Corsair RM650x (2021) power supply review - Introduction

Corsair RM650x (2021) Power Supply review
Revamped, stable, and armed with 10 years warranty

One of the most popular power supply series from Corsair is the RMx range. Incredibly reliably, very stable, silent, and good looks. However, it has been a while since the previous generation has been released, and in the year 2021, Corsair has decided to revamp and restyle the units a bit more, matching the current day and age of power supplies. The silent RMx series come with an 80plus Gold certification, which means it's 90% efficient at 50% load at 110v and even 92% at 230v. Efficiency matters. The PSU itself is fully modular; for most of you, with a side panel window in their chassis, a must really as you'll want modular cables. The new update brings a nice dark-looking product, used now is a 135mm ML fan for silent operation (was a 140mm fluid dynamic bearing fan). The PSU is passive in a hybrid fashion. The PSU has been tweaked on its audibility front with a Zero RPM Fan Mode, which means that the cooling fan switches off entirely for near-silent and passive operation at low and medium loads. This 80 Plus Gold certified power supply thus has silent Zero-RPM fan operation up to a certain load. The product comes with quality capacitors and fully modular cables. Corsair has reconfigured the cabling as well; for our tested 650W model, you'll get four PCIe PEG 6/8 pin headers spread out over two cables. Also, on the motherboard front, we've seen more and more manufacturers move to more phases and dial 4/8 pin power headers; this was upgraded as well, as the unit offers two EPS12V connectors. 

As mentioned, the PSU fan doesn't even rotate until it reaches a certain load or temperature, so if your PC is idle and pretty much-doing nothing, the already rather silent fan will actually disable itself. The thermally and load-controlled fan spins up gradually above 40% load, thus up to 260 Watt power consumption; this 650W PSU makes no noise whatsoever, but even during more stressed usage and gaming remains quiet. All in all, we have plenty to show you and test. Mind you that being the mainstream to the high-end range, you'll get an added benefit as well. An outstanding warranty, Corsair back you for 10 years on this series of PSUs. Hey, that's all gold by itself, have a quick peek, and then let's head onwards into the review.