The Corsair PSU

I needed to have a spare anyway. A few weeks ago, the PSU in my parents' computer fried (I'm serious: a loud pop and a puff of smoke came out the back!)... So I figured, I have a decent PSU in my machine... but it'd be cool to have a new one (it's always cool to have new stuff).

This hunt started back in the fall when Ars Technica did a highly unusual hardware round-up: they reviewed a whole bunch of Power Supply Units. While the Seasonic S12-II came out on top, Corsair's offering was in the running too. And in fact, it picked up a ranking at SilentPCreview as well. I picked up the VX today at a local shop. Now I've never purchased my own PSU before... but I figured, I've built PCs before... all PSU follow the same basic principles, yes?

After being fairly experienced with trying to save a few bucks buying OEM products, I was pleased to know that in a retail box, even PSU manufacturers like to spice up their goods. The box opened to reveal a cloth draw-string bag with the Corsair logo silk-screened on it holding the PSU. Too bad it's a little ragged like it's been snagged on something before. Oh well. The PSU also came with a bunch of plastic-ties and a case badge (yeah! another one for my collection).

I was a little confused at first because the main plug was 24-pin and while I didn't panic, it took me a moment to realize that the 4 extra pins just snapped open to swing away from the rest. Presto: a 20-pin plug. Another thing that threw me off was that on my old PSU, it had a separate line to the motherboard that could monitor the fan. Well, the VX doesn't have one. And finally, I also worried a bit to realize how old my platform is getting. I don't own a SATA drive... so pretty much half the plugs are useless to me. And would there be enough 4-pin Molex plugs for my IDE drives and video card? Hmm...
Well... yes.
The VX completely maxed out in my case to power a pair of optical drives, my HDD, video card, case fans, lights and front panel. I breathed a sigh of relief at the end of that install. All the unused lines were tied up and tucked into an unused drive bay. One last thing that drives me a little crazy: my PC is just as loud as it was before this PSU went in. Turns out my old PSU was an Enermax - while not the most silent PSU in the world, it did boast the "whisper" label on it. And of course, my two case fans are probably making most of the noise, however, I'm not too keen on removing those.