Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
As always, we opened up our Corsair CV550 550W power supply to take a detailed look at what is going on inside. Please note that doing this at home will void your 3-year warranty thanks to a seal that extends over one edge of the power supply. Regardless of which, for the benefit of you, we cracked ours open so you do not need to, haha. There are no user serviceable parts inside.
Disassembling the Corsair CV550 550W is quite straightforward with the removal of four screws behind the labels on the side. Our photo above shows an overhead view of its internal components. Its OEM is HEC, a manufacturer of mostly budget products since 1979. At first glance, the build quality appears to be good. There are two main heatsinks inside.
Pulling the enclosure apart, and we got straight to the internal inspection. The transient filter stage is the first input stage of a computer power supply, so we will take a look at that first. The Corsair CV550 550W has one metal oxide varistor, three metalized polyester X-capacitors, four ceramic Y-capacitors, and two common-mode chokes. This is three times the amount of X and twice the amount Y capacitors than recommended. Two NTC thermistor sensors are used for in-rush protection.
On the double-forward topology primary side, we can see one Taiwanese-made Teapo capacitor. This is an ultra-budget power supply, so we do not expect Japanese brand capacitors. Teapo capacitors generally do its job. Our 550W version of Corsair's CV550 power supply incorporates one 270µF x 400V capacitor. Surprisingly, it is rated at 105c. Many value-oriented power supplies usually use 85c rated capacitors.
The active PFC circuit featured on the Corsair CV550 550W uses one GeneSiC Semiconductor GBU10K bridge rectifier attached to a small heatsink. At 115V, the maximum rectified forward current capacity with heatsink is 10A, so you can theoretically pull up to 1150W (10A * 115V) from the bridge rectifier at 100% efficiency. Of course, this is limited by the fact that it is not 100% efficient and also neglects the fact that not every component in the system are able to keep up. Further down the line, on the outside of the largest heatsink, we can see two Champion GPT22N50SYX power transistors. I was unable to find any information on this particular component. An NXP BYC10-600 boost diode is placed right next them. Two more Champion GPT22N50SYX power transistors, located on the same heatsink, are used as the main switchers on the CV550 550W power supply. Other components that can be spotted in the primary side include a Champion CM6800TX PFC/PWM controller on an add-in boards and a Power Integrations SEN012DG signal disconnect IC.
On the secondary side, we can see more Taiwanese-made capacitors rated at 105c. Four PFC Device Corporation PFR30L60CT Schottky rectifiers are responsible for generating the +12V output, located on the second heatsink. The PFR30L60CT's rated maximum repetitive reverse voltage is 60V and average rectified forward current is 30A. Four PFC Device Corporation PFR30L45CT Schottsky rectifiers generate the +5V and +3.3V output. The PFR30L45CT's rated maximum repetitive reverse voltage is 45V and average rectified forward current is 30A. Weltrend's WT7527 is the supervisor chip. The datasheets for all components mentioned in this review can be found on their respective manufacturer's websites.
There is nothing special going on here electrically; all cables are connected to the main circuit board after the secondary stage by a bundle of wires. The output cable configuration can be seen on the previous page. Overall, the internal build quality of the Corsair CV550 550W power supply is good. Components are arranged very well for optimal cooling with minimal wires running around inside, and solder points on its black PCB is quite clean in general. The Corsair CV550 550W is based off an older design and uses all budget components under the hood, which is appropriate for its performance class.
Lastly, we see a 120mm fan that provides cooling to the Corsair CV550 550W's internal components. It is connected to an add-in board using a 2-pin connector. A 120mm fan is rather small nowadays for a power supply with a bottom mounted fan, but if not a lot of heat is being generated, it should not be much of an issue. A 120mm fan is used to keep the enclosure as small as possible. Yate Loon is the fan OEM, with D12SH-12 as the model number, as shown in our photo above. Further research indicates the D12SH-12 is a sleeve bearing fan specified at 0.30A for a maximum of speed of 2200 RPM. The rated airflow is 88.0 CFM at 40 dB of noise.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
