Introduction
It appears as if Corsair has been releasing more high-end power supplies than RAM modules during the past few months. It was only a few weeks ago that we reviewed the currently most powerful power supply Corsair offers, the AX1200, and the exceptional TX850 V2. Today we are going to examine and review a unit in between those two, their Professional Series HX1050 modular power supply.
Manufacturer’s features and specifications
- Guaranteed to sustain its full rated wattage at an ambient temperature of 50°C
- Up to 88% energy-efficiency under real-world load conditions
- Single +12V rail design providing up to 87.5A
- Multi-GPU ready
- Active Power Factor Correction (PFC) with PF value of 0.99
- Supports ATX12V 2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 standards. Backwards compatible with ATX12V 2.01
- Auto switching circuitry for universal AC input from 90-264V
- Over Current/Voltage/Power Protection, Under Voltage Protection and Short Circuit Protection provide complete component safety
- Dimensions: 150mm(W) x 86mm(H) x 180mm(L)
- MTBF: 100,000 hours
- Safety Approvals: UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TÜV, CCC, C-tick
Packaging and Bundle
The HX1050 comes inside a large, sturdy cardboard box. The box is well designed and focuses on the most important features of the unit. Strangely, the picture of the unit on the box is not perfectly accurate (the fan grill has metallic rings which are missing).
Inside the package, the power supply is very well secured between Styrofoam pieces and is enclosed inside a black pouch instead of a standard bubble bag, which pouch you can reuse for any purpose you see fit.
The bundle is relatively poor for a power supply unit of such a class. Except from the black pouch which protects the PSU and the bag which contains the modular cables, you will only receive a standard A/C power cable, several small black cable ties, black screws, a case badge with the company logo and a basic manual. There are no cable straps or other accessories included.
All of the modular cables come inside a simple but effective bag. The SATA and peripheral power cables are not sleeved but they are ‘flat’, entirely black cables. The thicker cables are entirely black but sleeved as well.
The unit's exterior
Corsair sprayed the HX1050 with the same serious looking, matte black paint which they are using on most of their power supply products. The chassis of the power supply is a little longer than what the ATX design guide dictates, being slightly over 180mm long.
The decorative stickers with the unit’s model and the company logo which Corsair always uses can be seen at both sides of the HX1050. The stickers of the HX1050 are mostly black with a few sky blue accents.
The sticker with the unit's electrical specifications and approvals can be found at the top side of the unit.
The rear is entirely perforated to allow for the air pushed by the cooling fan to escape towards the outside of the case. The unit uses a standard AC power cable and there is an oversized rocker on/off switch at the rear.
At the front we can see the numerous connectors for the modular cables. The black connectors are for the SATA/Molex power cables while the blue connectors are for the PCIe and 12V CPU cables. Only tiny labels are printed to indicate what each set of connectors is for. This unit offers the following number of connectors:
Note that you cannot use all 4 PCIe modular cables and the modular 12V CPU connector at the same time!
The unit's interior
Corsair entrusted the cooling of their HX1050 unit to a 140mm fan made by Yate Loon, the same fan found cooling most of their high end models. The fan’s model number is D14BH-12 and it is a ball bearing fan with a maximum rotational speed of 2800RPM.
The OEM of the HX1050 power supply is CWT (Channel Well Technology), the same company who made the HX1000 which this unit is replacing. The base design of the HX1050 is entirely different than the one of the older HX1000, which essentially was two 500W units working in parallel inside the same casing. The HX1050 is a single, “true” 1050W power supply.
The filtering stage of the HX1050 is very good, consisting of four Y-type capacitors, two X-type capacitors, two ferrite coils and a surge suppressing MOV.
The two primary capacitors are extremely high quality Panasonic capacitors, rated 470μF/450V at 105C. Nippon Chemi-Con supplied all of the secondary capacitors.
The primary rectifiers are installed on their own dedicated and sizeable heatsink. The rest of the heatsinks found in this power supply appear to be unusually small, even considering the high electrical efficiency of the power supply.
This power supply generates and regulates only a single 12V line. The low voltage 3.3V and 5V rails are derived from DC to DC conversion modules.
Testing equipment and performance
In order to provide you with the most professional and accurate reviews, we are using the following equipment to test the performance of power supplies:
- Modified SECC steel case with thermal generation and control components installed
- Custom USB controlled DC load, 2.2KW maximum power drain
- 3KVA VARIAC
- Lutron DW-6091 Power Analyzer
- USB Instruments Stingray Oscilloscope
- SL-5868P digital sound level meter
- CompuLAB interface
- MyPClab thermal interface
- Labjack U3-HV interface
- Custom calibration box
- Custom software
More information about our testing equipment and methodology can be found in this article.
Power Supply Unit Testing Methodology
The Corsair HX1050 power supply unit successfully completed all of our tests without any operational and/or performance problems. Although the electrical performance of the HX1050 is noticeably lower than that of Corsair’s flagship, the AX1200, it still remains exceptional with the voltage ripple at full load being four times lower than the safe limit.
The HX1050 displayed very high and also exceptionally stable electrical efficiency, peaking at 91.4% under nominal load and sustaining it at over 90% across most of the unit’s load range. This power supply could easily earn an 80Plus Gold certification, which leads us to believe that Corsair purposely avoided it to keep it from giving their AX series any internal competition.
The thermal performance of the HX1050 is good given the high power output of the power supply. Given its high efficiency however, we do feel that larger heatsinks could help with this unit’s thermal performance significantly.
The drawback of using basic heatsinks is reflected on the acoustics performance of the HX1050. It is not very noisy but the acoustics performance is considerably worse than that of the AX1200, a more powerful unit using the exact same cooling fan. Unfortunately the powerful Yate Loon fan has to speed up in order to keep with the increasing cooling demands of the unit as the load increases, increasing the noise output along with it.
Final words and conclusion
Quality (30% of the total score)
Corsair is a company which never compromises quality and the HX1050 is no exception. Both internally and externally the power supply is very well made, with no serious design and/or manufacturing flaws. Internally the build quality of the HX1050 feels slightly lower than that of the more powerful and more expensive AX1200 but CWT’s work is on par with the high class of the unit.
Quality Score 9.5/10
Performance (40% of the total score)
Any enthusiast would love the electrical performance of the HX1050. Voltage ripple is very low and the electrical efficiency of the HX1050 sets the standard for 80Plus Silver certified units. The thermal performance of the HX1050 is very good, although it relies on the powerful cooling fan and consequently the acoustics performance suffers. We cannot claim that the HX1050 is loud but it could do a lot better with some minor improvements.
Performance Score 9.0/10
Value (20% of the total score)
Currently selling for about 230$ USD (about 285$ SGD) at the time of this review, the Corsair HX1050 is certainly not the cheapest 1000-1100W power supply on the market but the balance of the high performance, exceptional quality and the 7-year long manufacturer’s warranty offers very good long term value.
Value Score 9.5/10
Aesthetics (10% of the total score)
The combination of the chassis engravings and stickers, the all-black dark design and the black cables create a futuristic, visually pleasing appearance. Being a modular unit as well, we believe that the HX1050 will become a favorite among enthusiasts who care about the aesthetics of their systems.
Aesthetics Score 9.5/10
PSU Review - Corsair HX1050 1050W
Originally Posted by eXpLoDe
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