and in your opinion would it be possible to make a PSU with a build in battery back up?

 

[itzlanez]

will it be possible to see a power supply somewhere near future with joules and power saving with 5-10% with lighting indicators . I live in the California deserts and sometimes power cuts off on me. I honestly believe this will set you guys apart. I just got into the whole pc building recently and started with corsair alpha case along with a 600w power supply and love both. thanks and god bless

 

[jonnyguru]

Great questions so far! Every one of them! Can't wait for next Friday! 😀

 

[neroes]

Is there any possibilities for Corsair to increase number of model of PSU's in white color options somewhere in the future? I'm a fan of all-white-system built so I kinda hoping there were many option of white PSU's out here.

 

[Zach_43]

Hello all! Over the past few months I've dived into the liquid cooling scene and i have emerged with many more questions. Having built with both custom hardware as well as a few of your All-in-one's, I've gained a curiosity towards how you guys manage to create such an effective cooling solution and what kind've time and effort goes into planning a product like this and actually testing it? On a side note, any thoughts on expansion of the corsair HG line up for the new Nvidia/ AMD graphics cards?

 

[jonnyguru]

Do you ever think that companies will add a feature, where you can completely customize your components and parts? By that I mean, like whether or not to have LED's, how manny RAM slots, socket, PCIe lanes, M.2 slots, how many fans your GPU has? I'd like to know how you think customizing your parts will be like in the future.

I want to know what are the biggest consideration for designing mini ITX cases and do you have a forecast for this area. Thank you

I'm sorry. I'm only going to be available to answer PSU related questions.

 

[jonnyguru]

Mr Gerow,
don't you believe that it's time for all manufacturers to include sleeved cables with PSUs?

Do you mean regular sleeves over the whole cable or the individually sleeved wires?

 

[Katash]

Dear Jon,

With many people looking för smaller cases, how much focus is Corsair putting into making PSU's for these smaller cases? Which is the smallest PSU Corsair currently have over 500W? Thank you for your time!

 

[norune]

Hi Jon!
Personally I try to buy a good Quality PSU to be the base for my system, but even then I sometimes feel that it can be hard to predict possible malfunctions and would love to see more ways for the average consumer to know the condition of his psu, so a few questions :

Should newer PSU's have the ability to give the users more feedback on the condition of the psu? Something like S.M.A.R.T for HDD's and with improvements that measure readings over time and within certain safe margins.

What would be a good estimate for current Gold and Platinum power supplies in terms of lifespan (Corsair ones ofcourse)? Can good maintenance of power supplies help sustain that lifespan ( dust removing and fan functionality check )?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Dear Jon,

With many people looking för smaller cases, how much focus is Corsair putting into making PSU's for these smaller cases? Which is the smallest PSU Corsair currently have over 500W? Thank you for your time!

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/corsair-sf600-power-supply,4537.html
SF600 it's a great unit , I own it.

 

[Uncle Bud]

With the seemingly never ending need to charge a device of some kind, why aren't power supply manufacturers (along with case manufacturers) helping out us technology enthusiasts by including (more) USB ports?

Also, why put the capacitors inline, instead of in the case?

 

[turkey3_scratch]

With the seemingly never ending need to charge a device of some kind, why aren't power supply manufacturers (along with case manufacturers) helping out us technology enthusiasts by including (more) USB ports?

Also, why put the capacitors inline, instead of in the case?

He can only answer PSU questions (yours seems half case-related, and I'm not sure how USBs relate to the PSU precisely).

 

[Uncle Bud]

I am sorry, let me rephrase the question.

With the seemingly never ending need to charge a device of some kind, why aren't power supply manufacturers (along with case manufacturers) helping out us technology enthusiasts by adding USB ports on the back of the power supply? It would be fine if they were only power ports, but great if also connected to the motherboard.

 

[Aeacus]

Hi Jon.

I have a question about Corsair AXi series. Why only the AX1500i is 80+ Titanium certified while the rest of AXi series PSUs are 80+ Platinum certified?
Are there some shortcomings in the lower wattage Flextronics platforms that can't achieve the 80+ Titanium certification?

From the customer standpoint and for those people who doesn't have quad-GPU setup, having a selection of lower wattage 80+ Titanium PSUs would come in handy.
Good example would be Seasonic PRIME series that has 650W, 750W and 850W 80+ Titanium certified PSUs to choose from.

 

[superninja12]

Mr gerow, will corsair release any new cases soon?
i would love to seen a flat case with a with a window on top on it , so you can put it near your ps4 and look down on it and see everything.

ow this is about psus depr 😛

will we see soon a new review on the new cx psus?

ooh and 1 more question please 😀 , will we see titanium fanless units from corsair ?

 

[Hellfire13]

Seems like, more or less everything relevant has been already asked. Great going guys.

I have a different line of questions though.

Given the popularity of gaming pcs and the revival of desktop hardwares in gaming perspective, you(Corsair) or most of the other A-Tier manufacturers for that matter, who are valued for their quality products(specially psu), are limited in your presence worldwide, resulting in higher expenses due to shipping costs in quite a few regions of the world. What are your(Corsairs') goal of expanding your presence worldwide for better value for money products, if at all you have such plans in future. You do have service centres but that doesnt alleviate purchasing costs, like if the raw materials are fetched and the units manufactured locally, it can be sold at a lesser value while maintaining the overall quality which tantamounts to being more affordable to the general masses.




One other questions, if i may. Irrespective of all the reviews and ratings on different websites and magazines including TonsHardware, are the below warranty periods rough indications of overall quality and longevity by any chance or does it vary in other ways also???


AX Series™ PSUs have a 7 year warranty
AXi Series™ PSUs have a 10 year warranty
CS Series™ PSUs have a 3 year warranty
CX Series™ PSUs have a 3 year warranty
CX-M Series™ PSU Models CX430M, CX500M, and CX600M have a 3 year warranty
CX-M Series™ PSU Models CX450M, CX550M, CX650M, CX750M, and CX850M have a 5 year warranty
GS Series™ PSUs have a 3 year warranty
HX Series™ PSU Models HX520W, HX620W, and HX1000W have a 5 year warranty; all other HX Series™ Models have a 7 year warranty
HXi Series™ PSUs have a 10 year warranty
RM Series™ PSUs have a 5 year warranty
RMi Series™ PSUs have a 10 year warranty
RMx Series™ PSUs have a 10 year warranty
SF Series™ PSUs have a 7 year warranty
TX Series™ PSUs have a 5 year warranty
Vengeance Series™ PSUs have a 5 year warranty
VS Series™ PSUs have a 3 year warranty
VX Series™ (Models VX450, and VX550) have a 5 year warranty

 

[King Dranzer]

Can we expect higher capacity PSUs from Corsair in near future.

As overall requirement of power is going down for the builds all the Corsair PSUs available are sufficient to satisfy most of the requirements no doubt. But there are some special projects which has huge amount of power requirement. For projects like that 2500W or 3000W PSUs are required. As none being available we have to combine 2 PSUs which makes cable management bit difficult.

If not produced on large scale as other PSUs they should be made available for people who does projects like this through special requests.

 

[Deleted member 270419]

Hey Jon! What was the reasoning behind leaving out the bypass relay on the RMx and RMi PSUs? Since they are on most of Corsair's other PSUs like the AXi and HXi, would Corsair consider adding them if there were a Version 2?

Also, I read somewhere that the only "true" fluid dynamic bearing fans are ones using the Matsushita design, and are apparently better and longer lasting. What's your opinion on this, and do the FDB fans in the RMi and HXi PSUs use the Matsushita design?

 

[megawattz]

Hi Jon.

With components being susceptible to the quality of power delivered to them, which is then exasperated when these same components are overclocked, pushing them to their limits; where do you think the bulk of the power quality responsibility should be held? The power supply or motherboard manufacturers?

Also, to achieve better power quality, do you think there is still enough room for improvement doing it passively (e.g. passive components in new topologies; better output filtering, etc.) or are the large gains only found in active output control (e.g. faster switching, interleave converter legs, etc.)?

Thanks.

 

[jonnyguru]

Jon Gerow , Does Corsair plan to expand on it's SF PSU offerings in the future as smaller builds are becoming more popular.

I own the SF600 it's amazing.

I hope to. But it's a niche market. It has to make financial sense. Unfortunately, Corsair doesn't have any kind of track record for making and selling cases that require SFX PSUs, and the other companies that DO sell SFF cases do not sell them in large quantity (that I'm aware of), so it's very hard to pitch the idea of another SFX power supply.

I had been telling Corsair for years to do an SFX power supply. It wasn't until Bulldog that everyone was on board with the idea because we had a need for a small power supply.

Mr Gerow, what do you see as the principal drivers of change in the design of PSU's going forward.

Mr Gerow,

PC components (including power supplies) are increasingly being differentiated by cosmetic features (different colored lights and sleeves for example) are there any upcoming features that are not cosmetic to the Corsair PSU line that you can share with us?

Mr. Gerow,
Along the lines of Corsair Link functionality, have you seen any market desire for case fan & lighting control embedding/integration to the PSU itself? (i.e. PWM connection of case fans and lighting kits directly to PSU, circumventing a need for a separate controller)

Side question:
Seeing all of the recent tempered glass cases from Corsair lately, I was wondering if any Corsair 250D-style tempered glass case variants are on the horizon?

Good questions. We've gotten to the point where the improvements made to the PSU have little affect on the performance of the rest of the PC's hardware. Much of what's done is to simply please reviewers who have made their testing methodologies more and more difficult to get a high grade on. Sooner or later, we'll be at the point where a PSU with < 1% regulation and < 1mV of ripple is in the price range of a VS Series. There's always making PSUs more and more efficient, which is easier to do than it was a few years ago, but at some point you have to consider add on items to the PSU that differentiate your product from the competition. Whether it's Link integration or cosmetic enhancements like LED lighting, tempered glass, custom cables.... All of this has to be considered.

I'm looking for the quietest psu available. Do you plan to improve your psu in this respect? Also, my pc uses about 600 watt, how many watts you advise me to have my power supply to work in the most silent possible?

We're always trying to make PSUs as quiet as possible. We started with ZeroRPM mode so the fan doesn't spin until it needs to, but now the complaints are coming in that the initial startup fan speed is too high, so now it's a goal for us to address that. Probably the hardest thing to keep quiet is coil whine. The more efficient parts have to be made differently and of different materials to maintain that higher efficiency. Since these designs and processes are relatively new, we pretty much have to make the QC process of making these parts a full time job.

 

[jonnyguru]

Any chance of seing very effient power suply with drive thought type cooling, aka psu that has a Little bit smaller cooler in the Front side of the psu instead of being in the top like 99% of psu Are. It would offer better cooling in some Computer cases.

Will power saving and performance be improved?

Is it physically possible to achieve 99.99% efficiency in a standard ATX power supply?

I've learned to never say nothing is impossible. When 80 Plus first came out, we were pleasantly surprised that there were some units that can do 80% efficiency. Now we have units that do 95%+ efficiency. I think 99% is only a matter of time.

As for using a smaller cooler: That's generally frowned upon since any noise they make is louder than a larger fan moving the same amount of air. That said, if the PSU is efficient enough, it wouldn't need any active cooling at all. That's my ultimate goal.

 

[jonnyguru]

Jon , with most computer builds requiring less juice because of the lower power requirements of hardware , will there be less emphasis on the development and production of higher wattage power supplies in the future?

Thanks for participating in this AMA , much appreciated.

I can confirm that, on average, CPU and GPU power consumption has come down and that the sales of lower and lower wattage PSUs do reflect that. But in some cases we'll see high wattage units on the market for some time. Some high end PSUs simply do not cost less to manufacturer in lower wattages and, therefore, don't make sense to sell in lower wattages. Why isn't there an AX650W? It didn't cost any less to make. Why isn't there an HX550i? It only cost $1 less to make versus an HX650i, etc. So when you're working on a flagship product, like we did with the AX1500i, and you're throwing the engineering book at it, there's pretty much a set cost for the product. Doesn't cost less to make it 500W vs. 1500W, so might as well make it, not only the most technologically advanced product, but also the most powerful.

1| First and foremost, welcome to Tom'sHardware and thank you for doing an AMA with us! It's also good to see that this time around we're getting to talk to the guru of PSU's 😉

2| You lovely folks at Corsair appreciate the value of having one off limited run hardware's to which I've got 4 SFF builds planned out of which one such build is meant to run off of limited edition hardware, should I wait in line for an announcement of a Limited Edition SF series PSU? I could buy 3 regular units but I'd like to snag the limited edition PSU or at least have my wallet prepped for that day 😀

3| Speaking of which, it took you guys a while to get aboard the SFX PSU bandwagon and it seems like, for the price you, guys are offering a much more competitive product compared to those out there. What was it that held you back from releasing sooner than (presumably) later? Was it due to demand or did you guys want to bring out a polished product for the enthusiasts?

4| How long before platinum makes it's way into the SF lineup?

5| It was a long way back but Corsair used to bundle a case badge that read, powered by Corsair, is there any chance we can see a revival of that practice?

6| With another form factor, the SFX-L, already in the wild, can we also expect it to come as a branch off of the SF lineup?

1- Thanks for having me.

2- Don't count on it any time soon.

3- See my previous response to a similar question.

4- A matter of time, but it's more difficult with the power density required for an SFX housing. Let's not say more difficult... let's say more expensive. 😉

5- We still do offer a case badge. Never stopped. Your SF PSUs should have come with one in with the bag of zip-ties.

6- Not a big fan of SFX-L because there's not a lot of space being saved by using one. If you're going to go small, go all the way. Not saying SFX-L will never take off, but it's going to take a lot to convince me that it's a solution to a problem. Like: A case that doesn't use either SFX or ATX PSUs that actually UTILIZES the space saved by going to SFX-L.

I'm in the market for a new Psu. I have been looking around and there's a lot of great options. In your own opinion why would I be making a good investment in a Corsair Psu? Thanks for your time.

Corsair has a long warranty and global support that's growing and improving every day.

Hi Jon. There's a question I've been wondering about for quite some time, and some might consider it inflammatory, but I'm asking it anyways. Why the high wattage CX psus? I can understand the AX, HX, RM etc lines, they are designed for high end gaming rigs running multiple gpus, full custom water etc, but with the power efficiency of value line pc's or even as an OEM replacement, I can't see any reason for a 750w or 850w CX. So why?

Because people ask for it. If people stopped buying CX850M's, we'd stop making them. Why is there a CX850M but not a CX850? Because the people that wanted 850W wanted modular cables. Why is there no RM1200i, but there's a HX1200i? Because people that wanted 1200W were willing to pay a little more for Platinum efficiency. There's a market for everything. We don't make products and then force people to buy them, and we'd be foolish to completely abandon market segments by deciding to not make anything in a particular market segment simply out of principle.

I'd like to see a lightweight PSU. Have reached out to case manufactures even though I don't go anywhere hardly. IMHO it'd be neat to have lightweight cases and PSU's become equally lightweight for people with bad backs. The PSU seems to always be the bulk of the weight for a gaming rig.

That's kind of funny. We used to judge the quality of a power supply by it's weight!

The heaviest part of the PSU is the housing and the heatsinks. If PSUs are more efficient, you can reduce the size of the heatsinks. I'm sure you've seen some of our newer product have secondary side heatsinks that are nothing more than a sheet of aluminum. The housing, on the other hand, is tricky. It has to have structural integrity. You can use aluminum, but then you have to make up the strength to weight difference by making the aluminum thicker, which then makes the PSU heavy again. If you don't, you end up with a bunch of damaged PSUs.

Outside of this, using more and more polymer capacitors instead of non-solid, aluminum electrolytic capacitors can save weight, and moving away from silicon or reduce the number of silicon parts can also reduce weight... AND size. Currently, doing this also increases cost, but over the years I'm sure these costs will go down.

 

[jonnyguru]

Dear Jon,

What do think about the idea of "liquid cooled PSUs"?

Would it be possible or has it been done already?

Thanks

I love them. I've had a few myself. But mostly because of the novelty of the product. Not for its usefulness, quietness, etc.

They're incredibly expensive. And I think a lot of companies fear the liability of a leaking, liquid cooled PSU. Unfortunately, by the time the idea becomes practical, safe, etc., we'll have PSUs so efficient for the same amount of money that they won't need any kind of active cooling at all!

Can't we make smaller fanless PSUs?

Yes.

How much aare you willing to pay for one? ;-)

Jon, again, thank you for providing the community this opportunity. My question is simply something I've always wondered but ever really gotten an answer for. When new PSUs are being designed and fabbed, are the product lines clearly established in the development process, like say, is the tech in a CX PSU always planned for that product line? Or, is it that the R&D is designated to create new technology or efficiency level, and then that technology is then filtered through in different degrees to the established product lines.

Good question. So, we typically start with an idea of what we want to do based on what we already know something is going to cost to make. This RARELY ends up being where we end up. The dev cycle for a PSU (one from scratch, that is) is 9 months to a year. Within that time, new technologies come out, better topologies come down in price, etc. so we often make changes early on (after DVT, it's too late!) or start to plan the successor before the original concept even launches. For example: We decided to update the CX-M with DC to DC for the +3.3V and +5V rail. The base topology is still double forward. By the time that launched, we realized we could have done a resonant LLC topology for the same price if we had only waited a few months. It sucks. It's stressful. It's life.

Does Corsair see a future where they provide an onboard backup battery, alongside the PSU?

will it be possible to see a power supply somewhere near future with joules and power saving with 5-10% with lighting indicators . I live in the California deserts and sometimes power cuts off on me. I honestly believe this will set you guys apart. I just got into the whole pc building recently and started with corsair alpha case along with a 600w power supply and love both. thanks and god bless

I love these questions. Again: It's a matter of waiting for the right technologies to mature. Currently, UPS's use huge lead acid batteries to store a charge. Two of these batteries are BIGGER than most high power power supplies. Li-Ion batteries are smaller, but the batteries large enough to hold a charge to hold up your computer for any reasonable amount of time cost a small fortune (the only Li-Ion based UPS I know of is almost $300 and it can only run for FOUR MINUTES with a 300W load. 8 minutes with a 150W load) and I'd hate to think of Corsair being the next Samsung Galaxy Note 7 with exploding UPS/PSUs.

Eventually, Li-Ion technology will mature. Or, better yet, newer tech like Lithium Iron or Lithium Air will come around. But we have to wait for that tech to mature to the point where it makes sense before we try making full size, desktop PCs that can run for an hour on battery power.