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Test Comparison
For our testing today, I decided to pit the Corsair One i300 head-to-head with the KitGuru GPU test system. Both are based on the Z690 platform and use an i9-12900K, both have fast DDR5 memory and 2TB NVMe SSDs, while we installed the RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition graphics card. The key difference is that our test system is a mid-tower chassis with an ATX motherboard, so we can see exactly how performance varies from the mini-ITX Corsair One to a traditional desktop with a very similar spec.
Our test system spec is as follows. You can read more about this system HERE and check out MSI on the CCL webstore HERE.
| CPU |
Intel Core i9-12900K
|
| Motherboard |
MSI MEG Z690 Unify
|
| Memory |
32GB (2x16GB) ADATA XPG Lancer DDR5 4800MHz
|
| Graphics Card |
RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition
|
| SSD |
2TB MSI Spatium M480
|
| Chassis | MSI MPG Velox 100P Airflow |
| CPU Cooler |
MSI MEG CoreLiquid S360
|
| Power Supply |
Corsair 1200W HX Series Modular 80 Plus Platinum
|
| Operating System |
Windows 11 Pro 21H2
|
| Monitor |
MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD
|
| Resizable BAR |
Enabled for all supported GPUs
|
BIOS Revisions
The final thing to discuss before getting on with the benchmarks is the BIOS situation. Corsair's reviewer's guide points out the fact that the i9-12900K has been limited to 165W Long Duration and 175W Short Duration (two seconds) power draw. In my initial testing however, the CPU was drawing a consistent 180W of juice when stressed in Cinebench R23.
Corsair confirmed to me that 165W is the correct figure and it was not a typo, leaving us perplexed at the discrepancy, especially as other reviewers have made mention of the 180W figure.
Original BIOS.
As it turns out, my sample was running an older BIOS version – specifically, EZD29IZ1.1C3. Despite being reset to ‘optimised defaults', the CPU section clearly shows a 180W Long Duration power limit, rising to 200W for the Short Duration.
It's important to note this BIOS is dated to 15th October 2021, almost three months before the i300 was announced in January 2022.
Latest BIOS.
Updating to the latest BIOS – EZD29IZ1.1C5 – resulted in the Long Duration power limit now showing 165W, in accordance with Corsair's reviewer's guide. This BIOS version is the latest one available and can be downloaded through Corsair's website, though it is still only dated to December 2021, so it is not especially recent.
We can only assume review samples were shipped with a pre-release BIOS, erroneously set with a 180W power limit – or perhaps Corsair was testing how much they could get away with in terms of CPU power draw, and later decided to lower it for the official release. Corsair did tell us that any customer who buys a Corsair One i300 will have the latest BIOS out of the box.
Either way, it did present an interesting angle to our testing, so where applicable you will see two entry points for the Corsair One – one with the CPU using the original BIOS, with 180W power limit, and another with the updated BIOS and the 165W power limit.
