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- Date:
- Tuesday , August 14, 2007
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Corsair VX450W Power Supply
Corsair has made a name for themselves when it comes to mid-powered computer PSUs, and now they aim to bring that quality to a fully different market and price range. Is their new 450 watt unit able to reach the watermark set by their previous products?
Overview
The first thing we are going to look at with the Corsair VX450W is its packaging, accessories, and documentation. While normally none of these items is a make or break item for a power supply the packaging quite often contains a lot of information about the product we are purchasing. The inclusion of an owner’s manual that provides actual information about our product is also of great help in many situations. Accessories are almost unnecessary with a power supply as the unit is self contained, unless it is modular, but there cases where a manufacturer can include useful accessories to make installation, routing and use more efficient.
The Corsair VX450W comes in packaging that is very similar to the previously reviewed HX620W. The packaging has a fair amount of information about the unit enclosed including the connector count, power label (which will be broken down below), fan noise level graph, and an efficiency graph. The efficiency graph and text indicates the unit peaks at 85% efficiency, but that value appears to be derived at 230v AC input and does not indicate at what temperature it was derived at either. This point is especially interesting as the previous Corsair unit we reviewed was rated at 50c while this unit gives no indication as to what temperature the unit is rated at. This kind of change is interesting but previous Seasonic branded units we have seen have been rated at between 40c and 50c depending on who is branding them so we would expect this to hold true for this unit as well. Moving on, the units packaging also indicates the inclusion of “High-quality Japanese capacitors,” and “extra long fully-sleeved cables,” along with APFC coupled with the various typical safety features. Like the last Corsair unit we saw the box proudly promotes the fact that the unit has a full 5 year warranty. This is the second longest warranty we have seen to date in our reviews trailing only the Limited Lifetime Warranty offered by Ultra. The warranty information on the Corsair website is somewhat buried but available in the manual (both included and online) and as such is reprinted below.
The Product is guaranteed for sixty (60) months from the date of delivery to the end-user against defects in materials or workmanship. During this period, the Product will be repaired or have parts replaced, at our discretion, provided that: (I) the Product is returned to the agent from whom it was purchased with shipping prepaid; (II) the Product has been purchased by the end-user and not used for hire purposes; (III) the Product has not been misused, handled carelessly, or other than in accordance with any instructions provided with respect to its use; (IV) the Product has not been damaged due to acts of nature, such as lighting, fire, flood, or earthquake; (V) the warranty stickers have not been removed or tampered with. Corsair Memory’s warranty on the Product is to the first end user or consumer only, in accordance with the Corsair Memory’s Limited Warranty.
As one would expect from a 450w power supply the unit carries no multi-GPU certifications but given the specs below the unit seems capable of powering any single high end graphics card with ease in most users systems or even some previous generations SLI configurations.
Unlike our previous Corsair review unit (the HX620W) this time Corsair has had the packaging and documentation printed up to reflect the single large 12v rail that this unit has which it has in common with all the previously reviewed Seasonic products. That single 12v rail accounts for 88% of the possible output capacity of the VX450W. This 33A is a lot of 12v capacity for a 450w power supply and is very similar to the 34A capacity of the Seasonic S12II-500 we recently reviewed. Also similar between the units is the combined 5v/3.3v rating of 130w. Moving on to the connector count we see the unit has 1 6 pin PCI-Express connector for powering add in graphics solutions, along with 6 SATA connectors good for SATA drives in various RAID configurations (or newer optical drives), and 6 Molex connectors for peripherals. For a 450w unit this seems ambitious but if the unit performs like the previous Corsair and Seasonic-branded units then these connectors could all be useful and used without incident.
Once we open the packaging we find that the Corsair VX450W ships as a unit inside a bag inside a box. Once we remove the contents of the bag we find the usual assortment of items including the power supply, AC cable, screws, and some zip-ties. Also in the packaging is the manual which covers not only the VX450W but also the VX550W. The manual runs 40 pages and includes 8 languages. The 5 pages in each language contain the warranty information, power table, cable count, and mounting instructions. While far from the worst documentation we have seen it is far from the most complete as well. The included information is not as detailed as we have seen with many units which could be due to the amount of printing on the box. For a bargain priced unit the manual isn’t bad per se but it still feels a little light on the information front overall and hopefully Corsair will flesh these out on future products as this information can come in very handy.