PSU Group Test: 500W, 600W, 700W, 850W

Corsair TX850W

Manufacturer: Corsair
UK Price (as reviewed): £105.63 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): $139.99 (ex. Tax)

The Corsair TX850W doesn’t have a particularly memorable name, but from previous experience we know that the TX series sits halfway between the budget CX and premium HX series. The TX850W didn’t impress us when we took it out of the box. Captive cables on a modern 850W PSU that costs more than £100 are not ideal, as the inside of your PC is likely to be riddled with lots of unused cables.

The TX850W has a single hefty 12V rail, which is rated up to a scary 70A.

A single powerful 12V rail such as this one is cheaper to implement and more power efficient than multiple lower-wattage 12V rails, but it’s also potentially more dangerous if the PSU suffers a catastrophic failure. In addition to the four 6+2-pin PCI-E connectors, the TX850W also provides eight SATA and eight Molex connectors, which is ample for even the largest RAID arrays. The TX850W passed all our stability tests, with the output from all its rails staying well within the limits of the ATX spec.


This means it’s the cheapest 850W PSU to provide a stable voltage from all of its rails. However, although it was relatively efficient, it pushed out a considerable amount of hot air, and the case got rather warm during our tests. The main issue was noise, though – the fan inside the TX850W was loud and intrusive throughout our tests. Although the TX850W provides lots of power, has four 6+2 pin PCI-E connectors and costs little more than a 650W PSU, its noisy cooling fan and the lack of modular cables are too much of a problem to ignore.

• Stability
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• 10/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

Score Guide