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Any PSU experts care to shed some light on this PSU Corsair AX1200i Digital ATX. It is claimed to be the first digitally controlled unit. It uses Digital Signal Processing, from what I have learned back in school DSP is essential in mobile communications because it allows to dynamically change parameters of frequency filters. How does it all translate into a good PSU?

You can read a review over at JonnyGuru...the founder of which has now gone to work for Corsair after being between jobs for awhile.

In short, the advantage is active rather than passive voltage regulation. With all digital, you can set, adjust and monitor the voltage regulation, rather than depending on the predetermined design of the hardware to do it for you.

How important is this to you? Depends on how much you OC, how dynamic your loads,(4 OC graphics cards in addition to an OC water cooled CPU) etc. etc.

If I was building a 4P system using GPU compute...I would certainly consider it.

For your average gaming system...a little overkill.

mdk77777 wrote:

You can read a review over at JonnyGuru...the founder of which has now gone to work for Corsair after being between jobs for awhile.

In short, the advantage is active rather than passive voltage regulation. With all digital, you can set, adjust and monitor the voltage regulation, rather than depending on the predetermined design of the hardware to do it for you.

How important is this to you? Depends on how much you OC, how dynamic your loads,(4 OC graphics cards in addition to an OC water cooled CPU) etc. etc.

If I was building a 4P system using GPU compute...I would certainly consider it.

For your average gaming system...a little overkill.

I figured it was just a really nice power supply and that the corsair link and bundled software was just an expensive gimmick tacked on.
I was actually thinking of getting myself an AX760 for my next build, but maybe I should consider getting the "i" branded product for $30 more.

I dunno though...like you said it may be overkill.

michael_d wrote:

... It uses Digital Signal Processing, from what I have learned back in school DSP is essential in mobile communications because it allows to dynamically change parameters of frequency filters. How does it all translate into a good PSU?

In broader terms, DSP just means you're modeling or measuring an analog quantity using digital values, and performing calculations on those values.

A typical switching regulator has an analog feedback loop that compares the output voltage with an internal reference, and varies the width of the output pulses of the switcher to compensate for variations in input voltage or load.

A "digital" switching regulator feeds the output voltage into an analog-to-digital converter and implements the feedback and control loop digitally, using a special-purpose DSP, FPGA, or microprocessor.

Either way, the quality of voltage regulation is only as good as the design of the regulator, the quality of the components used, and the DSP algorithms (for digital). Digital isn't *inherently* better, but it allows additional control and monitoring options to be implemented easily in the DSP code (the "Corsair Link" functionality).

DeadOfKnight wrote:

I dunno though...like you said it may be overkill.

For 99.9% of desktop PC users, a 1200 watt, $350 PSU is overkill by definition!

just brew it! wrote:

For 99.9% of desktop PC users, a 1200 watt, $350 PSU is overkill by definition!

Definitely, but there are new models out now. AX760, AX860, AX760i, and AX860i. All are platunum rated PSUs.

The non-i branded ones are made by Seasonic and don't feature the DSP. The i-series are made by Flextronics.