CORSAIR RMx Series RM550X 550W 80 PLUS GOLD Haswell Ready Full Modular ATX12V & EPS12V SLI and Crossfire Ready Power Supply

Pros: Corsair did a wonderful job on the overall build quality of this power supply. The RM550x is both aesthetically pleasing to look at and the overall construction of the power supply is very solid. Plus supporting an 80+ Gold certification, Corsairs Zero RPM fan mode and a 7 year warranty, makes this power supply something to be sought after for builders with a low to moderate powered system. In the box you will find a few nice features that Corsair threw in to hold everything nicely. 1x Pouch to store the power supply 1x Pouch to store the modular cable connectors 1x Bag with zip ties, screws, and Corsair logo sticker Moving onto the connectors this system supports an appropriate number, type, and length. 1x 24 pin (20+4) ATX at 610mm 1x ATX12V 8 pin (4+4) at 650mm 1x PCIe 8 pin (6+2, with 2 per cable) at 750mm 2x SATA 3 (3 connectors per cable) at 750mm 1x Peripheral cable (Molex 4 pin, with 4 per cable) at 750mm 1x Floppy adapter at 101mm Only the 24 pin ATX and 8pin ATX-12v connectors are sleeved with heat shrink on the ends for a cleaner look. The rest of the connectors are un-sleeved black cables. Getting a bit more in depth with this power supply I would like to mention its 80+ gold efficiency and fan noise. Under a low load of about 20-40% the system will run anywhere from 83-90% efficient with its peak efficiency at 93% running around 50-60% utilization. The fan noise is next to nothing until it turns on, which it won’t do until the system gets hot enough. According to Corsairs site the highest noise level will be around 22db with the system at full load which usually won’t happen too much if ever. And during the time that I was testing this power supply the fan never turned on.

Cons: I really can’t find a con for this power supply. Though if I do find one I will be sure to edit this review.

Overall Review: Overall I feel many builders will be pleased with this power supply. Its fully modular features allow you to use only the needed cables, and the cables themselves are plenty long for a mid-sized ATX case. The amount of connectors are perfect for this size of power supply as well. Something to note is that the only difference between the RMx and RMi series power supplies is that the RMi supports Corsairs fan control software. The RMx is a power supply for builders that would like all the features of the RMi but don’t need the special software. Good job Corsair I can’t wait to see what other products you come out with.

Pros: Really well packed. Comes in a fancy velvet bag which is totally unnecessary but does add to the charm. Also comes with a nice nylon back to keep the extra cables you don’t use. I really like the fully modular design even though I can’t really think of a time when it’s entirely beneficial. The power supply looks really cool as well. I like the flat black finish, integrated fan grille and the rounded corners. This is one of those components that you almost feel guilty putting it in a case without a windowed side panel. The paint seems very durable and not prone to scratching. I should know after wrestling it into a Mini ITX build. On to performance. Being an 80 Plus Gold unit I had high hopes, and was not disappointed. The old Antec PSU that came out of the Freenas NAS this went into drew about 75watts full load and 67 watts at idle. This power supply is even more drastically under stressed and pulls around 65 watts at full load and 54 at idle with the same hardware. Honestly, the fan basically never runs in this unit. I’d imagine if you really pushed it, it would, but it basically stays silent in my setup. The modular cables are of high quality and I especially like that they went with flat ribbon design cables for the SATA and Molex cables. Everything is well made and all of the connectors plug in easily and securely into the unit. The Molex connectors come with little “squeeze tabs” that allow you to more easily disconnect. Honestly, I really like that feature and will probably never get another power supply without them again. This is probably not an issue if you’re just building the system once, but I tear down and swap parts a lot in my builds so a feature like that is very very appreciated (also, NASs that run 24/7 tend to need fan replacements a lot). All the cables are excessively long even for my NZXT Phantom case. Comes with six SATA connectors which is probably enough for most people. They are even thoughtful enough to throw in some cable ties and velcro along with a molex to floppy power adapter (you know, just in case). I know there are a few odd devices out there (here’s looking at you AMD and your crazy cable CARD tuners) that use the floppy power as well, so it’s an appreciated addition if not a little funny. All of the modular cables appear to be pretty standard so you can probably obtain extras if needed since there are some extra spaces that don’t have matching cables for them (PCIe power to be specific). Very heavy unit which (funny enough) I’ve kind of come to associate with the more well-built power supplies.

Cons: I would I liked that all of the cables be the same flat ribbons but we can’t have everything we want. The 8-pin/4-pin CPU power cable is a little bulky along with not having nearly enough room after the heatshrink for easy separation of the two 4-pin sides. Not so much a problem if you have an 8-pin board, but it was pretty annoying with a 4-pin application. The 24-pin plug is a bit annoying in modular form as the long heatshrink on the PSU end causes some cable routing issues. The SATA connectors are definitely designed specifically with a bottom mounted power supply in mind as they are all pointed in such a way that you are forced to route the cable to the bottom of your case and turn around to line them up correctly lest you install your drives upside-down. Not really too much of a problem since they are super long.

Overall Review: In my honest opinion, this is a great power supply at the current price Power ratings were measured on a Kill-a-Watt power tester over a 48-hour period on the old unit and then again on this power supply. System specs as follows: OS: FreeNAS 9.3 Processor: Intel Core i3-3220 CPU @ 3.30GHz RAM: 4GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 Drives: 4x WD Black 4TB Motherboard: ASRock H61MV-ITX LGA 1155

Pros: - Solid quality metal case. - All modular quality cables. - Heavy duty cables were sleeved. - Large fan. - Silent when the PC and room is cool. - Extra Packaging (felt bag for PSU and canvas bag for cables) - 7 year warranty. Wha what? I’m a firm believer that Corsair sells quality products. I have one of their silent cases and absolutely love it. This power supply has the same Corsair quality. They really do their best to get it to you in pristine condition with the packaging provided. They made a quality product and they want you to receive it that way. The PSU case is not just folded aluminum which is typical for power supplies. It's the thicker metal with a bit of texture that feels like a strong quality product. The bevelled edges are a nice touch too. I previously mentioned that I have a case built to be silent. I have enough noise in my office without adding anything else to it. Eliminating unnecessary fan noise is a great start and that makes this PSU perfect for the job. The fan does not run for the sake of running. Great feature. All modular cables makes the installation a lot easier. Not only are you not fighting with the cable to just get the PSU in place and installed, but you can route the cables from the most convenient path; from the PSU or from the plugged in component. I had a semi-modular PSU before and, although I only had to deal with the attached motherboard cable, fully modular PSU’s makes a difference. The 7 year warranty is pretty awesome demonstrates that they back up their quality product. The zip ties for cable management is appreciated. The canvas storage bag is nice too, but I am really on left with one SATA cable for storage. Its canvas, so I can squish it smaller.

Cons: - A little low in the wattage for the price. I can’t find any cons with the power supply other than, maybe, its price. It’s only a few dollars more than other highly rated PSU’s, but you are paying for a quality product. As of today, with the sale and rebate it’s $80. I’m a Corsair fanboy, so I would say go for it.

Overall Review: The manual is huge!! It appears to have every language that has ever been spoken. I think I saw latin in there.. maybe not, but I wouldn’t be that surprised. The 550 only comes with one PCI-E cable, but you couldn’t have more than one video card at this wattage anyway. You’ll have to go the 650 or above to support two video cards.

Pros: When you start off seeing what's in the box, you'll find a power supply in a bag, cables in a Velcro lid, nice useable pouch and a nice length power cord. There's also a bag of the needed screws, some tie straps and a Corsair sticky back badge. Light weight and quality made. When you look into the top, you see a nicely designed great and fan system. Not loud either. 550 Watt does do a great job for even PC's with quite a bit of equipment. If a Power Supply Calculator has you even near 550W, this unit will do the job and save you a pinch of power bill by not running a higher than needed wattage PSU. Really nice cables. They have a black netting cover and are perfect in length. These will reach you connections and not leave a lot of excess for air flow loss. Firm enough to hold yet bendable enough for the twist to fit when needed. 7 Year Warranty.

Cons: None. Read below, I expected one and it performed awesome.

Overall Review: I almost passed on this assignment, the PSU calculator has me at 558W. That's also based on all running at the same time and even under a load, which... we just don't load up everything at once. Different uses and wattage draw based on that often have us thinking we need bigger and more. This trial and review showed that Corsair makes on heck of a good 550W PSU. The install was easy and clean and the small tie straps helped me do a clean looking install with clean cables for better air flow. Sometime you get a PSU with longer than needed or actually needing a jumper cable to reach everything and plug all in. I have an Antec One case and a full sized mother board with 2 cards in crossfire. For this test I took one card out (could have used a jumper cable) which lowered my calculated watts just under 550. And I ran it hard with gaming, video and multi-tasking. My 6 core AMD Black CPU with 8GB of memory could not even notice anything by the power I needed. I pulled a 750W, because I have always purchased above as to never be stuck under powered and I forgot in use that a 550W was in the case. Not literally, but in function. Don't be afraid to buy right at or close to the wattage suggested. Plan for future add-ons but realize, it's use and draw, not just idle and plugged in.. an LED is on. I don't see how anyone can go wrong with this choice. First off it's 'Single Rail' powered. Most reviews you'll read suggest Single Rail for stability and less possible electrical noise or other multi power rail power fluctuations. It's scientific and debatable. This is Single Rail. 80PLUS GOLD Certified. 7 Year warranty is just about as good as it gets. Corsair is really standing behind this power supply. Corsair has been around a long time and never have I personally had a problem with their products. That includes many friends who also build and use Corsair products. I did expect a con about this running at full wattage under some of load pulling uses. Some of the Gaming sure can draw a lot of power to perform. This 550W never has even given off a smell of hot or even got real hot. I've checked mine by popping off the cover after hours of gaming. This is a recommend to buy.

Pros: - Fully Modular Cable Design - Silent Operation - Temp Controlled Fan with Zero RPM Mode (this is why this thing is silent, the PSU fan only kicks on when it's actually needed) - 7 Year Warranty (who does that?) - 80 PLUS GOLD Certified (any time something saves you money on energy the better it is) - Quality Build Feel - Some of the cables are shielded/sleeved

Cons: None

Overall Review: Overall this PSU is a solid buy. First of all the build quality of this thing is beautiful and well thought out. Using the temperature controlled fan, you'll hear next to no sound coming from this box. It. Is. SILENT. Granted the environment will determine the sound of the fan. If you keep you machine well ventilated (not in some darn 'computer desk, closed up'), then you will not hear this thing running. Of course the modular design is always a plus, giving the user the ability to "customize" their build. The build I used to test this PSU is as follows: Motherboard: ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 AM3+ AMD 760G + SB710 USB 3.0 HDMI uATX AMD Motherboard Processor: AMD FX-4350 Vishera Quad-Core 4.2 GHz RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 HDD/SDD: AMD Radeon SSD Radeon R7 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive Video Card: EVGA GeForce 210 01G-P3-1313-KR 1GB 64-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card (I used this because it was the only old card I had lying around the house other than SLI graphic cards). Case: Some old case that I don't even know the brand of. A lot of reviews mention that the cables are really rigid. I didn't seem to notice. Compared to my son's Rosewill ARC-M650, ARC Series 650W Modular Power Supply, this felt no different. Maybe I'm just used to "rigid" cables, but I never felt at any point something was going to break when installing and routing the cables. This is the first Corsair PSU that I have had the pleasure of reviewing and I must say I am impressed. I've been a long time user of Corsair RAM so I shouldn't have been shocked with the quality of this product. Overall this is a great buy and with a 7 year warranty, I'd say you are safe with investing in this PSU. What else would you expect from Corsair? ***At the time of this writing, Newegg has a $20 mail-in rebate on this puppy. Better act fast!

Pros: A 7..that’s right SEVEN year warranty. Simply outstanding for my confidence in the product. It is safe to assume that fans are the first bit to fail on a power supply, so designing a product that can run with passive cooling shows some foresight on Corsairs part. So far under normal operation, the fan has not spun up yet. I would expect it to spin up at some point next summer when the ambient temps in my house reach 75 or better. At 65 degrees, not a peep out of the power supply fan. Rock Steady Regulation. My previous power supply (also a corsair by the way) always showed a slight voltage variance whenever I plugged in a couple of USB3 drives for a backup session. I sort of overbought for my x99 build so this RM550x is running in place of the 600-semi modular version. I had blamed this variance on something in the gigabyte system utility software which has seen a few updates since last year, but it was clear after installing the RM550x the previous power supply was the issue. Fully modular- I hadn’t remembered the pain I had running the main power cable for this build, and thought I’d simply plug the new supply in and be done. Well not quite. The old 600 was semi modular with that big honking main cable to contend with. Took me an hour to swap them to my satisfaction. I do know that if it ever needs to be replaced, it will be far simpler I the future, and that’s one more win . My system is running a EVGA 660ftw on a gigabyte x99Ud5 v2011-v3. A pair of sata drives, one SSD, one spinner, water cooling system and 32 gb of ram fills out the build. I was slightly worried about going down a notch in wattage. The voltages across the boards have been rock solid, no change at all even when overclocked to my max. The loss of the power supply cooling fan noise was a significant plus, not to mention the predicted reduction in dust. Dust is a huge problem in the Southwest. I have cats also.

Cons: For the intended use none. Everything was as advertised. The packaging however was WAY OVERKILL. Nice touches with sacks and bags galore (and the neat case badge), but quite a bit of stuff would end up in the bin, including the massive user manual in over a dozen languages (including Klingon). I assume that a power supply can’t be shipped with a CD due to various regulations. So be it. Vendors will always try to out glitz each other with fancy packaging for the small percentage of sales that go on at brick and mortar stores in the US. Could have showed up in a plain box as far as I was concerned. People may be inclined to buy a higher wattage supply based on the price alone. At the time of this price for the RM550x is @ $110, pretty much at the top of the range for this class of product. Bigger is better in some cases, but I was not planning on SLI or anything extreme for this gaming rig so for this review the goal was reducing power consumption and noise while still maintaining my ability to overclock, so I opted to install this higher quality, albeit slightly smaller power supply into my rig.

Overall Review: There are a few power supply calculators on the web, on average I was told I needed a 450w supply to handle my current needs. The RM550x seems to be doing just fine and it’s truly quiet. For a build with moderate power needs, the higher quality components of the RMx line backed by the sever year warranty makes the RM550x a contender for your next build’s power supply. With the cost of electric going up all the time, cutting wattage over a 12 hour on cycle adds up over the lifespan of a product. For me it was all about noise levels and reliability This series is available in higher wattage versions which should cover those of your with raid arrays and multiple video cards. After studying up on power supply tech to see if I could give this 550 watt unit a try I was more than pleased with its performance and I expect this supply to be around for at least three years before I have to go to the next platform. I’ll add the Corsair was the first rebate to arrive after this X99 build was finished so no worries there if your purchase is driven by a rebate. Five eggs, even if the price seems a little bit higher then it should be.I can't put a price on peace and quiet. I'm sure we'll see some rebates come along at some point in the next couple of weeks as Black Friday Approaches

Pros: -- Spot on voltages -- SUPER quiet -- flexible -- self-protective

Cons: -- perhaps size, if your case is small -- modular cable jacks could be better marked

Overall Review: This is one of the better power supplies available, if the wattage fits your needs. The quality shows in many ways: modular connections, HEAVY components (good way to judge power supplies) and it even comes wrapped like fine cognac: in a velvety, microfiber drawstring bag with cables in a nylon velcroed pouch. The supply with no cables weighs 3.5 lbs. Most cables are braided. Caps are all Japanese 105° capacitors, with their superior seal and electrolyte. Installation is typical ATX; pick the needed cables, plug in, and go. Modular means you shouldn't have the huge snake of unused cables stuffed somewhere. But make sure your case can tolerate the somewhat long 6.25” case (+ any modular connector). The cables are a generous 18” - 24” long. A dozen cable ties are included. It boots silently; I could only hear the fan if my ear was right next to the box when drawing significant wattage. The power good signal is produced in 200ms and the voltages are well within tolerance and rock steady: 5V line measures 4.9V, 3.3V line measures 3.2V and the 12V lines are 12V-- again an indication of Corsair’s quality design. There is over voltage protection, but also over-current, over-temperature, and short-circuit protections. I intentionally did a few tests that would blow out a lesser supply. The RM550x simply made a soft click and went black, then came on when safe. Very nice. The real test now will be how long it gives service. With a 10 year warranty, I’m not worried.

Pros: Corsair has been at the top of their game concerning PSU's for awhile now. Look at any extremely high end rig build and 9 times out of 10 they are using a Corsair unit. When you have hundreds to thousands of dollars in computer hardware, the last thing you want is to skimp on a power supply and fry something. If the professionals trust Corsair with their cash, so can you. I have had 4 different Corsair unit's in the last few years and EVERY single one is solid as a dang rock. You get stylish design, a stellar warranty, and fully modular capability. The PC industry is in the middle of another Golden Era. Now more than ever manufacturers are trying to one up each other with hardware that not only looks great for all those cases with windows and LED lighting, but performs as you would expect or beyond.

Cons: None whatsoever. The packaging is right, the build quality is top notch, and the warranty (like you'll need it.I never have after years of continuous use) will keep you worry free.

Overall Review: Unlike some other computer components you can save a few bucks on by going with the cheaper route, a solid and quality power supply is never one of those things. Ever. If you want something that you know will work out of the box don't bother looking at another brand, just find the appropriate wattage and click add to cart. *full disclosure - I was offered this unit for review purposes. I have however, purchased many corsair units for personal builds and am using an older AX 850 for the last 4 years with 0 complaints*