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If you're looking to put together a new PC with an Nvidia RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 graphics card you will need some serious power, and whilst a 1600W PSU is arguably a bit overkill, if you're looking for something that will guarantee yourself maximum headroom for future upgrades, or which can help run the most powerful workstation PCs, this MSI MEG Ai1600T is just the ticket. In fact, it’s so powerful it can support 2 GPUs at the same time for those interested in demanding AI applications like LLM hosting. Crucially, it comes with the latest 12V-2X6 cable connector for your graphics card, so will help you avoid any of those reported cable-melting problems that have been reported across the web by some users of these high-end Nvidia GPUs.

The PSU is compliant with the ATX 3.1 standard so can handle 3x GPU power excursion and a total power excursion of up to 240% – meaning you'll be well covered in the event of power surges. It is fully digital, allowing for precise regulation and response times from the microcontroller (MCU) when controlling functions like the Power Factor Correction (PFC) and Light Load Compensation (LLC) stages; all this means greater stability and more efficient power output.

12V-2X6 vs 12VHPWR connectors

Both 12VHPWR and 12V-2X6 are based around the same cable, but are different connector ends to these cables – plugging into the PSU on one side and the graphics card on the other. The 12V-2X6 is the upgraded version which became widespread after September 2023. As you can see in the infographic below produced by a kind Redditor, the 12V-2X6 ‘has shorter sense pins (down 1.5mm) and longer ground and power pins (up 0.25mm)', which will likely mean nothing to most people, but basically this means that it has better connection reliability and lower temperature build-up.

It's this lower temperature build-up that means the dangerously high temps we've seen some Nvidia 50-series cards suffer from, causing 12VHPWR cables to melt through, has not been reported on the 12V-2X6 ended cables. As a result, they're the perfect pick for a PSU to power an RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 build. Given we had an MSI RTX 5080 SUPRIM in need of a power supply, we decided to pair it up with that.

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Titanium Efficiency

A power supply converts the AC electricity from the mains outlet into DC power of the correct voltage to run your computer. The efficiency rating essentially measures how much energy is lost in this process (primarily via heat energy) and how much is directed towards where it should be going.

The efficiency rating is important when looking to buy a PSU for a number of reasons. In the long run, a more efficient PSU can save you a bit of money in electricity bills (though not a huge amount), it's also better for the environment, however, the main benefit is in increased system stability and performance, especially when your system is put under heavy strain. If you're overclocking your CPU or other components then system stability is particularly important; a less efficient PSU could lead to voltage fluctuations that may cause crashes or glitches.

There are three different efficiency rating standards quoted by manufacturers: the 80 PLUS rating system (which has been the go-to for years), the Cybenetics system (increasingly popular), and the lesser-known PPLP.INFO system. A titanium efficiency rating is the highest score that a power supply can achieve on any of these rating standards, and the MEG Ai1600T scores it across all three. This means that, under the 80 PLUS system, for example, the MEG Ai1600T displays 94% efficiency at 50% load and 90% efficiency at 100% load, which is hugely impressive.

Cybenetics A++ noise level

Despite being so immensely powerful, the MEG Ai1600T is one of the quietest PSUs on the market. Besides power efficiency ratings, Cybenetics also put out noise level ratings for PSUs, and once again the MEG Ai1600T scores top marks in this field, achieving an A++ rating.

A++ essentially means that the PSU produces <15 dB(A) in measurable noise. For context, a whisper from a few feet away is considered to be roughly approximate to 15 decibels, with the sound of breathing about 10 decibels. So pretty dang quiet!

Exceptional build quality

As you'd expect from such a premium product, the construction of the MEG Ai1600T is of the highest quality. It uses various server-grade materials in components like the interleaved PFC MOSFETs for superior thermal conductivity, heat dissipation, and efficiency. The SiC MOSFET shows up to a 10% temperature decrease compared to the previous gen SiC MOSFET. It also uses a flat spring coil transformer design that takes up less space inside the PSU but retains high efficiency. The heatsink design has also been enlarged to be notably bigger than you'd commonly see, with sloped cuts made into it that guide airflow.

Every unit of this PSU that leaves the factory ‘undergoes hundreds of strict quality checks', and you can look up the results of the top 16 of these for your particular product.

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EZ installation

The Ai1600T comes with various EZ DIY features that make setting it up within your PC a doddle. You get an adjustable cable organizer that you can pre-install before putting the PSU in to make cable management that much easier. The soft braided modular cable is both flexible and durable, allowing you to easily bend it where needed. Finally, the dual-colored 12V-2X6 cable lets you tell at a glance which end should be plugged into the graphics card and which end into the PSU – a single but handy feature we'd like to see implemented in other power supplies.

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Customization & performance monitoring via MSI Center

The free MSI Center software that you can download to accompany your new PSU comes with various features to help you make the most of this premium power supply.

Real Time Monitoring & Recording: via the dashboard, you can measure the PSU temperature, fan speed, and efficiency, as well as the output wattage and voltage supplied to the GPU, CPU, and system as a whole. All of this data can be screenshotted or recorded in real time and saved to a CSV file.

Fan speed control: fan speed can even be set to Auto to adapt to the needs of the PSU, or a specific speed can be set within the Min/Max range if you want a consistently quieter experience or are aiming for maximum performance.

Mystic Light: whilst in a lot of PC builds your PSU might be hidden away beneath the back panel, for those where it's more visible you can actually have the MEG Ai1600T display dynamic ARGB lighting effects which you can control in the app.

About the Author

Aaron Ritchie

Aaron's laptop knowledge makes him the go-to guy on PC Guide. But he still finds time for features, deals and much more.