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

[jonnyguru]

I hope this line of questioning is not too loaded; I'm interested in some of the internal workings of Corsair as a company, that have successfully prevented some pretty egregious issues.
I don't recall a Corsair PSU ever being criticized for possessing an outright "liar-label," inflating wattages, or claiming features not present (e.g. OCP). While past Corsair PSUs may have been called out for shortcomings (e.g. caps in some CX units), this sort of dishonesty was not among them. Please discuss the vetting process that goes on between Engineering and Marketing that prevents this; other companies could take a lesson, and those of us who follow PSUs can watch for warning flags from companies that are less thorough. Who gets the final say on matters of labeling?
Followup: Anyone who has ever worked for a company has seen that Engineering keeps the promises made by Marketing (or at least tries). How is Marketing at Corsair kept on a leash, and what are some of the most difficult challenges that Corsair's engineers have met in terms of meeting Marketing expectations?

Corsair's engineering teams are phenomenal. I've worked with engineers in the past that are from tier 1 manufacturers that often have an "it works... do it" attitude. They're really smart guys, but they're very reliant on applying technical knowledge based soley on numbers printed in white papers. While you still need these numbers, you have to also realize the practical applications of your product. Our R&D engineers understand what marketing asks for and why and almost always have a clear path to execution. We have excellent relations with several motherboard and graphics card manufacturers and a validation team that puts every product through real life use. And a top notch team of QC guys that track down every single "that's not supposed to happen" issue they see. Seriously. If someone sees a complaint about a PSU on Tom's, Amazon or Newegg and they can get that unit back to figure otu what went wrong... we have the process in place.

At the end of the day, you have to realize that warranty costs money. Not just in company reputation, but in actual dollars when you have to pay for shipping, processing and scrap product. All of that comes out of your bottom line. If you can decrease these costs by developing a better product AND investing in the people that are going to make sure that 99% of the customers are happy, you're going to come out ahead in the end.

 

[jonnyguru]

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.

I'm optimistic that this may soon happen. When we decided to do the white Special Edition, I think, for the most of us in the office, it was more about an opportunity to do something different. We've all run into issues with color matching panels on cases, so we initially thought it would be easy. Some of you guys have experience with painting things and know what I mean when I say, painting with white paint is a heck of a lot different than painting with black! And then there's the small details like making the custom cable combs (thanks Performance-PCs!) and making the sleeved cables without heatshrink.... We might as well have been a bunch of meat butchers making small pastries! But now that we've all gone through the exercise and came out alive... and with a product we're proud to put out as a celebratory "special edition"... I think we can give it another go without so much stress!

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 )?

A digital PSU can actually also report "problems" when encountered. Currently, Corsair's AXi series don't do this because of the added cost, but it's something that can be explored in the future.

But common sense practices can be applied to prolonging the life of your PSU. As with any computer part, heat is its biggest enemy. Keep your fan clear of dust. And if it's a fanless or zero-RPM unit, make sure it's mounted in such a way to allow the heat dissipated via the housing can escape the PC. This is why I like to mount my PSU fan side up. It's less likely to suck dust and dirt up from the bottom of the PC and heat can rise away from the PCB and out the fan grill.

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.

With how little wall-wart USB chargers cost today, it's a cost adder for a PSU that just doesn't make financial sense. And it's not just a matter of the cost of the ports, wiring, etc. But you have to beef up the +5VSB rail to accommodate the extra ports, and this is a cost that increases exponentially.

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.

Efficiency wasn't the #1 factor for AXi. First and foremost, we wanted AXi to be the first, consumer grade, digital PSU with monitoring and control. The AX1500i uses a lot more technology to get it to Titanium efficiency and it would cost far too much to leverage that same technology into lower wattages simply for the sake of achieving greater efficiency.

That said, those products are over 2.5 years old. We're now to the point where we can leverage AX1500i tech into lower wattage units without a cost adder. What we do with to improve on the flagship AXi will have to remain a secret until Computex. ;-)

 

[jonnyguru]

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.

Governments don't make it easy. Even within China, it's difficult to move goods from one factory to another. And material costs aren't the only cost factor. There's a good deal of labor involved as well. So you have to look at material costs, moving material, labor costs and logistical costs. Nowhere on this planet have I seen one location where you could build a factory and have a win in every category. I hope, in time, more and more automation will be used to assemble product. This will give us more freedom as to WHERE our products are assembled and it should make for more consistent quality.

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

The older units have shorter warranties because we had less data to base warranty lengths on.

Most, if not all, of the warranties are based on a mathematical equation of how long the product *should* last if it's run at 100% load, 24/7. Very similar to an MTBF calculation. After being in the business for 10 years, we were able to look back at everything we had made in the past and see what percentage of each of our product were returned, when and why. The result of that exercise was that our 7 year warranty product could easily last 10 years under normal use. Naturally, normal use is NOT full load for 24/7. Some of our 5 year product could last 7 years, and so on.

 

[jonnyguru]

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.

I wouldn't mind doing it if I was sure that, when the product was ready for prime time, EVERY OVERCLOCKER IN THE WORLD USED THAT PRODUCT!!!! Muwahahahaha!!!!!

That'd be cool.

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?

It's simply not necessary. The reviewers that are dinging the product due to the lack of the relay clearly understand the fundamental purpose for this part, but not why it's not necessary in applied practice.

Using a relay can increase efficiency in higher efficiency units. True. But it doesn't help a Gold PSU become anything better than Gold. And, as for protecting the NTC thermistor against inrush currents: If the bulk cap(s) have enough charge to keep the system alive, there would be no inrush. If the bulk caps are discharged, the load would never be 100%, therefore damaging the thermistor, since the system would have to restart. You'd be at an idle or "boot up" load level. The only time you could duplicate a scenario where the NTC thermistor could be damaged by in-rush is with a load tester that has a 100% load on the PSU, you simulate a brown-out just beyond the PSU's hold up time, and then re-apply the 100% load immediately thereafter. A completely synthetic test that would never happen in real life.

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?

Matsushita has a patent. Lots of companies have patents. It's just a matter of finding a bearing company that can design a bearing that performs as well that doesn't infringe on that patent. That doesn't make other, non-Matsushita FDB fan bearings not "true" FDB. What kills me is when our competitors call out rifle bearing, or "Hysint" (as YLTC calls them) or "long life sleeve" bearing fans as FDB fans. Especially in the last couple years, I've seen a good number of PSUs with "FDB" fans that are actually just rifle bearings (like what we use in the RMx). Unfortunately, none of the reviewers currently tear apart the PSU fan as part of their review. Until that happens... feel free to call me Jon Quixote... tilting at PSU fans.

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.

There's always room for improvement. The whole reason I got into this PSU niche is because I got tired of seeing cheap PSUs blowing up motherboards, graphics cards, etc. Components, in general, have become more robust and less susceptible to the punishment of poor power, but it's still easier to design and build a more robust power supply than it is to fit robust VRMs on the components themselves.

 

[Redbeard]

Jon, quick question for you: George Makris - most handsome Corsair employee or most handsome man in the world? Still trying to work that out.

 

[jonnyguru]

Jon, quick question for you: George Makris - most handsome Corsair employee or most handsome man in the world? Still trying to work that out.

IIRC, his face is mostly symmetrical and his gray hair does give him a distinguished look.

 

[Jsimenhoff]

Unfortunately AMAs can't last forever and Jon has to go do important Corsair things like design the next great PSU for the Tom's Hardware Community.

Thanks again for everyone who contributed to the AMA and congratulations to the lucky winner of the Special Edition White RM1000i PSU. Make sure you put that beauty where others can see it.

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Thanks to Corsair and jon for a great AMA.