"Golden Age" Corsair HX models - time for replacement, or safe for new builds?

In getting ready to upgrade both my main rig and one for a family member, I'd like to discuss power supply longevity and viability.

Most of my personal PCs and those built for family are running Corsair PSUs from the "Golden Age" - when their HX line came highly reviewed / recommended and there weren't as many other quality offerings in the market as a whole. Specifically them models in use are the HX620 (for several builds), and the HX1000 that has powered my primary rig. Both are of course 80+ certified, but predate the "metal level" graduation that would be added later. The crux of the issue is that these PSUs have been running since 2008/2009! To date, I've not had a single issue with any of them.


Given what we know about the degradation of PSUs due to wear and tear from use/time, I'm wondering if it is safe and/or advisable to continue to use them for my next iteration of upgrade or if it would be better to retire them, move to lower-power-demand PCs etc? For what its worth, if I was to maintain the HX1000 in my build, it would go from powering the PC in my signature (X58 based) to a comparable X99 platform. The HX620 is powering an old Phenom II X4 + Nvidia GTX 260 setup, to a Skylake 6700K + (Polaris or 1060/1070 GPU). Older PCs had higher power draws in some cases, so I have to wonder if it would actually be less stressful on the PSU after the upgrades. However, I don't want to see brand new hardware let down or at worst, zapped, by an old PSU. Come to think of it, are the Corsair PSUs I mention suitably recent and of quality that if they fail, it would be unlikely for them to take other components with them?

Knowledgeable input would be appreciated. Thanks.

I upgraded from a TX after installing it in 2009. The RM is a lot quieter and modular is super nice.

TX is less efficient and thus would run hotter (and louder) than a HX.

Skylake will use less power than a Phenom II, and the 1070 will be in the ballpark of the 260. Overall I would say your power needs will go down.

Yes, your Corsair PSUs are of high enough quality. I would run them until they die, in the mean time looking for a good value replacement in the 550 watt range. Once you get the replacement, I would relegate them to storage as a backup unit.

Thanks for everyone who weighed in so far! Its good to hear the opinion its safe to continue with my PSUs, especially the HX1000 - I'd hate to see my new X99 overclocked setup zapped or otherwise negatively affected by my older PSU. When these fail, how do you expect it to happen given the generation and model of PSU? Will they simply refuse to turn on / shut off one day without any harm to the components? Will there be other more subtle issues? Anything harmful to equipment?

I'm certainly willing to replace both of them if need be, though I'll have to look into what are today's high-reliability , best built PSUs for the best prices ( Corsair AX perhaps? Seasonic? ) . Anyone else with ideas are welcome to weigh in. Thanks again!

Still running an HX1000 in my server build, over 20K hours on it! They don't build them like they used to at Corsair.

Corsair AX or RMx. EVGA G2 or GS. Pretty much any Seasonic or Super Flower based PSU.

NickJames said:

Still running an HX1000 in my server build, over 20K hours on it! They don't build them like they used to at Corsair.

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Don't take this as a slight, but I ran a ThermalTake PurePower 480W from 2003 for more than 90,000 hours (more than 10 years). It was in a file server and didn't get stressed much, but it was on constantly. I only replaced it when I was adding more hard drives to the server and I took a look at the power supply and realized how old it was. I might even still have it around somewhere, it still works fine, doesn't have any PCI-E power connectors though . A quality power supply should last 10 years of normal use at least and fail without destroying your hardware. But I'm not familiar with the Corsair HX line because I've just been buying Silverstone Strider power supplies for the last few years because it's just easier if all my power supplies use the same interchangeable modular cables.

running an hx1050 for 5 years now never had an issue volatgs are just as good as they were when i got it brand new figure with minimal down time for update restars or the odd time i either added in or replacda hdd its gotta have 30k or better up time hours on i
t

GothamsReckoning said:

[H] did a review for one of their Silverstone or Thermaltake power supplies that they first reviewed almost a decade ago. They found that PSU degradation does occur and that voltage regulation, etc... get loosened up and may not be within acceptable or tolerable specifications. I will have to look for it (saw it a few months ago).

Edit: Found it:

SilverStone Olympia 1000W Power Supply 7 Year Later - SilverStone Olympia 1000W Power Supply 7 Year Redux

Conclusion - SilverStone Olympia 1000W Power Supply 7 Year Redux

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That article is not meant to be the basis of a conclusion or general determination about age and power supplies. The author is the first to point that out:

Article said:

we have often been asked the question, "What happens to a power supply after you have been using it for an extended period and how does it perform relative to when it was new?"

Well, today, we do not have a definitive answer for you. We do not have a scientifically rigorous answer for you. What we do have for you is a single data point

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Article said:

"How does that Olympia 1000W perform after 7 years of service relative to when it was brand new?"

In addressing that simple curiosity, and our observations, a few caveats should be noted. While this was a fun look at what has happened to one particular unit over time, this observation is of a completely uncontrolled design and produces only an observation not scientifically rigorous data. Why? Well, we had only a single Olympia 1000W, not the 3 minimum for statistics or the desired 10 for some rigor. I have no idea what the actual loads were over the years on the unit or how long in hours it has actually run, but probably "a lot." While this unit was running the environmental and electrical conditions (temperature, humidity, AC input, etc) were also uncontrolled in the same manner and to the same extent that we do in our load testing. There is no way to actually say if this unit has experienced a representative form of "normal" usage or not.

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Article said:

We also want to remind readers that this entire conclusion is editorial in nature and that the results we present here are NOT meant to be a definitive answer or a scientifically rigorous answer for how use and age affect a power supply but rather a single observation.

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The PSU in the article is also not of the same design as the OP asked about, so really that single data point is even less meaningful in this particular case.

~7-8 years should be nothing for most power-supplies, assuming that they have been well maintained and have not been abused during that time.

I put around 42K on a 520HX, the only reason I am not still using it is the fan died before the warranty expired.
Corsair took it and gave me a 650HX.
It was rock solid rail wise.

Age can factor in on efficiency and it's ability to hit it's rated watts but if you are not taxing it they might be alright to keep using.

I too have been solidly rocking an HX620 since about a month or two after [H] published their glowing review of this PSU. During this time, I've went from an LGA e5200, to an LGA Q6600, to my current LGA 1155 2500k based system. I haven't bothered to upgrade the PSU because it has been rock solid. Over the next year, I finally will do my next mobo/cpu/ram upgrade for the first time since the 2011 upgrade...but I want to see what Zen will do before I decide which platform to go with. I've been on Intel since the e5200, but I still miss my old Athlon XP 3200+. The only cpu I've kept as long has been my current 2500k, which is still a very capable cpu.

This PSU powered an HD 4850, an HD 6850, and the current GTX 960. However, my next upgrade will be my GPU and this old PSU doesn't have any 8 pin PCIe cables to use with modern top end GPUs. When I recently contacted Corsair support, they indicated that they had no 8 pin cables for purchase that would work with this old PSU.

Knowing that I'm already almost 5 years past the warranty period, I jumped on the recent Amazon deal for the EVGA Supernova G2 650w PSU. Basically the same wattage, but now an 80+ GOLD instead of the old 80+ rating. Additionally, it is fully modular as opposed to partially modular. The main difference, the EVGA PSU is very much quieter than the old HX620. I thought I'd been hearing the CPU or GPU fan all of this time, but it turns out that is was the old HX620. I have to lean down to within a foot or two of my Corsair 550D case to hear any fan noise now. I used to hear it easily from 5+ feet away.

I couldn't pull myself to throw away the HX620, so I packed it away into the box the EVGA arrived in