Corsair AX1500i - The Best Enthusiast Power Supply. Period.
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,993 words · ~9 min read
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so here it is folks arguably the best
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power supply in the world the ax 1500i
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from Corsair is winning recommendations and editors choice awards all over the
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place including the first ever perfect 10 out of 10 at my favorite power supply
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review site johnnyguru.com and the reason goes far
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beyond its 80 plus titanium efficiency
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rating
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a global leader in tech recruiting is celebrating geek pride by giving away 10
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amazing tech prizes for more info visit the modis facebook page or modis.com
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but what's 80 plus titanium Linus i've never heard of that before let alone
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seen a product with that sticker on the box great question 80 plus certification
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showed up back when very little attention was being paid to the
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relatively low efficiency of power supplies at the time something that
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caused pcs to output more heat and consume more electricity it started out
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as a quick and dirty certification that promised a power supply would be at
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least 80 percent efficient at low medium and full load so 20 50 and 100
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since then even though the atx 2.2 specification only requires efficiency
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in the 65 to 70 range performance power
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supply makers have continued to strive for greater and greater efficiency 80
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plus titanium is currently the highest bar to strive for and requires
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efficiency of 90 92 94 and 90
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at loads of 10 20 50 and 100 respectively aside from the
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debatable importance of titanium versus platinum gold or silver efficiency from
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a power bill savings perspective though one amazing thing about this unit is
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that due to its efficiency it can actually deliver its entire capacity off
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of a normal 15 amp circuit so you don't have to get a fancy high current outlet
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installed in your house just to max out your power supply like what we've seen
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in the past efficiency isn't the only story when it comes to performance
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though some 80 plus power supplies are efficient but suffer from poor voltage
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regulation and excessive ripple which can cause instability and damage or even
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destroy your other components in the long term not an issue here though even
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though low ripple and strong voltage regulation are more difficult to achieve
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with higher capacity power supply units Corsair's use of a state-of-the-art dsp
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allows the ax1500i to dynamically manage its own performance to achieve a no
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compromises experience for its users and you also get to use Corsair link to
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monitor power in power out efficiency although i suppose they just derived
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that from the first two fan speed temperatures and even send yourself
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emails if any of those things go out of whack neither physically the first thing
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i noticed taking the unit out of this box is how large it is at 224
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millimeters long it's the biggest power supply that i've ever used and one of
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the biggest i've ever seen make sure if you're planning to buy one that there's
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room in your case for not only the unit but also the modular cables that need to
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stick out at the end of it the sides are unadorned save for the Corsair ax
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branding and on the top you won't find much of anything other than a simple
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sticker with a breakdown of how much of the unit's total capacity can be
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delivered on each of the main rails as well as the usual safety certifications
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of note here is that the entire 1500
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watt capacity can be delivered on the 12 volt rail set sail for graphics card
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city am i right the fan on the bottom is a custom 140 millimeter unit with a
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fluid dynamic bearing and a blade design that is optimized for maximum airflow at
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low noise levels i mean honestly though i don't know why anyone bothers putting
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this on their fan packaging anymore isn't that about like saying a car is
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optimized for maximum power with great fuel economy i mean who is optimizing
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their fans for minimum airflow at maximum noise levels
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anyway that's not the main selling point of the fan for me anyway i'm more
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interested in the fact that it doesn't even turn on
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until around 30 percent load so your power supply can be kicking out 400 plus
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watts of power and be running completely
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fanlessly silent neat at the back is a honeycomb grille a
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standby switch and that unusual larger c19 power cord socket and then finally
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on the opposite end we've got the modular interface with a whopping 19
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connectors with varying levels of usefulness the normal stuff is here 24
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pin connector six peripheral connectors that can be used to connect a total of
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24 SATA and molex devices with five quad
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data cables and three quad molex cables included in the box we've got two spots
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for eight pin CPU connectors and what wait a minute
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that's ten eight pin sockets that can be used to
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connect up to ten pci express eight pin
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connectors and two eps eight pin connectors at the same time more on that
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in a moment uh wrapping things up back here we've got a self-test button a usb
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port for Corsair link software monitoring and another monitoring port
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all right so back to those PCIe connectors Corsair includes a great
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variety of ribbon style flat black PCIe cables to accommodate almost any kind of
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configuration you've got four standard length single six plus twos two longer
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single six plus twos and then two double six plus twos which are fine for most
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cards that have two connectors to reduce cable clutter so you're just running one
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cable but don't try to use those ones on
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an r9 295 x2 you'll want to run two
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separate cables for that because it consumes so much power now
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i wouldn't have minded Corsair mixing things up a little bit in terms of the
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variety of the other included cables maybe a couple of dual satas or like a
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variation or two with tighter spacing between the connectors or something like
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that but this is a very minor complaint and overall the modular cables included
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give you a lot of flexibility in terms of cable management when building your
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pc no matter what kind of case you're using and they look absolutely fantastic
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with every single one of them not just the pci express ones but even the 24 pin
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being that flat ribbon style with all
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black wires very very nice now
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i'm going to break tradition a little bit here and do the conclusion of this
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video before the actual end so stay tuned to find out why but here it goes
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do you need this power supply no of
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course not whatever it can do there are other less
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expensive ways to do that's it that's all there is to it but
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do you want this power supply
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the fact that you're still watching this video would indicate that perhaps you do
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and not entirely without cause yes there
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are other ways to deliver 1500 watts of power to a pc but they lack the elegance
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sex appeal and sheer technological wow factor of this one so there you have it
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it's the best and it comes with a price tag to match but at least you get a 7
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year warranty this sweet cloth bag and
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a case badge that you can stick to your case with pride because you officially
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have a 224 millimeter epeen
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you can't even see what i'm doing but i think you guys know what it is but of
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course you didn't come to Linus tech tips to hear about my decades of
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experience as an electrical engineer and see a detailed teardown of the power
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supply nope we're going to be doing a packaging test as a follow-up to my ever
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popular test on the ax 1200i where i threw it out of a moving vehicle but
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this time we're upping the ante this is the aptly named 400 yard water balloon
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launcher from bam launcher picked this up on amazon and uh
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we are going to be flinging a power supply with it so i've got my lovely
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assistants luke and nick the power supply is in here we are going to show
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you the power supply when we're done with this but uh the point of this
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exercise is uh let's just we haven't tried this before
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so you'll have to just bear with us we're on the roof here
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are you guys good yeah
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oh that's unfortunate
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so it's not really designed for power supplies and more for water balloons but
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i think still think it performed admirably
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given the circumstances
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you can see that the uh folded over marketing flap didn't actually fare that
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well in the in the fall and the oh wow yeah the outer carton in
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general is just kind of coming apart here in fact the inner carton
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is having a little bit of trouble here as well but
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let's go ahead and so the point of this is
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you know what you're going to spend a bunch of money on a super you know
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high-end power supply you want to make sure that when it arrives you're actually going to be powering up your
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rig with it as opposed to dealing with shipping damage rma so
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you can see here the cables themselves
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immaculate
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the power supply in it's okay my cat chewed on it but other than
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that pristine soft foam
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totally not damaged capable of handling
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multiple falls and the power supply itself
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once again Corsair's packaging exceeds
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no loose parts my expectations in fact a lot of the internals of this power
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supply if you even check out in there are actually like glued in or siliconed
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in so i was i was pretty confident it was gonna survive but of course
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falling from this kind of a height or wherever it fell from eyes there's no
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guarantees all right guys so if you enjoyed that kind of goofing around then i've got
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great news we have officially named our
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new toys games and challenges channel so if you want to see more of it you can
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head over to Channel Super Fun linked in the video description and subscribe
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there our first video firing actual
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water balloons with our launcher will be coming soon and we've got lots of great
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stuff lined up including an automatic gumball machine some sweet rubber band
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guns and much much more
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so be excited for that or or don't
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but if you're not excited for it then probably don't subscribe or maybe
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subscribe anyway and then give us a chance to win you over and if you don't
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like it you can always unsubscribe but one way or another the usual link to
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pricing and availability for the ax 1500i is in the video description below
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the like dislike and share buttons which you should use accordingly also in the
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video description is a support link where you can buy a t-shirt just like
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this one actually we've got these ones and when stealth back in stock now so
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thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe
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