Corsair VX550W PSU

i bought one of these about 2 months ago, and your review backs up just what i thought.. it's a great psu for not much money, and not everyone needs a 1kw monster. oddly tho mine did come with a small bundle of cable ties.

Nice review that ;)

Cheers Fixed

Agree with Everything you say - I bought one of these back in December for my new rig, and it's been excellent all round.

I'd recommend it to anyone on a budget, as I was.

Great review, thanks. Looking at the noise charts it is weird to see that up to 450W, the VX450 is actually quieter than the VX550
http://www.corsair.com/_images/charts/vx450w_noise.jpg
http://www.corsair.com/_images/charts/vx550w_noise.jpg
Whilst there is not much in it at low loads, from 350-450W the VX450 seems better.

You mentioned that it is a 650W psu in 550W clothing. Did you test it any higher that 550W? I know it would be unfair to compare it to a proper 650W psu but it would be interesting to see how it does.

Nice review. :)

Think there's a mistake in the conclusion though.

our model dropped a fraction below 80 percent load under significant

I think you meant efficiency instead of load. :)

I also got one about a month ago and it too came with cable ties. *shrugs*

It's powering my file server in the closet. :)

Picked up an HX520 (the modular version of this one) for my new build and I'm well happy with it. A decent PSU can only help to keep your system stable, and a crap PSU will drive you mad trying to find an intermittent issue.

Added two addendums - one to page 1 with more details of the extra box bits and one to page 3 with confirmation that what we received was not a golden sample, just messy soldering. :)

Yup, sounds about right. I'm very impressed with Corsair's PSUs. I never thought I'd say this, but.... they're even better than Seasonic.