Corsair AX750 80 Plus Gold: Putting Corsair's Best to the Test

Noise Levels

Ah! Even though Corsair doesn't use a PWM-controlled fan, they do have a nice Sanyo Denki fan. The 9S1212F404 has ball-bearings and 7 well-processed fan blades.

There is no noise at low load (or idle), and it's only when we approach 50% load that the fan begins to spin. With a 750W rating, that means you need to draw at least 375W before you get any noise from the PSU, and even a draw of 600W (80%) results in just 25dB(A)--hardly anything to worry about. Overall the cooling concept is nearly the same as the Seasonic X-series. Of course, it could be quieter at 110% overload, but you normally don't reach this level (or want to!); it's just nice to see that there is an output reserve available.

Just what sort of components would even require 600W of power? Short of running 10+ HDDs, an overclocked i7-920 (essentially i7-965 at 3.33GHz) and two GTX 580 GPUs in SLI with a single SSD maxed out at a punishing 777W... but that's wall power. Even at 90% efficiency you'd still only pull 700W from the PSU, and that's with our worst-case Furmark load. In other words, short of tri-SLI, insane overclocking, and/or tons of HDDs the AX750 should be able to handle anything you throw at it.