Why you can trust Tom's Hardware
Affordable power supplies can achieve high performance and more than decent efficiency levels. Corsair's CX650 is definite proof of this. The sample that we tested uses a Great Wall platform featuring a modern design, given its price tag. The topology used in this power supply is the same used in the high-end category, and the same goes for the LLC resonant converter on the primary side, and the synchronous rectification of the 12V rail and the DC-DC converters that generate the minor rails.
The build quality is quite good, also. Don't expect to find fully Japanese caps, but Corsair's engineers selected all parts wisely. They managed to keep the cost at normal levels and achieve the highest possible reliability. After all, this product is supported by a five-year warranty and has a 40-degree Celsius temperature rating.
The Corsair CX650 is a good power supply that will easily support a mid-range system. If it had a second EPS connector or at least an ATX12V connector, it could support power-hungry CPUs as well since it would be compatible with all high-end mainboards. Corsair should consider this option for a future version of this product. In the US market, according to our sources, only the CWT flavor of the Corsair CX650 is imported, because the GW version suffers from higher tariffs. However, this version should offer very similar performance to the GW-powered model we tested.
MORE: Best Power Supplies
MORE: How We Test Power Supplies
MORE: All Power Supply Content
Disclaimer: Aris Mpitziopoulos is Tom's Hardware's PSU reviewer. He is also the Chief Testing Engineer of Cybenetics and developed the Cybenetics certification methodologies apart from his role on Tom's Hardware. Neither Tom's Hardware nor its parent company, Future PLC, are financially involved with Cybenetics. Aris does not perform the actual certifications for Cybenetics.
Aris Mpitziopoulos is a contributing editor at Tom's Hardware, covering PSUs.
O.MG USB-C cable CT scan reveals sinister active electronics — contains a hidden antenna and another die embedded in the microcontroller
Elon Musk plans to scale the xAI supercomputer to a million GPUs — currently at over 100,000 H100 GPUs and counting
Bitcoin crosses $100,000 milestone as incoming U.S. administration looks increasingly crypto-friendly
-
mdd1963 Lots of folks 'poo-poo' some of Corsair's PSU offerings, instead flocking to something w/Gold or Platinum in it'/s title, no matter the 150% price increase, and/or the 430W 'only' capacity...Reply
I've been happily using a Corsair 600 watt PSU (CX600) which cost me all of $55 or so in Feb 2017 if I recall correctly... ; never a stutter.