Corsair PSU hierarchy cheat sheet

[Guest]

They used to have a page on Corsair.com with a table that showed all of the features of each Corsair PSU and how they differ. It's not there anymore... or it's well hidden.

The letters don't really mean anything, so it can be really confusing which Corsair PSU is better than another. 

So I put this list together. The PSUs below are ranked from "high end" to "low end":

 

(If you want pictures, I've attached a representative of each series here:  http://www.jongerow.com/Corsair_PSU_hierarchy/index.html)

 

• AX1600i: Titanium efficiency, fully modular, FDB fan with Zero RPM fan mode. All Japanese caps. Rated at 50°C. All analog ICs replaced with MCUs (fully digital). PSU has monitoring capability via LINK or iCUE. Has a very unique bridgeless totem-pole front end with GaN transistors.
• AX: Titanium efficiency, fully modular, FDB fan with Zero RPM fan mode, analog PSU w/o monitoring. All Japanese caps. Rated at 50°C. Until I say otherwise, all of these PSUs use a LLC resonant front end and DC to DC for the +3.3V and +5V rails.
• HXi: Platinum efficiency, fully modular, FDB fan with Zero RPM fan mode, analog PSU, but with monitoring. All Japanese caps. Rated at 50°C.
• HX: Platinum efficiency, fully modular, FDB fan with Zero RPM fan mode, analog PSU w/o monitoring, but a switch to choose between single and multiple +12V rail. All Japanese caps. Rated at 50°C
• RMi: Gold efficiency, fully modular, FDB fan with Zero RPM fan mode, analog PSU, but with monitoring. All Japanese caps. Rated at 50°C
• RMx: Gold efficiency, fully modular, rifle bearing fan with Zero RPM fan mode. All Japanese caps. Rated at 50°C. From here on down, all of the PSUs are analog without any kind of monitoring or control via Corsair Link or iCUE.
• TX-M: Gold efficiency, semi-modular, rifle bearing fan w/o Zero RPM fan mode. All Japanese caps. Rated at 50°C
• RM (new): Gold efficiency, fully modular, rifle bearing fan with Zero RPM fan mode. Supports new Modern Standby Mode and meets new 2% efficiency requirement of 70%. No Japanese caps. Rated at 40°C.
• Vengeance Silver: 80 PLUS Silver efficiency, semi-modular, rifle bearing fan with Zero RPM fan mode. Has a switch to choose between single and multiple +12V rail. All Japanese caps. Rated at 40°C.
• CX: Bronze efficiency, non-modular, rifle bearing fan. Only Japanese bulk cap. Rated at 40°C.
• CX-M: Bronze efficiency, semi-modular, rifle bearing fan. This and the VS are the only Corsair PSUs that aren't LLC and have a double forward front end. That said, CX-M at least has DC to DC for the +3.3V and +5V. Only Japanese bulk cap. Rated at 40°C.
• CV650:  New.  Bronze efficiency, double forward with DC to DC for the +3.3V and +5V.
• CV: Simply nothing more than VS (see next bullet), but with Bronze efficiency. Sleeve bearing fan, no Jap caps, double forward, group regulated.
• VS: Regular 80 PLUS efficiency. Non-modular. Sleeve bearing fan. No Japanese caps. Rated at 30°C. Double forward and no DC to DC (group regulated).

SFX PSUs:

 

Corsair SFX PUSs are true SFX form factor and not the "unofficial" SFX-L form factor.  They also come with very short cables because they're made for ITX builds.

 

• SF Platinum:  80 PLUS Platinum, fully modular, rifle bearing fan.
• SF Gold:  80 PLUS Gold, fully modular, rifle bearing fan.

 

Older versions of the series names currently in production (the series has been updated, but they use the same name):

 

• AXi: Used to be a full line of Platinum digital power supplies with DBB fans.
• AX: Used to be Platinum and before that Gold efficiency and with DBB fans. The original Gold AX was Corsair's first fully modular Gold PSU.
• HX: Corsair's original PSU series. It was originally 80 PLUS, then Bronze, then Gold. It used to be semi-modular and always had a DBB fan until the most recent Platinum version.
• TX and TX-M: Use to be a semi-modular unit with Bronze efficiency. Totally overbuilt for a Bronze PSU and therefore too expensive. DBB fan.
• RM: Prior to the most recent RM and before the RMx and RMi, It only had a Japanese bulk cap and was only rated at 40°C. It did have an I2C connector that reported +12V rail load and fan speed to Corsair LINK. This was also the first Corsair PSU to use an MCU to incorporate a Zero RPM fan mode.  Prior to this, an analog controller was used in both the AX Gold and second generation GS that was problematic due to using only temperature to determine if the fan should spin or not.
• Vengeance Bronze: 80 PLUS Bronze efficiency. Came in fixed cable and semi-modular versions. Rifle bearing fan w/o Zero RPM fan mode. All Japanese caps. Rated at 40°C. Replaced by Vengeance Silver.

Completely discontinued series (not made any more and series names not reused):

 

• CS-M: Gold efficiency, semi-modular, rifle bearing fan w/o Zero RPM fan mode. Only Japanese bulk cap. Rated at 40°C. Replaced by TX-M.
• GS: Very similar feature-wise to CX-M (same topology, etc.) but with an R- G- B- fan that could be changed with a push button on the housing.  There were two generations of this PSU.  The first was just 80 PLUS efficienct.  The second was 80 PLUS Bronze and had a crude, analog version of a zero RPM fan mode.
• VX: Was cheaper than HX, but still built like a tank and too expensive, so it didn't last long in the market.

[OrionFOTL]

15 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

RM: Prior to the most recent RM and before the RMx and RMi, the original RM was Corsair's first fully modular Gold PSU.

Corsair AX Gold was Corsair's first fully modular Gold PSU.

 

15 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

RM: [...] This was also the first Corsair PSU to have a Zero RPM fan mode.

Corsair AX Gold was the first Corsair PSU to have a semi-passive fan, Corsair GS V2 had it as well before RM.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, OrionFOTL said:

Corsair AX Gold was Corsair's first fully modular Gold PSU.

 

Corsair AX Gold was the first Corsair PSU to have a semi-passive fan, Corsair GS V2 had it as well before RM.

You're right.  I completely forgot about the gold version of AX.

 

And I (want to) forget about the semi-passive fan in the AX Gold and GS V2 because they were strictly analog controllers, controlling based on temperature alone, and would do an annoying pulsating if your PSU was at a temperature right between the fan being off and needing to be on.

 

[Deli]

And the SF series?

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, Deli said:

And the SF series?

Small form factor. Generally quite well regarded among SFF PSUs

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Deli said:

And the SF series?

Yeah.  I only listed the ATX stuff.

[Juular]

Are Corsair NR135L fans in RMx 2015 and HXi identical (FDB) ? Or old RMx is rifle-bearing too ?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Juular said:

Are Corsair NR135L fans in RMx 2015 and HXi identical (FDB) ? Or old RMx is rifle-bearing too ?

HXi doesn't have an NR135L fan.

 

[Juular]

44 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

HXi doesn't have an NR135L fan.

Nevermind, i swear I've seen it in the review, apparently I'm blind lol.

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, Juular said:

Nevermind, i swear I've seen it in the review, apparently I'm blind lol.

P = Panasonic. 

 

[Juular]

7 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

P = Panasonic. 

L - Yate Loon ?

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Juular said:

L - Yate Loon ?

"long life sleeve" 

[frozensun]

Since I'm engineer I particulary don't like semi-passive mode on any component.

It's not good for any fan to start-stop-start-stop fan should either work or not,so it's a lot likely pron to fail when in semi passive mode.

and all this FBB,RBB,BBB fans is to me just marketing,I remember PSU's back in 90's who had like maybe 2 $ fan and they still work inside my good old Pentium 2.

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, frozensun said:

Since I'm engineer I particulary don't like semi-passive mode on any component.

It's not good for any fan to start-stop-start-stop fan should either work or not,so it's a lot likely pron to fail when in semi passive mode.

and all this FBB,RBB,BBB fans is to me just marketing,I remember PSU's back in 90's who had like maybe 2 $ fan and they still work inside my good old Pentium 2.

Well, if I ever needed an engineer in Bosnia, you're off the list. 

 

It's 2020 and components have gotten a lot more efficient.  They don't generate a lot of heat and therefore do not need a lot of active cooling.  Mind you, it's usually the Gold and higher efficiency PSUs that get the semi-passive cooling.

 

And there is no difference between a fan starting and stopping versus a fan ramping up and down.  You're still changing the current to the motor.  And with the Corsair fans (after 2015 that is) an MCU was used for the fan controller which allowed a hysteresis to be programmed in that prevent the fan from "pulsing" when on the precipice of either a temperature or load trigger.  The fan will spin for 20 minutes once activated to bring temperature low enough to prevent it from starting up again any time soon.

 

And there is quite a difference between fan bearings.  Though I don't know what FBB, RBB and BBB means.  I can tell you that a sleeve, rifle bearing, FDB and DBB are quite different.  But don't take my word for it.  There are PLENTY of data sheets out there with MTBF numbers that show there is a difference.

 

You can also check this out:  https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supplies-101,4193-18.html

 

[frozensun]

1 hour ago, jonnyGURU said:

Well, if I ever needed an engineer in Bosnia, you're off the list. 

 

It's 2020 and components have gotten a lot more efficient.  They don't generate a lot of heat and therefore do not need a lot of active cooling.  Mind you, it's usually the Gold and higher efficiency PSUs that get the semi-passive cooling.

 

And there is no difference between a fan starting and stopping versus a fan ramping up and down.  You're still changing the current to the motor.  And with the Corsair fans (after 2015 that is) an MCU was used for the fan controller which allowed a hysteresis to be programmed in that prevent the fan from "pulsing" when on the precipice of either a temperature or load trigger.  The fan will spin for 20 minutes once activated to bring temperature low enough to prevent it from starting up again any time soon.

 

And there is quite a difference between fan bearings.  Though I don't know what FBB, RBB and BBB means.  I can tell you that a sleeve, rifle bearing, FDB and DBB are quite different.  But don't take my word for it.  There are PLENTY of data sheets out there with MTBF numbers that show there is a difference.

 

You can also check this out:  https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supplies-101,4193-18.html

 

As I told you,I really don't care if the fans inside my PSU or even desktop PC or CPU cooler are DBB,FDB or RBB if they will work 40 000 h or 50 000 hours....who cares?

At that period of time 90 % of users will replace PC nad because always new components come probably replace PSU,CPU cooler and so on.

Jonny yes for sure you are good in testing PSU,you are maybe electircal engineer but I'm industrial engineer and I had fans like 2 meters in diameter inside plants who work with 200 Amps of current,and these fans inside PSU to me are just a joke...

I'm not electric engineer but not single component including PC doesn't like to be turned OFF and ON like 50 x a day.

Do that to PC every day and you will probably end up with dead one in a month.

How everything worked in 90's?If you are old like me,then you probably know that we had cheap Chinese PSU and we didn't care what type of fan it has,so all this is bullshit to me..

And in case I ever need new PSU I'll probably ask Linus not you

[boghubodaghi]

On 5/24/2020 at 2:07 AM, frozensun said:

As I told you,I really don't care if the fans inside my PSU or even desktop PC or CPU cooler are DBB,FDB or RBB if they will work 40 000 h or 50 000 hours....who cares?

At that period of time 90 % of users will replace PC nad because always new components come probably replace PSU,CPU cooler and so on.

Jonny yes for sure you are good in testing PSU,you are maybe electircal engineer but I'm industrial engineer and I had fans like 2 meters in diameter inside plants who work with 200 Amps of current,and these fans inside PSU to me are just a joke...

I'm not electric engineer but not single component including PC doesn't like to be turned OFF and ON like 50 x a day.

Do that to PC every day and you will probably end up with dead one in a month.

How everything worked in 90's?If you are old like me,then you probably know that we had cheap Chinese PSU and we didn't care what type of fan it has,so all this is bullshit to me..

And in case I ever need new PSU I'll probably ask Linus not you

Sorry for bumping in this old thread but no, electric motors can turn off and turn on constantly depending on its design. Again, depending on the design. My Honda motor scooter shuts off when idling on 3 seconds and will fire back on when I throttle, so it's not limited to small power electric motors either. Also don't play on the anecdotal evidence card. So either you're joking or completely ignorant.

 

And go ask Linus for a new PSU, he'll probably give you one.

 

@jonnyGURU Can you add more PSUs, especially in the "Older versions of the series names currently in production" section? Including but not limited to:

High end PSUs: AXi 1500 (The only one made by flextronics and Titanium efficiency on 2013 lineup) and Old Gold Rated AX1200 (also the only one by flextronics, together with seasonic made ones)

Mid Range PSUs: CWT made HX Silver (I believe stylized as professional series or maybe HX V2?, released alongside the Bronze rated, lesser wattage units) and TX units that were non-80 plus rated from 2008 

Low End PSUs: Group regulated, CWT based CX units that was once Bronze rated (2012?) and previously White (2010? and maybe an earlier version from 2007-8 because the 2010 version was dubbed "V2"?, not sure, I am too young to remember any of those) and Old VS that I believe only has 230V input

 

I know they're mostly discontinued units, but I think it's good to add just for the education. And just while you're reading this, is there any difference between grey label VS PSUs that have "50"W wattage behind them and with the one with "00"W?

[Algebruh]

Hydrodynamic bearings do wear on starting up and shutting down.

Well, at least that's what the textbook/paper said. plz don't kill me ._.

 

 

 

[Juular]

31 minutes ago, ThiccSmough said:

Hydrodynamic bearings do wear on starting up and shutting down.

I don't think that wear in startup/shutdown phase on hydrodynamic bearing would be worse than in plain sleeve/rifle bearing during normal operation tho. And MTBF of real HDB fans being around 150-200k hours IIRC vs ~30k hours on plain sleeve or 50-70k hours on rifle kinda confirms that it's working fine.

[Algebruh]

7 minutes ago, Juular said:

I don't think that wear in startup/shutdown phase on hydrodynamic bearing would be worse than in plain sleeve/rifle bearing during normal operation tho. And MTBF of real HDB fans being around 150-200k hours IIRC vs ~30k hours on plain sleeve or 50-70k hours on rifle kinda confirms that it's working fine.

Perhaps it is true, but I don't think it really matters.

If the fan in psu breaks down within warranty period, just RMA the psu.

[Juular]

8 minutes ago, ThiccSmough said:

If the fan in psu breaks down within warranty period, just RMA the psu.

Yeah, except you don't want to wait until your PSU would be shipped to the nearest manufacturer service center, it's inspection and then shipping you replacement back. Personally i would rather want my PSU fan to just continue working for entire warranty period and don't bother with all that, in any case if the fan would fail then i'll just replace it if the unit itself is still fine but i can't do that if it's still under warranty.

[Gorgon]

On 3/27/2020 at 10:07 PM, Guest said:

They used to have a page on Corsair.com with a table that showed all of the features of each Corsair PSU and how they differ. It's not there anymore... or it's well hidden.

It's still there - just hasn't been updated since 2016