http://www.silentpcreview.com/news1144.html

Corsair CX400 vs Corsair CX430, CX500, CX600

CX400 is 80Plus and has a medium speed Adda Fan.

CX430 and up are NOT 80Plus and have high speed Yate Loon fans. See the link above for links to reviews of these PSUs.

Seen plenty of appalling reviews of these units re:reliability. Every manufacturer has a lemon, except Corsair we thought, until now.
I'm not using these in my recommended builds. Apart from being loud and inefficient, they seem pretty unreliable too. Bring back the 400W unit. It wasn't quiet, but at least it was reliable. Switched to the Antec Earthwatts Green for my recommended low-end unit now.

It is very unfortunate that Corsair named the Builder Series CX. That aside, basically it is intended to be a cheaper alternative that will do as the label says and won't fail due to load. That can't be said about all cheap PSUs. See reviews of Diablotek, Apevia, etc.

Most of the "appalling reviews" are Newegg user reviews, and seriously many of them are completely bogus. Out of the thirteen single Egg reviews, one reviewer never used it because it didn't pass a "test" using a "power supply tester." Uh huh. We know how well those things work. Then, there were a total of FOUR single Egg "reviews" from people who just wanted to ding Corsair for "putting out crap."

The jonnyGURU review proved for a fact that the CX430 actually was around 80% efficient (though not 80Plus certified) and can actually do what the label claims (28A +12v, 430W @30°C).

Regarding pricing, the CX430 has a lower MSRP than all the PSUs commonly named as better alternatives, the Corsair CX400, Antec NEO ECO 400C, Rosewill Green RG430 and Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D. But, but, but, those other PSUs go on sale or have rebates, right? Well, so can the CX430. Basically the CX430 averages around 20% less cost than the other PSUs.

Corsair is not going to resurrect the CX400. Nobody wanted to buy it. "Wait," you say, "everybody bought them and loved them." Let me rephrase: Nobody wanted to buy them at a price that Corsair needed to sell them at. It was very obvious to Corsair that there is a market for under-$50 PSUs, so they found a PSU that they can sell in that price range that isn't "crap."

I was the one that purchased the CX430 (from Newegg) for the review. I bought it as a cheap spare, and thought that a real review (complete with load test and 'scope) would be interesting, since all the "enthusiasts" were crying foul over just the mere existence of it. In conversing with jonnyGURU, he agreed with me that an independent test would be very enlightening. I thus agreed to hand over my brand new and still shrink-wrapped unit for testing.

Interestingly while Corsair refused to (and still does) send out review units, they were REALLY QUICK in slapping a "jonnyGURU.com recommended" label on the CX430 description at Newegg.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with jonnyGURU.com (beyond being a forum member there) nor with Corsair (beyond owning a number of Corsair branded items) in any way.

Zap, let me say Thanks for helping out the community. Without someone like you to start this process there would be many more people buying on confusion assuming the CX430 was as good as the CX400.

Until I read that review at jonnyguru I had no idea the "builder series" even existed.

Yeah I'm well aware how bad newegg reviewers are, but you don't tend to see comments like 'blue flash and bad smell' about of a PSU unless people are telling the truth, and I seem to recall quite a lot of those.

When I first saw them I thought 'ooh, new low-price Corsair units' then after reading some of the reviews, my heart sank a bit. Was really disappointed by the noise level of the CX 400W too, so even that wasn't ideal, though it was at least a solid quality unit.
I'd like to see SPCR review one of the recent HX units, as they're probably quite noisy, but I'd like to know if that's just people being over-sensitive or not.

How do you judge a 25-39dB noise range?

Measured with what?

Perceived by your ears: it's about the usual noise range of current main CWT platforms.

Too vague. Would like some wattage level measurements like with the CX400

There is nothing vague, you just haven't understood: those are the specs by CWT, minimum 25dB, max 39dB.
Measured noise might be only worse.

Well, it doesn't say much about the testing environment and what happens at what load.
HDD manufacturers quote noise levels like 25dB for 5400rpm drives, but SPCR testing has shown they're much lower than that.
Likewise, you can buy fans purporting to be 16dB when they're actually more like 20-30.
All I'll say is that at 700W load, the CWT HX1000W I had briefly became horrific within a few seconds (I could tell from the tone of the sound that the fan was spinning at c. 2100rpm, which for a 135mm fan is huge. I'm hoping that the smaller HX units are somewhat better than that, at proportional loads.

HDD manufacturers specs "sound power level", SPCR measure "sound pressure level".


I can speak for the CWT-made 750/850: with reference to past reference as Seasonic S12-II, those HXs are more than a bit louder, at idle maybe almost on par with my annoying Antec EarthWatts Green at load. With reference to moderately quiet units as Enermax 82+, Antec Signature or Seasonic M12D (which all I own), those HXs are simply unacceptably far way louder. With reference to current silence "champions" as Seasonic X (which I own, but even Corsair AX, Enermax 87+, some Nexus...) they are unbearably loud (I think that MikeC also measured the CWT-made HX750 around 30dB at idle).

The newer HX450, HX620 and the like are instead simply junk (acoustically - but always subjectively - speaking).

Yeah, is what I thought, a shame really, given how good the VX450, HX520 and HX620 were. Looks like the AX is the only quiet unit Corsair are producing besides the VX450 and TX650 now (which are still on sale, I presume the same quiet as before?)
Is the Earthwatts green appreciably noisier than the original? I have one of the seasonic based units, and whilst I haven't loaded it up beyond about 180W, it didn't get that loud. No silence champion but it was fairly moderate.
The X-650's scores are pretty impressive at lower loads, definitely seems to be the #1 'reasonable wattage' PSU for now.

No, they are no more the same old models: since about at least a year ago VX and TX lines are now all made by CWT (and no more by Seasonic), and they are definitely no more quiet. The only good kids from Corsair are the AX850/750, no one else.


It had a somewhat harsh (higher pitched?) sound, IMO, but the overall noise level was almost about the same, more probably that not the Delta being a tad higher: however, now it's no more so (fan swap).

However, I was talking about mid power levels (if you have a 430 or a 380, you'd have to be around 200-250W DC), when the fan controller quickly ramps up, as at full load any EA IMO is something really very loud (as any 80mm unit).

Did they actually change the existing ones though? The VX450 was always a Seasonic, but the VX550 was CWT to start with. Likewise the TX650 was always a seasonic. but the 750/850/950 units were CWTs. Have they actually converted the seasonic units to CWTs as well now?

Yes, they did so.

Wow, I didn't know that. When did they do that? The VX450 unit my friend bought a year or so ago was still a Seasonic, well at least I think it is, as it's still very quiet and does not have the telltale CWT red-coated coils at the back.

I don't know exactly, but last august a Corsair Representative admitted that transition from Seasonic to CWT on JonnyGuru's forum: at that time, he said, surely there would still have been some Seasonic units on the shops shelves, but that all the new production was definitely by CWT.

Perhaps they did it when they badged the VX450 with the Bronze 80plus certification (electrically the CWT unit should be still quite good, but I never found a review about it), but it's just my guesswork.

There is content in this thread that suggests the switch was temporary for some models during a contract negotiation. I don't know that it is true that they switched ALL units to CWT permanently.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7451 is an older thread that discusses the changes as well. Both are worth reading if you didn't know about the Corsair PSU lineup changes.

I was updated up to last october when Corsair stated by its Rep that "Probably the older TX will be on sale for a while to get rid of older inventory" (and when he's talking about older TX he's referring to the proven Seasonic's one).

Even if Corsair hasn't formalized yet the upcoming 650TX-V2, I am glad to see that something may change: it's maybe another reason not to buy their current enthusiast mid-power PSUs.

However, a fact remains, that they silently switched their OEM (and, from a silence perspective, with something clearly inferior), and such a move is one that more probably that not may somewhat undermine public confidence.

I used a cx400 in a friends pc based on the good reviews but i don't recommend it at all, the fan was very loud.

Is there a way to tell if a 650TX is made by Seasonic based on the serial number or something like that? I'm getting one from Amazon next week and reading this thread is freaking me out...

Sure, if it doesn't have an appended C, it should be Seasonic. Also there's a second revision of the tx series out with a V2, these are seasonic also. They may be pretty quiet, although I haven't see any reviews about that.

Just to be safe, I ended up returning the TX650 and ordered a Seasonic M12II-520W. I hope it's good

There's a good one by OklahomaWolf on Jonnyguru: maybe not so quiet but an overall good PSU.

Has anybody ever reviewed the CX500?

At least these PSU's are so cheap that I'll have no problem voiding the warranty for a nice fan-swap. With the prices available to me, this solution will almost be twice as cheap as buying an otherwise reasonably priced Nexus NX-5000 (89 euro excluding shipment). The CX430W will also have less cables which is nice for a small, budget micro-ATX built meant for Office, music listening, web-surfing etc.

is it easy to do a fan swap for these? I suspect it could be emitting a lot of noise.

Do the replacement fans just clip in or do they require soldering and stuff?

Well, my experience with the Corsair CX400W shows that it is quite easy, even if it's the first time. Unscrew four screws, take off the U-shaped plate, unscrew the screws from the fan, remove the fan from the fan header, mount your own fan where the PSU fan used to be, screw on the U-shaped plate, connect the fan to an external power source. It worked out to be quite easy.

So no, the replacement fan just "clip" in (screwed in placed). The emitted noise, of course, depends on the fan. It's usually possible to connect the replacement fan to the PSU's own fan header, but that requires a bit modding which can be a bit difficult.

great, any idea how many pins the psu fan has?