I cringe every time I see someone say, "Get a Thermaltake PSU, they're awesome." Why is that you ask? With reviews like this and this they must be excellent power supplies, right? They are! Except that those aren't the models everyone looks at when they're recommended to go with Thermaltake.
Thermaltake has two major lines of power supplies: the Toughpower units and the PurePower/TR2 units.
The Thermaltake Toughpower PSUs are excellent PSUs, often made by CWT, with high efficiency, good voltage regulation, and good protection chips. They're on par with Corsair most of the time. Overall they're good PSUs and worth considering.
But the PurePower or TR2 units are another story. There aren't as many reviews for them as for the Toughpowers; the most reliable I've found are from HardwareSecrets, and both of the units they tested were shoddy:
Thermaltake TR2 RX 750W
- http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/902/9
Thermaltake PurePower (TR2) 430W NP
- http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/332/9
Thermaltake's power supplies are made by three companies: CWT, Compucase, and Thermaltake itself. CWT makes some of the Toughpower units and some of the TR2/PurePower units. The CWT-made TR2/PurePowers are at least half-decent, but still not very good. However the CWT Toughpower units are essentially identical to their Corsair counterparts. Thermaltake makes the Toughpower XT units. Compucase makes a lot of the low-end PurePower and TR2 PUS and they are absolute garbage. How do you tell the difference?
The UL number.
Find this on your power supply.
E199442 - Compucase - Avoid at all costs
E161451 - CWT - TR2/PurePower: avoid. Toughpower: very good
E303666 - OEM Thermaltake - Quite good usually
When someone is told that all Thermaltake PSUs are good, and they go in Frys and see a $50 Thermaltake TR2 next to a $100 Thermaltake Toughpower, which are they going to get? The cheap-o.
So I must insist; if you recommend a Thermaltake PSU, make sure to qualify it as Thermaltake Toughpower, because otherwise you might as well tell 'em to get a Dynex or some crap like that.
Further Reading
Edited by Phaedrus2129 - 12/3/10 at 10:07am
Thermaltake has two major lines of power supplies: the Toughpower units and the PurePower/TR2 units.
The Thermaltake Toughpower PSUs are excellent PSUs, often made by CWT, with high efficiency, good voltage regulation, and good protection chips. They're on par with Corsair most of the time. Overall they're good PSUs and worth considering.
But the PurePower or TR2 units are another story. There aren't as many reviews for them as for the Toughpowers; the most reliable I've found are from HardwareSecrets, and both of the units they tested were shoddy:
Thermaltake TR2 RX 750W
Quote:
| Thermaltake TR2 RX 750 W is, according to our methodology, a flawed product that must be avoided at all costs. It can’t deliver its labeled wattage at high temperatures, but this is not the worst of it: ripple and noise level are way above the maximum allowed when you pull 80% or more from the unit’s labeled capacity (i.e. 600 W and above), overloading your components (especially electrolytic capacitors from the motherboard and video cards), which can cause your PC to present an erratic behavior (crashes and random resets) and, under extreme conditions, damage components. |
Thermaltake PurePower (TR2) 430W NP
Quote:
|
This is an old ATX power supply where the manufacturer added a 24-pin motherboard connector, SATA power cables and a PCI Express auxiliary power cable to make it compatible with computers available today. Simply updating the cables doesn’t make this power supply an updated product. ... The main problem with this power supply is that it can’t deliver its labeled power. It is, in fact, a 350 W power supply. ... You could buy it as if it were a 350 W unit, but when we pulled 355 W from this power supply noise level was touching the maximum admissible limit and efficiency was at 69.6%. With other load patterns the maximum efficiency we saw was 76.9%. Our conclusion is pretty simple: don’t buy this power supply. |
Thermaltake's power supplies are made by three companies: CWT, Compucase, and Thermaltake itself. CWT makes some of the Toughpower units and some of the TR2/PurePower units. The CWT-made TR2/PurePowers are at least half-decent, but still not very good. However the CWT Toughpower units are essentially identical to their Corsair counterparts. Thermaltake makes the Toughpower XT units. Compucase makes a lot of the low-end PurePower and TR2 PUS and they are absolute garbage. How do you tell the difference?
The UL number.
Find this on your power supply.
E199442 - Compucase - Avoid at all costs
E161451 - CWT - TR2/PurePower: avoid. Toughpower: very good
E303666 - OEM Thermaltake - Quite good usually
When someone is told that all Thermaltake PSUs are good, and they go in Frys and see a $50 Thermaltake TR2 next to a $100 Thermaltake Toughpower, which are they going to get? The cheap-o.
So I must insist; if you recommend a Thermaltake PSU, make sure to qualify it as Thermaltake Toughpower, because otherwise you might as well tell 'em to get a Dynex or some crap like that.
Further Reading
Edited by Phaedrus2129 - 12/3/10 at 10:07am
