XFX Pro 450W vs Corsair CX series

[tim01]

My old PSU died out so looking to get a decent but affordable replacement PSU, currently considering XFX Pro 450w or one of the Corsair CX series probably CX430 or CX500.

My build:
I5 4670k
Gigabyte GA-z87m
GTX 460
1 SSD
1 HDD

Any thoughts between these PSUs or alternatives?

[kalniel]

I'd go with the XFX Pro, very good quality seasonic based PSUs.

[pastymuncher]

I wouldn't touch a CX series with a bargepole. They are budget psu's with cheap internals. When Corsair first entered the market they had top quality units built by Seasonic. Once established they changes to cheaper OEM's and produced inferior units with cheaper internals. They also slashed the warranty period while keeping the prices high.

The XFX is a high quality unit built by Seasonic but the problem is that XFX has the worst customer service in the market. If nothing goes wrong with it you will be fine, but if it does fail you are basically on your own after the first year.

Alternatives would be:-

Silverstone Strider 500w Bronze £47.40

Seasonic Bronze S12II-520w £53.42

Be Quiet Pure Power L8 530w £53.44 (semi-modular too)

These would give you extra headroom should you upgrade your graphics card.

[satrow]

I bought an XFX Pro 450W for my ITX Ivy Xeon/R9 270 build, it's fine, under no stress (~200W from the wall during normal gaming) and it's a lot quieter than my S12II-520W (seems like there was a batch of these with some noisy components released ~2 years ago).

[StaticFX]

I agree with Pastymuncher (LOL @ the name)
The Corsair is popular, but I have seen a LOT of people complain about failure (One guy had 1 1000w and 2 1200w fail on him!)
Go with Silverstone, Seasonic, or be quiet! XFX Customer service is.. bad.

good article on Toms Hardware... has the entire list of PSU and who makes them.. SO you can look up whos really behind that lable.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...urer,2913.html

[Pob255]

The XFX is a high quality unit built by Seasonic but the problem is that XFX has the worst customer service in the market. If nothing goes wrong with it you will be fine, but if it does fail you are basically on your own after the first year.

No your not.
XFX psu's have a 5 year warranty, which must be registered via their website.

The problem with XFX warranties is on the graphics cards and that tends to be the failure of customers not xfx, on graphics cards XFX offers NO warranty to the CUSTOMER in the UK, they offer a warranty to the RETAILER.
So it's up to the RETAILER on how much warranty they are willing to offer and it's up to the RETAILER to sort out RMA's with the CUSTOMER, not act as a 3rd party between themselves and the customer or to try to send them to XFX
note this is ONLY graphics cards, PSU's the Customer does deal with XFX, although if it does fail in the first 6 months to a year then you are probably better off dealing with the retailer not XFX.

I have not heard of any horror stories with XFX's UK psu customer service.

While I cannot confirm it, they probably use NanoPoint for it, as they handle all Seasonic's UK RMA's and a few other brands that use rebranded seasonic psu's as well

On the corsair CX, they are not that bad, esp for the price, the first units where not that good for the cost but they have improved and have been decent since the v2
These are not high end units but they don't have high end price tags ether, not outstanding value but not overpriced ether.
The XFX450w is generally better than the CX430w because it's near enough the same price but a slightly better unit.

The VS series are the real ones to avoid

I'd agree with your alternatives, all good options.

[Frankenfurter]

XFX, definitely.

As has already been said you get a 5 year warranty and it has Seasonic internals (Seasonic are pretty bad-ass for PSUs). That whole line has pretty good reviews too, though they get better as you go up to higher wattage options.

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page625.htm is a great place to compare them (I believe the 450 does have that bronze rating, it just never got updated on this page).

It looks like the 450 actually has 408W on the 12V rail btw, which is kinda low for a 450W rated PSU I think - someone more knowledgeable than me (and there are many xD) can probably confirm that?
Anyway, I'd still recommend it over the CX series but if you think you'll be running a bit tight with 400W, go for the 550. It's not that much more expensive (especially if you can find a deal, I got mine for £40 a little while ago on Amazon but it's currently £45) and provides 528W on the 12V rail.

In case you're wondering and running Haswell, Haswell ready isn't vital for it. You just have to disable the low sleep states in BIOS.

[Flap Tickler]

I'd go with the XFX Pro, very good quality seasonic based PSUs.

+1 Currently using an XFX Pro 650W PSU and very happy with it.

[Frankenfurter]

Just noticed - XFX PSUs are on scans day only deals today. Might be worth checking out, though looks like OP doesn't qualify for free postage yet, so the deals would have to be pretty darn good to beat Amazon etc.

[StaticFX]

What does that mean "scans day only"... and not qualified for free postage yet? new here... EU Thing?

[pastymuncher]

Pob255, the problem is getting XFX to respond and to honour the warranty. We have had several threads on the OCUK forums about problems with XFX customer service with both GPU's and PSU's. They will do everything they can to get out of honouring it. Things have gotten so bad that OCUK no longer stock their products. Gibbo specifically stated it was because of their abysmal customer support and the shop ended up being out of pocket by doing the right thing and honouring the warranty even though XFX didn't want to know.

[pastymuncher]

What does that mean "scans day only"... and not qualified for free postage yet? new here... EU Thing?

You need 100 posts on here to get free shipping with Scan. It depends on where you live in the UK though. Since retailers swapped to DPD i have lost all my free shipping on the three shops i used to get it with, OCUK, Aria and Scan. We don't even get a next day service up here anymore.

[StaticFX]

wow.. that bad!??

[Pob255]

@StaticFX if you're in Rochester, New York, then no you'll not get free shipping.
And us suggesting UK based retailers isn't really the best option, on top of that UK prices and availabilities can vary greatly from the US so things we can suggest might not be the best price option for you.


Just did a quick search and no I cannot find any horror stories about xfx PSU RMA on forums.overclockers.co.uk
There's been some known issues with some of the higher end units where a plastic air flow channeler came lose (that's a bit of clear plastic on the exhaust side of the psu fan to force more air to flow through the psu not go straight out the back and is common on may psu designs, coming lose means it catches the fan and makes a ticking sound)

Graphics cards . . . that was a different story, which is why XFX changed their policy to ONLY deal with the retailer.
I will stress it again, XFX GIVES THE END CUSTOMER NO WARRANTY, they give a warranty to the retailer, but that warranty is BETWEEN XFX and the RETAILER only.
The RETAILER does NOT act as an intermediary between the END CUSTOMER and XFX.
XFX offers the RETAILER a WARRANTY and leaves it UP TO THE RETAILER as to the WARRANTY the RETAILER wants to offer the END USER.
The warranty XFX offers the retailer lasts 3 years (I think) from the time of purchase by the retailer NOT the time a end customer buys it.

OcUK stopped stocking XFX cards back in 2008, before XFX had made these changes and their UK end customer service was terrible and that was also part of why XFX changed their whole warranty system on graphics cards.

(Please note this is for the UK and EU, in the US the situation is different)

[pastymuncher]

This is my last post on the subject. Gibbo stopped stocking XFX psu's last year due to the lack of customer support. Up until then they were probably the most recommended psu on the forum. It doesn't get any clearer than that.

[Frankenfurter]

Sorry, I sometimes forget these are international forums. >.<
Scan is a UK online retailer affiliated with these forums, folk in the UK get free postage with them if they've been a Hexus member for at least a day and have a certain number of posts. The day deals are just that, special offers that last 24 hours.
I think the post count for free shipping in England might be 20/25. Whatever the case, I get it and see my post count <<< xD

Anyway, sorry for the UK centric info if it's non-applicable (OP has no location info?). I think Newegg.com is pretty much -the place- to go if you're in the US though, and I would still recommend the XFX PSUs if their in a similar price bracket over there (I know prices vary greatly between UK and US, and usually make me extremely jealous). I know a fair few folk who use XFX PSUs, only one of them has had to return it (sometime last year this was) and he got it replaced without too much fuss. It did take them about a week or so to get it to him though.

edit: If you're looking at other brands though, check price, warranty period and who actually makes the innards. If it's a good price and has a few years warranty with Seasonic innards I'd say it's a pretty safe bet.