| Thermaltake Toughpower 550W Power Supply
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Installation:
The Thermaltake Toughpower 550W power supply will be installed and tested on a very demanding system. This system will include the following hardware:
» DFI LanParty nF4 SLI-DR Motherboard
» AMD Opteron 148 water-cooled
» 2 X 7800GTX graphics cards
» 2 X 512MB TCCD G. Skill LE RAM
» 1 X 36GB WD Raptor hard drive
» 3 X 200GB Seagate hard drives
» NEC 3510A DVD burner
» Asus DVD ROM
» Full ATX case
» 4 X 120mm fans
This was possibly one of the easiest installations I have had with a power supply. The sleeved cables made for a clean install, but that's not what made it great. Finally, a power supply manufacturer included enough cables for a high-end PC enthusiast to get the job done properly! There are 4 SATA connectors, 2 floppy connectors, as many Molex connectors as anyone would ever want or need, and of course the Dual PCI Express connectors are what made it a permanent fixture in my case. Also notable is the length of the cables; this power supply is installed in a full size ATX case and the wires are still plenty long enough. The finished product is shown below, but just keep in mind that cable management is not my specialty.
Testing and Performance:
Now on to testing, where we see just how closely the voltages follow the specifications.
Thermaltake claims that this power supply will not only hold the traditional +/-5% of rated voltages (as most power supply makers claim), but they go the extra mile by saying the Toughpower 550 supply will hold them to +/-3%. Let's see if Thermaltake is true to their word.
For a comparison, we have a power supply that has been a long time favorite of mine, a popular power supply made by Enermax known as the Noisetaker, in none other than the 600W SLI version.
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