The NZXT C1200 Gold is a high-end, strong PSU, allowing you to comfortably set the power limit of an RTX 4090 to 600 W if its BIOS supports it. Despite almost a year passing after the release of the ATX v3.0 spec, still, there are few offerings, primarily because only NVIDIA uses 12VHPWR connectors in its graphics cards, with AMD staying to 6+2 pin PCIe for this generation. When AMD follows the PCIe 5.0 guidelines, utilizing 12VHPWR connectors, ATX v3.0 PSUs will dominate the market. This is why I advise you to only look for an ATX v3.0 PSU for your next upgrade or purchase, to be future-proof and not make a short-term investment. You can keep your older PSU with adapters, sure, but I will never suggest using adapters, especially for high-power applications.

The high performance that the C1200 Gold achieves wasn't a surprise for me since I am very familiar with the capabilities of the Channel Well Technology platform that it uses, with code name CSZ. The same platform is used in the Thermaltake GF3 1200 W and Montech Titan Gold 1200 W units, which achieve high performance, too. Another asset of the C1200 is its compact dimensions, which comes at a cost. The unit's PCB is small, lacking the space for proper heatsinks on the secondary side, so strong airflow is required at high loads, which leads to increased noise output. The more space between parts on a PCB, the better the airflow; hence the fan doesn't have to work overtime to remove heat. This is why I am not so excited about small-sized PSUs.