Introduction

MSI has a good presence in the PSU market. Its newest model, the MEG Ai1000P, is highly interesting since it is ATX v3.0 and PCIe 5.0 ready, offering native support for the newly released NVIDIA RTX 4090 without the need for a 12VHPWR adapter. The MEG Ai1000P and its stronger brother, the MEG Ai1300P, are MSI's top PSU products, based on platforms provided by Channel Well Technology (CWT). Efficiency-wise, the MEG Ai1000P is 80 PLUS Platinum and Cybenetics Platinum, and in noise, it is rated as Cybenetics Standard++ (30 - 35 dBA). With 160 mm in depth, it has a normal footprint. Still, MSI decided to equip it with a 120 mm diameter fan instead of a 135 or 140 mm one, which would be able to push the same amount of air at slower speeds, keeping noise output lower. Nevertheless, the fan is top quality, using a hydro-dynamic bearing.

The MEG Ai1000P uses a fully modular cable design, besides the standard cables and connectors, we also find a 12VHPWR connector with the sense pins set for 600 W max power output. According to the ATX v3.0 spec, a 1000 W PSU should have a single 12VHPWR connector rated at 450 W. Most brands don't pay attention to this guideline, using 600 W cables on all of their PSUs, even with capacities lower than 750 W. This helps them keep a smaller inventory of cables. Still, it isn't ideal to have lower-capacity PSUs informing the GPUs that they can deliver up to 600 W on the 12VHPWR connectors, because EPS connectors can also draw lots of power if they feed a high-end CPU. Intel's guidelines are there for a reason, and all should follow them when they state ATX v3.0 compatibility.

Specifications