INTRODUCTION

   The benefits of having a good power supply unit in your system have been mentioned by us more times than i can possibly count but even so it seems that the majority out there still places this specific hardware component last after pretty much everything else. The most recent example i have of this was almost a week ago when my cousin started building a new rig and decided to pair an Aorus GeForce RTX 2080 Super with a budget 550W PSU from a virtually unknown manufacturer (at least until he could afford something better - it's a good thing i was able to give him something much better to avoid any mishaps). This of course is not the only time I’ve seen something like that and it almost always falls upon me to change the minds of friends and other relatives who thought about doing the same. CORSAIR has a rather long history with power supply units and since some of you have asked today, I’ll be testing one of their not so "popular" models, the CX850M 2017 Edition (V2).

   Founded in 1994, CORSAIR has grown from pioneering the high-performance DRAM market into one of the world’s leading providers of high-performance gaming and streaming products. CORSAIR offers a complete range of products to equip gamers, enthusiasts, and esports athletes, including mechanical keyboards, precision gaming mice, wireless headsets, premium PC components, and the CORSAIR ONE fully-integrated gaming PC. With a company-wide commitment to quality, innovative design, advanced features and high-performance, CORSAIR products have won thousands of media and industry awards, earning their place in gamers’ hands and PCs following years of development and engineering by a team dedicated to building great products that they themselves would want to use. In 2018 CORSAIR acquired Elgato Gaming, a manufacturer of streaming products. In 2019 CORSAIR acquired Origin Computers, a manufacturer of custom high-performance gaming PCs and laptops, and SCUF Gaming, an innovator and creator of high-performance gaming controllers.

   The CX850M 2017 Edition (V2) is an 850W unit (also available in 450/550/650/750W) that has been around for quite a few years now (2017 edition) and is the successor to the first CX850M released back in early 2015. This is an 80 Plus Bronze certified (up to 85% electrical efficiency) unit which can deliver up to 850W of continuous power (1KW peak) and features a semi-modular design, powerful 70.8A single +12V rail which can deliver the units entire power output, Japanese capacitors, ATX v2.4 support and several electrical protections including OVP (over-voltage), UVP (under-voltage), SCP (short-circuit), OPP (over-power) and OTP (over-temperature). Yes, this may not be the newest kid on the block but since you asked (and also since there are almost no reviews of it around) let's take a closer look.