X-bit labs

Roundup: 14 Power Supply Units from Thermaltake (page 25)

Category: Other

by Oleg Artamonov

[ 07/28/2006 | 08:34 AM ]

Toughpower 550 NP (W0097, 550W)

The Toughpower series is new in Thermaltake’s product nomenclature and includes expensive power supplies whose independent voltage regulation as the emphasized feature (before this, top-end and midrange power supplies from Thermaltake belonged to the PurePower series; low-end models to the TR2 series). But we’ve already found out that the PurePower W0057 has independent voltage regulation, too. It’s just not touted there.

Although the PSU doesn’t look like the low-end W0093, it is manufactured by Channel Well, too. The UL certificate numbers – it’s the easiest way to determine the real manufacturer of a power supply without opening it up – are different for the W0093 and W0097 but are both registered by CWT. The PSU has a black matte case with a large aluminum label on a side that reads “Toughpower” (Thermaltake seems to have a fancy for this kind of labels, putting them on many of its power supplies).

The internal design of this power supply is going to look familiar to you if you’ve read our reviews of Antec or Foxconn PSUs also manufactured by CWT: the characteristically shaped heatsinks with that large rectangular white resistor on one of them (this resistor works as a load for the +12V channel so that you could start the PSU up without external load), and there is a sticker “550A” on the transformer that provokes associations with the Foxconn FA-550A model.

The PSU doesn’t support power factor correction at all. Thermaltake also offers the Toughpower W0096 model which is equipped with an active PFC device.

This power supply is declared to have an output power of 550W (20W of which fall on the -12V output and the standby regulator). The maximum combined current on the +12V power rail is 36A (or 432W – take note that this is smaller than the sum of the limits for the separate +12V lines which is 38A). What’s interesting, the +5V rail allows a load current of up to 40A, which is generally untypical for modern ATX12V 2.0 power supplies. The requirements to the load capacity of their low-voltage rails are not strict in the new standard, so the allowable current on the +5V rail is rarely even 30A.

The PSU is equipped with the following cables and connectors:

• Mainboard power cable with a 20+4-pin connector, 53cm long
• A CPU power cable with a 4-pin connector; 52cm
• A cable with two graphics card power connectors, 52cm+15cm
• Two cables with four Molex connectors and one floppy mini-plug on each; 52cm to the first connector and 15cm to each next connector
• Two cables with two SATA power connectors on each; 54cm+15cm
• PSU fan’s velocity sensor cable, 34cm; this cable is attached to the mainboard so that the speed could be managed; it is impossible to manually control the fan

A curious fact, the mainboard power cable has not one sense wire as required by the standard, but three, on all the highly loaded lines (you can see two sense wires in the snapshot above, the third one, for +3V, is on the reverse side of the connector). This sensing is necessary to compensate the voltage drop on the cable wires which may be considerable at high load currents.