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Thermaltake Toughpower 1000Watt Power Supply Review
Author: Jim Manis
Published: Monday, September 22, 2008
Introduction
Thermaltake is a name you are all no doubt familiar with. Their wide ranging product line encompasses some of the parts you may currently have in your pc. These products range from fans, and controllers to all sorts of custom bay devices and even entire cases. Their prowess in making parts that customers crave has led them into building higher wattage PSU's and in this review we’ll be looking at the Thermaltake Toughpower 1000w.
Why a 1KW PSU?
A few short years ago a 500 watt power supply was considered more than you will ever need. However as technology advances so does the power requirements. With today's Quad core processors, dual and quad graphics cards and of course the array of water pumps, fans and drives, 500 watts just won't do.
The common range of PSU’s today are around 650-1000 watts and boast more efficiency than ever before. Some, like the Thermaltake's Toughpower 1000w, have been certified at 80% efficiency by the 80 Plus program. .(Thermaltake claims the Toughpower as high as 87%+).
One of the reasons for such high numbers is for Overclocking. While a 650watt would handle your typical gaming PC when you start overclocking and adding more video cards the power requirements will quickly will outpace even the best 650's, your power draw will exceed the targeted 80% and the unit will slowly deteriorate until the interior components fail. Higher power units will give you more power and higher dynamic range to handle these growing power demands.
The common range of PSU’s today are around 650-1000 watts and boast more efficiency than ever before. Some, like the Thermaltake's Toughpower 1000w, have been certified at 80% efficiency by the 80 Plus program. .(Thermaltake claims the Toughpower as high as 87%+).
One of the reasons for such high numbers is for Overclocking. While a 650watt would handle your typical gaming PC when you start overclocking and adding more video cards the power requirements will quickly will outpace even the best 650's, your power draw will exceed the targeted 80% and the unit will slowly deteriorate until the interior components fail. Higher power units will give you more power and higher dynamic range to handle these growing power demands.
Thermaltake believes in nice straightforward packaging, on the front we have a simple product shot with a feature overview on the back.
As with many consumer electronics you can buy this unit is at least partially made by another company. For the Toughpower 1000w Thermaltake has chosen Channel Well Technology as the manufacturer. CWT is known for very high quality components in their high end units, and the TT1kW is a prime example of this. Inside you will find essentially two PSU's !! Take a close look at the picture above and you can see what I am talking about. The two units are divided with 12v rails 1 and 4 on one with 20 amp and 36 amp circits respectively, and the other providing 20 amps to 12v2 and 36 to 12v3.
There is certainly no lack of power there.
There is certainly no lack of power there.
