Why is the CX-series bad?

[Jonas_11]

I've seen people using the CX-series for builds.
But everyone says it's so bad.
I don't really know why, cause I can't find any reason to say it's bad. The ones I have asked just says it's bad
So please, give me a real answer than:"It is bad cause it is cheap"

 

[Onefurrybanana]

The componets are cheap quality. The cx series was made for office pc's but since they are cheap people tend to try and put them in gaming builds. Since gaming builds tend to require large amounts of constant power the cx series struggles to supply such which can lead it failing. The problem with cheaper psu's is that they don't tend to have all the failsafes that a high quality psu would which can lead to other parts being damaged.

 

[bxflow]

From what I've read it looks like they use cheap components which I guess can't handle much power comsuming things such as overclocking well.

 

[Rogue Leader]

The current CX series uses low quality capacitors and is built by a lower quality contract manufacturer. That said its not completely Bad per say, it just is not up to snuff for the wattage its rated at. When happens with it is its often bought by folks who don't want to spend a lot on a PSU so they assume its high end because of the name. However where it fall flat is in powering Overclocked systems and high power GPU's. It just can't reliably deliver the rated power, and hence either breaks down completely, or just runs poorly and crashes a lot. If you put a CX in a basic office PC, or a simple low end gaming PC with something like a 750ti that doesn't need external power, it would probably last forever.

Now that said, Corsair has since released 3 CXM power supplies in 450, 550, and 650 watts. They are made by a different manufacturer, use Japanese capacitors, and are modular. ONLY those 3 power levels are this new model (there are others like the CX600M which are not this new model). I would hope that their whole line will eventually convert to this new model.

 

[AdriansNetwork]

Because you can spend a little more and get better safety and reliability. But for regular office PC:s, it's good enough but as others have mentioned, it's risky to overclock with that PSU so no good for gaming PC:s.

 

[sizzling]

Excluding the new CXM above which I don't know about, the old ones had less safety features too so when they do fail there is greater chance of damage being caused to other components in the PC. So you have a higher chance of failure and a higher chance of wider spread damage. For an insignificant extra cost compared to the whole PC you can get a lot better reducing your risk.

 

[Wayfall]

My computer specs:
-i5 4460 3.20GHz
-ASRock Z97 Anniversary Motherboard
-MSI GTX 970 4GB
-Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600Mhz 2x4GB Dual Channel 8GB kit
-EVGA Supernova G2 550w Gold Modular PSU
-Samsung EVO 850 250GB SSD (OS and a few main played games)
-1TB Western Digital Caviar Hard Disk Drive (Least played games, music and junk programs)
-Windows 7 Home Premium OEM
-1920x1080 LG monitor

Hi

I owned a Corsair CX 500 and replaced it about 2 months ago for the PSU in my specs, in the first week of using the new EVGA PSU while playing Fallout 4 it shut down my PC with a click to stop a power spike from damaging my pc.... if I had had my old CX 500w in there I may of lost my pc.

I replaced the CX 500w in the first place due to it starting to making clunky loading kinds of noises under load, it was probably the new GPU that was slowly killing it. I had used the CX 500w in an older FM2 system before using it with the Haswell system.

That PSU only lasted about a year for me, which Is very bad.

So lesson learned.

 

[sizzling]

Forgot to say in the teardown reviews I have seen the quality of the soldering was raised as a concern as well as low gauge wire not rated for the currents suggested

 

[bxflow]

I have a CX600M which I use for a system with an overclocked x4 860k (4.3GHz) and a r9 380. Sometimes I overclock the r9 380 7.5% to do some gaming. I'm prob going to F'up my PC

 

[mlga91]

They have cheap components, and they're rated @30°C, they cant deliver their labeled power when working above that. Also they're quite overpriced, there are much better options at their price point.