Corsair CX 430 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified Modular Power Supply

The Corsair 600 watt CX600M (modular) power supply is so powerful and well-designed that it gave me reliable power, freedom from fear, and it made my grey hairs turn dark again. Okay, maybe not the last thing, but really, this ATX power supply is a good buy and really takes the worry out of having an underperforming power supply in your PC case. It's easy to install/swap, and when it's running it's quieter than a librarian walking on sound deadening foam (I didn't actually test that).Some background: my home-built PC case came with a 500-watt power supply and worked great until I added a third hard drive. After that, I started having reliability problems with my data storage drive, a typical rotating platter hard drive. It took me a while to figure out that I wasn't getting bad hard drives, but instead had a problem with a marginal power supply (I've got other problems too, but they aren't computer-related). Indeed, the Corsair website has a power-supply finder/calculator, and I figured out that my system needed 600-watts to be reliable. The calculator takes into account how many drives you have, as well as the fan on your video card, so if you're not sure how big of a power supply unit you need, check out the calculator. That calculator won't solve your personal life problems, but it's awful handy in picking out the right power supply unit.Swapping this new Corsair in couldn't have been any easier. Well, actually, yeah, if someone else had done it for free, it would have been easier, but okay, this was pretty easy, even for a clumsy guy like me. If you're nervous about swapping, relax and let me walk you through it. I'll leave off the part involving the tarantula and the goat. Step 1) unplug your power cord from the back of the old power unit. 2) Unplug the power connectors from your drives, motherboard, video card fan, and case fan. 3) Get the right Phillips head screwdriver and unscrew the old power supply and don't lose the screws 4) Pull the old power supply out. Don't drop it on the motherboard as you do that. 5) Take the new included SATA power cables and plug those in to your drives. There are two cable, with three connectors each, so you can power up to 6 SATA devices. 6) Plug in your video card power cable. 7) Now place your new Corsair power supply into the case and using the screws from 3) above, secure it. 8) Plug in the SATA cables and video card cables; and 9) Plug in the motherboard power connector and case fan connector. That's it. Took me 20 minutes and I had never done it before. Your mileage may vary, batteries not included, and not applicable in California. Oh yeah, 10) plug the cord back in and flip the switch on the power supply to | . Sorry about that; should have remembered that step.Oh, I suggest using your smartphone or a digital camera to take a photo of the motherboard before you start. Reason for that: if you happen to accidentally pull out a cable like the power switch connector to the motherboard or the HDD indicator lamp connector, it'll be easier to figure out where it goes. Just a little hint, not that I may have pulled out the power switch connector to the motherboard or anything like that. I'm too smart to have done that.Seriously though, what's included in the box are the power supply (the motherboard and case fan connectors are hardwired in); a power cord; two SATA power cables, and peripheral cables (e.g. for a video card). If you only have three SATA device and they're not too far apart, you can get by by ony plugging in one SATA power cable but you may find it easier to use both cables if the devices are further apart.When I started my computer up, I was shocked (no wait, bad choice of words for a power supply review) I was very happily surprised when my computer was super, super quiet. It was so quiet, I thought I had a bad power supply. But then my screen came on and man, I felt like a God, because it all worked. "I am the Man," I said to myself. Yeah, that's a mixed metaphor, but only the great writers get to use them properly.So, if you've never swapped a power supply before and you want the opportunity to feel like a God (or a Goddess, if that's your thing), this Corsair CX series is just the thing for you. If you have swapped a power supply before, then why did you read this far into the review? I already told you it's great! Just go ahead and buy it already!

I bought this PSU (CX430M) in March 2014 and have had ZERO problems with it. I read the reviews (a lot negative to be sure) but chose it anyway because I see it used quite often in builds on PCPartpicker and YouTube. In fact YouTuber Austin Evans used the non-modular version in a build video series (Search "Build a Gaming PC for $600 - December 2012" and "How to Build a Computer for Gaming 2013 Tutorial") on his channel. My last build was in 2004 (Pentium 4, Antec 350W PSU) so I knew the tech had advanced quite a bit. After watching these and other tutorials and researching all my components I placed my orders here on Amazon.System:Corsair CX430M PSUCorsair Obsidian 250D Mini ITX CaseIntel Core i3-4330ASUS H87I-PLUS Mini-ITX MotherboardEVGA GeForce GTX 750 SCCrucial M500 240GB SSDCrucial Ballistix Sport VLP 8GB Kit (4GBx2) DDR3-1600 RAMMaybe I got lucky but I have had no issues whatsoever with this PSU or any of the other components. The PC sits on my desk next to the monitor and sure, I can hear the fans (front 140mm stock Corsair, right side 120 mm stock Corsair, stock Intel CPU fan, Fan on the GTX 750 and the PSU fan) and the machine is not silent but it isn't a screaming banshee either. This PC is not a beast gaming machine just internet browsing, home schooling and Minecraft play for the kids so this PSU is nowhere near being stressed with power demand.For the most part I like the flat, modular cables on this PSU. I didn't need the PCI-E cable for the GPU since it runs entirely from the mobo slot but due to the 90 degree heads on the SATA power cables I had to buy splitters when I added a DVD drive and installed a HDD for storage. Each SATA cable has two plugs and two cables are included in the box. With the splitters I could run all three drives from one SATA cable. The only other modular cable I'm using is the one with three Molex and one floppy plug. One of the Molex plugs runs the front 140mm fan. The ATX 24 pin and 8 pin CPU power cables are not modular but are flexible enough for creative cable management in this small case.Not much else to say: Owned for two years, used daily and ZERO problems. I'm sorry other reviewers have had trouble with theirs but I would buy this PSU again and in fact probably will when the kids are ready for their own PC's. My recommendation: It's worked well for me and if your build is used similarly to mine it will probably work well for you too.

This is a great quality PSU for an upgrade or building your 1st gaming rig (that only has bare minimum. If you have a mid level graphics card, one or two hard drives along with one or two DVD/CD drives max; it's good! ***BUT BE AWARE *** if your hard drives are mounted side to side, the length of wire between connectors (two on each run) is just long enough to reach both but only if you get creative!. The cables are made for drives that stack one on top of the other within your rig. I was able to use this PSU on a Dell 531 with side to side drive mounting though the cable was at it's limit between drives but! if you use a separate cable for each drive you'll be fine but I only recommend this PSU for a stacked, one on top of the other drive set-up. The PSU is quiet and of high quality so if you have an ATX case that is tight inside with a mid-level graphics card and maybe a solid state drive with a DVD/Blue ray it's perfect! Box contains small zip ties and black mounting screws to help in installation. The graphics power cable ends with a 6 pinned connector with a two pin connector on the side of that. and the CPU power cable can be modified for 4 or 6 pin boards. You can't go wrong with this board unless the drives you wish to share one supply cable aren't stacked. Don't say I didn't warn you if you have side to side mounting.