Corsair VX450W Power Supply

The VX450W from Corsair touts itself as a low noise and high efficiency 450 watt power supply. Corsair claims the VX450W produces 21db of noise under all but the heaviest loads (not much more than the sound of a whisper at three feet away), and will remain over 80% efficiency over its entire range. They call the VX450W a rock solid performer and ideal solution for home theater PCs (HTPCs) and Energy Star PCs (we read this as mainstream and budget).

Oh really?  Well, we shall see about that.

Features

The VX450W comes dressed in a black powder coat with nice green and black Corsair badging. The 120mm fan on the underside sports a black fan grill. Corsair must figure black is in these days – after all, "it matches everything." The back exhaust grill is stamped out in honeycomb mesh - a nice touch. You won't be embarrassed to have it sitting in your rig.

Accessory wise, there isn't much. A few zip ties (good thing too, because this isn't a modular unit), four mounting screws, a pretty Corsair badge for your case, and a neat cloth(ish) drawstring bag. It's something, but Corsair isn't breaking the bank. Our "mandatory includes" are a manual and a specification panel on the PSU. The manual and panel are both present with the VX450W and the specification panel numbers matched what was printed on the box. Good start, but a few extras would have been nice.

Speaking of panel numbers, the VX450W is pretty well balanced in what it claims to deliver.  A modest game box that is 12V hungry has close to 400 watts available on the 12V rail.  On the other hand, if you have a productivity rig with a good deal of USB powered peripherals, you have about 100 watts of power to play with (that's over 3 dozen USB devices @ 500mA each) and you will still have plenty of wattage around for the 12V and 3.3V rails.

Specification Panel Information:

Cables, Connections, and Dimensions:

The VX450W comes with eight separate wiring harnesses each sleeved from tip to toe in black nylon mesh (you get the feeling the VX450W is looking for a date?). The sleeving not only looks great, it helps to keep tangling down. We've seen other PSUs in this class that only sleeve selected harnesses or only part of a harnes. It's nice to see the extra mile on the VX450W and it truly helps in cable management, particularly sans the modular cabling.

For the computer class this PSU is designed for, the available connectors are adequate. The 24 pin connector comes apart for use on a 20 pin mother board. This is important because the VX450W is exactly the class of power supply you might be looking at to replace a burned PSU in an older system.

Some of the cables may be a few inches shorter than one might see in a larger PSU, which could present a cabling problem in some full tower setups with clean cabling in mind.  All the modern standard connections are there plus the legacy floppy connectors.  If you need more, you likely need a larger PSU.

The dimensions of the VX450W are 5.9" x 3.5" x 5.5". This within the 12VATX 2.2 standard, meaning this PSU will fit in any standard case. Again, this is a plus considering this PSU may be used as a replacement part. The VX450W weighs in at 4 lbs 1.2 oz. A modest heft, but it's a modest PSU.

In the Belly of the Beast:

Just as we were intrigued on what those comic book x-ray vision goggles could offer, we like to open up our PSUs and look at them (we are odd like that). This doesn't typically impact our scoring or recommendations - unless of course something is very unusual.  Our main curiosity is component quality and discovering if the unit has been rebadged.

NOTE: Opening up a PSU not only voids your warranty, but also presents a serious health risk. Even after turning off and unplugging a unit, there can be enough charge stored to fatally shock anyone poking around inside. Regardless of what you may have heard about “draining” circuitry and other methods of discharging a PSU, these are simply risk reducers – not risk eliminators.  In short, let us at HardwareLogic be the ones to stand in a bucket of water while snapping shots of the internal componentry, and keep the cover on at home.

We figured Corsair likely had someone else build this PSU and badge it for them, a very common practice in the world of power supplies.  Upon opening, our suspicions grew. The heatsink design is similar to that used by Seasonic.  And then there is the fan…

Not only is it the same brand you can find in Seasonic PSUs, it's the same model - A71GL.  Of course, a quick look at similar reviews on the web confirmed that we are not alone in pinning this PSU as a Seasonic made rebadge.  Nothing wrong with this, as Seasonic makes good quality PSUs.  The UL number (E307858) is listed as belonging to Corsair, which means Corsair most likely paid a fee to associate their name with it.  Regardless, the VX450W appears to be a quality unit.

Note the 330uF, 400V, 105°C main cap.  That's not a cheapo part - they could have skimped, but didn't.  Nice to see.

The PCB is dated September 2006.  We like to look at this to see if the design is old. 2006 is fine, but 2004 would have raised an eyebrow.  The ATX400W label can be misleading.  Other labeling indicated the PCB was designed for 400 to 550 watt PSUs.  That's just what the VX450W is.