Corsair HX1000W Power Supply Review

Output Quality Testing

+3.3V Ripple Testing



+5V Ripple Testing



+12V Ripple Testing


First of all let us say that we were once again floored by how well the Corsair HX1000W performed from one end of our test suite to the other and this was borne out once again in our output quality tests. While all of the results were more than acceptable, we were most impressed by the +12V ripple tests where even with it outputting copious amounts of power, the HX1000W kept the traces below 35mV. All of these tests go to prove that Corsair has an extremely well-built power supply on their hands.

A little mention should be made about the sudden decrease in ripple seen on the +3.3V rail chart during the GPU Load test. We believe this is happening because the game used does not put much load on the RAM (through lower CPU usage than in the CPU Load test)and thus not much load on the +3.3V rail either.


Acoustical Performance

Before we get too far into this section I would like you to hearken back to the original Corsair Fan Speed chart which was posted way back in the review. It showed that at loads up to 500W, the Yate Loon fan would spin at a constant speed producing about 24dB. Then, since the fan is load controlled, as the user increases their demands on the unit, the fan would naturally increase its speed as well in order to keep the heat generated by the interior components under control.

In our tests, we experienced a situation exactly like the chart showed where through the Idle, CPU Load and GPU Load tests the fan stayed completely inaudible over the system fans we were using. However, as we progressed to the Full System Stress Test the fan’s speed picked up to the point where it produced a very muted “whoosh” sound which couldn’t be heard over the racket the two HD2900XT cards put out. The same can be said for the Extreme Load test where the Yate Loon seemed to be spinning for all it was worth but it still couldn’t drown out the annoying drone of our graphics cards.

So, all in all we believe that as load increases so to will the noise of your GPU fans and CPU fans which will both completely drown out literally any noise this power supply can produce. All in all, if you are running a higher-end system you should be more worried about the assault on your senses the graphics card will provide rather than worrying about the audibility of the HX1000W. It really is a quiet power supply.