Corsair HX Series 620HX 620 Watt Modular Power Supply

Corsair has been offering reliable and high performing power supplies for many years and are now one of the most highly recommended brands around.  Their HX520 and HX620 watt models paved the foundation for their newer series of power supplies.  Today, we are going to take a look at the HX series of power supplies from Corsair. The HX620W is the highest wattage power supply from the HX series (the other model is the 520 watt HX520), and is probably the power supply that put Corsair on the map in the power supply business. Some highlights of this power supply include its 80 Plus certification (84% at 50% load), SLi Ready certification and a five year warranty.

Upon opening the box, you will find the manual, black colored screws, power cable, some zip ties, and a corsair case badge.

The modular cables are colored black and placed in a ribbon formation.  A bag is included for placing unused cables into.

Here are some of the main features and specifications from Corsair's Website:

The Power Supply:

The power supply features a matte black colored housing and fan grill, which looks great.

A sticker with the model number is found on either side of the power supply.

Looking at the top of the power supply, there is a Corsair label with their logo on it, the model number and a condensed specification list.  Note that there are three +12v rails supplying up to 18 Amps each, which is great for peripherals requiring more power such as a multi-core CPU's and/or multiple graphics cards.  The 3.3v supplies up to 24 Amps and the +5v supplies up to 30 Amps. The efficiency is 80 percent or greater at 20%, 50% and 100% loads.

There is an large grill on the back which allows the 120 mm fan to exhaust hot air, an on/off switch and AC Power Input.  This power supply does feature Active PFC, so there is no need for a  switch to select the input voltage.  Note the sticker with the model number on it.

This power supply features the following cables:

This power supply is modular and features five rectangular connectors for the SATA/Molex/Floppy power cables and two square PCI-e power cable connectors.

-A 24-pin ATX power connector with removable 4 pin for backwards 20-pin compatibility.

-An 8-pin +12v EPS Power Connector and a 4-pin +12 CPU power connector

-2x  6+2-Pin PCI-Express Power Connectors.

-10x Molex Power Connectors, with a grip for easy removal from devices

-8x Serial ATA Power Connectors

-2x Floppy Power Connectors via an adaptor that requires one molex power connector

-2x 'Fan Only' connectors via an adaptor, designed for fans that requires a molex power connector

Cooling:

There is a 120mm fan on the bottom of this power supply.  During testing, at idle loads, this fan is quiet, nearly silent, which surprised me and is a great characteristic.  I'm really impressed! With loads, the fan sped up a little bit, making a small whirring sound, but it was still more quiet than some other power supplies at idle loads.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty.

Inside the power supply,  there are two large sparsely finned black heat sinks to cool down the voltage rectifiers.  A smaller silver heatsink beneath one of the large heatsinks.  The main transformer is on the top, while the smaller transformer can be seen near the bottom middle of the image.  The primary capacitor is Rubycon branded (105c), while the secondary capacitors are Nippon Chemicon branded.  Both primary and secondary capacitors are manufactured in Japan, both being very high quality. The PSU's board layout is typical of Seasonic's award winning M12 design.  This power supply is manufactured by Seasonic.

The Primary capacitor is Rubycon branded and rated for up to 105c.

The secondary capacitors are Nippon Chemicon branded.

The fan inside is a ADDA branded fan, another high quality component in addition to the capacitors. It has the model number AD21212GB-A71GL with a maximum draw of .37 AMPs.

Testing:

For this power supply, the test system consists of the following:

-Antec Nine Hundred Case

-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor @ 3.4 GHz

-ZeroTherm Nirvana 120 Heatsink

-eVGA nForce 680i SLi Motherboard

-4GB (2GB x 2) of OCZ Platinum DDRII-1066 Memory

-320GB x 4 Western Digital 16MB Cache Hard Drives

-2x nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS (G92) Video Cards @ 715MHz Core / 1000 MHz Memory

-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

-Sony 16x DVD-RAM / 18x Samsung DVD-RAM Drives

-4x 120MM fans, 1x 200mm fan

-2x CCFL Lights

(Multimeter Results)

*For additional / larger pictures of the Corsair HX620, Click Here

*Voltages are at 'Max Load', running Orthos, Sisoft Sandra Hard Drive benchmark and 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 and 2 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

Capacitor Brands:

Excellent, Japanese manufactured capacitors. Very High Quality.

Primary: Rubycon

Secondary: Nippon-Chemicon

Voltage Results:

+The results were excellent for this power supply, well within range.  The voltages budged a little when transitioning from an idle state to a load state, but still remained strong.  Great!

Stability Results:

+Everything ran fine during testing, the system was stable and performed the tests as expected. 

Fan Speed Impressions:

+During the tests, the fan speed did not vary much, being nearly silent in idle mode and only producing a slight whirr with loads.  Great, I'm impressed!

Installation:

+Installation of this power supply went well.  No issues fitting inside the test system's case.  The zip ties helped a lot with keeping everything neat and is thoughtful of Corsair to include.  The modular cables are also 'flat / ribbon' style, so the case is even neater.

Conclusion:

This power supply would be ideal for anyone looking to build a multi core system with two video cards.  It also is SLi Certified for up to two GeForce 7800 GTX GPU's, but I am sure that it can handle more than that.  It also has an abundance of power cables, ten molex and eight SATA power connectors. The fan is also extremely quiet. At around $120, this power supply is priced adequately for a high quality 620 Watt PSU.  Overall, this is an award winning power supply and should be purchased by anyone looking for efficiency, amazing output performance, modular cables and a trusted brand name.

Pros +

-Excellent power output

-Abundance of power connectors (10 molex and 8 SATA!)

-Five Year Warranty with online tech support.

-Long molex cables, great for full sized cases

-Fan is near silent

Cons -

-None

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply the Editors' Choice award!

Home