Why don't the ratings of CORSAIR PSUs on Cybenetics match the ratings on the CORSAIR webstore?

If you're reading this, it is very likely that you have incredibly sharp eyes and have noticed that the ratings of any given CORSAIR PSU you can find on the Cybenetics Labs PSU Efficiency & Noise Level list might actually exceed the rating that we promote on our website. Why is that? Let's explain.

The short answer is that this happens because the ratings on the CORSAIR webstore are based on the absolute minimum specification a power supply is guaranteed to meet.

Here's an example.

We are planning a new power supply, the OVR9000i. This power supply is planned to be a gold rated power supply. After we get production started, we will verify that the power supply actually meet the standard for a gold power supply, so we will take 100 units, and test them.

Out of those 100 units, 15 reach a gold rating, but 85 actually reach the higher platinum rating.

Now, we COULD rate them at platinum and sell them at a higher price, but that would not be fair since 15% of people could get a worse product than they paid for. Instead, we do it the other way around so we know that everyone who buys one, will get one with that rating.

Now to the reason the ratings might not match – reviewers and independent labs either go out and buy retail units, or they get them straight from random units from our warehouse – we do not cherry pick "golden" samples to send out.

If we use the previous example, there is a 85% chance that the reviewer or lab will receive a unit that will exceed our MINIMUM rating of gold. So while the unit the reviewer have received might achieve a higher rating, we will not adjust the rating on our website, as 15% of all units sold will be gold.

So in short, there's a chance that you will get a better power supply than you thought, but no chance that you'll get a worse one.