Corsair AX1500i Power Supply Review
by E. Fylladitakis on September 11, 2014 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- PSUs
- 1500W
Hot Test Results
From the tables below, we can see that the output power quality of the Corsair AX1500i is simply setting new performance records. Our instrumentation recorded a maximum ripple of just 16mV on the 12V line under maximum load, while drawing 107.2 Amperes from it! Cross loading the voltage lines had virtually zero effect on the stability of the unit, courtesy of the dual LLC PSU design we mentioned in the Internal Design section. Finally, the voltage regulation is remarkable, with the worst and best results being 0.5% and a mere 0.15% on the 5V and 12V lines, respectively!
| Main Output | ||||||||
| Load (Watts) | 300.98 W | 751.78 W | 1126.37 W | 1501.55 W | ||||
| Load (Percent) | 20.07% | 50.12% | 75.09% | 100.1% | ||||
| Line | Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts |
| 3.3 V | 5.15 | 3.34 | 12.86 | 3.34 | 19.3 | 3.33 | 25.73 | 3.33 |
| 5 V | 5.15 | 5.02 | 12.86 | 5.02 | 19.3 | 5 | 25.73 | 4.99 |
| 12 V | 21.44 | 12.03 | 53.6 | 12.02 | 80.4 | 12.01 | 107.2 | 12.01 |
| Line |
Regulation (20% to 100% load) |
Voltage Ripple (mV) | |||||
| 20% Load | 50% Load | 75% Load | 100% Load |
CL1 12V |
CL2 3.3V + 5V |
||
| 3.3V | 0.4% | 6 | 10 | 12 | 12 | 4 | 8 |
| 5V | 0.5% | 4 | 6 | 10 | 12 | 6 | 10 |
| 12V | 0.15% | 6 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 14 | 6 |
High ambient temperature have a miniscule impact on the energy conversion efficiency of the Corsair AX1500i, reducing the average nominal load (20-100%) efficiency down to 94.6% and the maximum efficiency of the PSU to 96.5%. The overall efficiency drop is a mere 0.3% percent over a temperature rise of 25°C, which is simply amazing, displaying both the effectiveness of the design and the quality of the active components. As such, the conversion losses remained nearly unaffected despite the much higher ambient temperature.
Overall, the behavior of the cooling system inside our hot box was similar to our "cool" testing results, with the sole exception being that the fan turns on at a much lower load than before. It also gets noticeably louder, but considering the massive power output, the AX1500i did not get hot at all, suggesting that the thermal control circuit is programmed to maintain low operating temperatures under any circumstance. We would be hard-pressed to find such low temperature readings even in reviews of units with half the capacity of the AX1500i.
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Homeles - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
The internals of that PSU are simply gorgeous. Can't wait to get my EE degree and help design something like that.quick brown fox - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
As somebody who has previously worked for a power supply company (not these ATX form factors though), designing very high efficiency PSUs like these is hard as HELL. You're not going to enjoy designing and testing these when all you're missing is that +1% efficiency for certification purposes.Samus - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
It's always useful that this thing doubles as a jump starter for my car...rickon66 - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
Electric welding anyone?DanNeely - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
Even small benchtop welders need double the power of something like this. Bigger free standing models start at needing a 50A-220V circuit for input (and presumably go up from there).davidgirgis - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
Dream Computer:Caselabs Magnum TX10-D
2x Corsair AX1500i
Asus X99-E WS
Intel Core i7-5960X
64 GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 2800 MHz
4x EVGA GeForce GTX Titan Black Hydro Copper
Creative Sound Blaster ZxR
512 GB Plextor M6e M.2
8x 1TB Samsung 850 Pro in RAID 0
Digistor 5.25" Blu-ray Burner Slot-Load
Accessories:
3x 27" Asus ROG Swift
nVidia 3D Vision 2
Corsair Vengeance K70 RGB
Mad Catz R.A.T. Tournament Edition
Razer Invicta
Razer Oberweaver
Turtle Beach Ear Force XP Seven
Logitech Z906
Microsoft Xbox One Wireless Controller
Thrustmaster T500 RS GT5 Wheel
Thrustmaster TH8 RS Shifter
Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog
Water Cooling:
EK-Supremacy EVO Elite Edition
4x EK-CoolStream RAD XTX 480
2x EK-RES X3 400
2x Swiftech MCP655
2x Bitspower pump mod kit
Bitspower XStation
xx Bitspower Black Sparkle Fittings
2x Bitspower tap drainage
4x Bitspower mid-loop temperature sensors
2x Bitspower Flow-Meter
xx Blacknoise Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilent Pro fans
Aquacomputer Aquaero 6 XT Fan Controller
Rigid Acrylic Tubing
Coolant
Some Lights
Dr.Neale - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
AeroCool Dead Silence fans (available in black, or with red, white, or blue LEDs, in 120mm or 140mm) would be better.Dr.Neale - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
P.S. They are available at www.FrozenCPU.com FYI.fluxtatic - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
Enjoy losing 8TB of data when one of your SSDs flakes out.Phillip Wager - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
wow this is really tempting to pick up just to be compleatly fanless at around 600 watts or less! that justification enough to pick up a $350 dollar power supply thats 3x the power than i'll ever need right? .........right??