And now for the guts. It’s time to take the PSU apart. This voids your warranty, so don’t do it. That’s why I’m doing it for you… Moron. Inside, if you look right there on the Printed Circuit Board you will notice the company logo, CWT. The unit was actually built by CWT, the same people who also build PSUs for Thermaltake. But don’t get discouraged over my Nancy Drewness, this is still a Corsair through and through, and a very reliable piece of machine power.
The PSU’s filtering stage is beautiful, with the basic components used, along with one extra X capacitor, four extra Y capacitors and one extra coil. This power supply also features an X capacitor after the rectifying bridge. An interesting feature is the fuse is inside a fireproof rubber enclosure, so in the chance that the fuse should blow, the rubber would contain any issuing sparks that might set the unit on fire. Every coil in this unit is also protected by the same fireproof coating.
The thermal sensor used on this power supply is attached to the secondary heatsink. The purpose of this sensor is shutting down the power supply in case of an overheating situation and also controlling the fan speed according to the power supply internal temperature. Nippon Chemi-Con capacitors are used. As advertised, Corsair/CWT used top-quality Japanese capacitors in this PSU. The VX550 employs a slightly smaller 330uF Nippon Chemi-Con primary. The other components and heatsinks used appear to be sized appropriately for the rated output of this PSU. The heatsinks appeared to be top quality aluminum tightly squeezed in between all the other components, but with that huge fan on top and the plastic deflector directing the flow of air I see no problems with the placement of the components.
