Installation:
Installing the Thermaltake TWV480 was real nice, cables were just about the right length, and the mesh sleeving makes for a nice clean look. I’ll say it again; not having to deal with hiding the 6-pin auxiliary is a great touch. The main ATX black mesh cable is a bit more flexible than the last few supplies I have installed and allowed me to tuck it away. The wiring from the bay device to the supply fan has me a bit puzzled. When the two connectors are plugged in there is almost 6 feet of wire. I’m not sure what situation would lead a person to need even half that. Long is better than short but this is ridiculous! Speaking of too short, the speed monitoring cable would not extend to the bottom of my motherboard, even in a straight path. Go figure.
 
I tested this supply a little different than the normal way. I used a Seasonic Power Angel to measure key power measurements. The Seasonic device also includes a dummy load box for loading down a power supply.
A few words about watts, volt-amps, and power factor:
In AC systems, watts do not normally equal volts x amps (as they do in DC systems) because the voltage and current can be out-of-phase with one another. When the voltage is at a maximum, the current in the circuit can be somewhere in the middle. So the peak values of voltage and amperage may occur at different times. Power requires both voltage and current at the same time. Because of this, the product of volts and amps in an AC circuit is often higher than the actual power in the circuit. The ratio between these two values is called the power factor of the system or PF.
With the Power Angel measuring power supply input voltage, I grounded the sense lead and took some measurements. Completely unloaded the TWV480 showed a total load of .26 Amps, 20 Watts, 31VA that works out to a power factor of .66 (P/VA=PF or 20/31=.66) or 66% efficient. Loading down the supply to 193 watts, 2.16 Amps, and 257VA, the power factor came out to be .73 or 73% efficient. These are the conditions that I measured the output voltages listed in the chart below.
During these measurements, I was a little baffled by what the TWV display was showing. With the computer completely shutdown, the TWV shows 10 watts. I measure 5 watts and 10VA with the Power Angel. This wattage probably represents the load on the +5VSB standby power rail. Powered up at windows desktop, only Motherboard Monitor running, the TWV shows 154 watts. The Power Angel shows 203 Watts and 288VA (70% efficiency). I tried to figure out what kind of circuit the power supply was using to measure wattage, but I was unsuccessful, too much stuff packed into a small space. Is my OC’ed DFI Infinity with a 9700 Pro video card, 4 HDD’s, 2 optical drives, three 80mm, one 120mm, and a 92mm Vantec Tornado fan only using around 150 watts? I kinda doubt it. But then again, why do we need 400+ watt power supplies?
With my entire machine churning away hard, Motherboard monitor showed excellent voltages coming out of this supply. The –5 Volt rail discrepancy has always existed on this motherboard with MBM. The –5 Volt rail was not –2.6 volts as indicated when measured with a DVM. There were a few fluctuations when a 4-hour snapshot was taken from the low/high screen, but nothing to be overly concerned about.
 
Conclusion:
With a total of 480 watts, 550 watts peak, the Thermaltake TWV480 is ready to take on almost any load a computer may throw at it. The Mesh sleeving is something no power supply should ever be without. SATA hard drive power, and the total lack of the Auxiliary 6-pin connector make this an excellent product. I’m not sold on the bay device however. The wattage readout may be good for seeing the change in watts used, but probably are not real life loads. The proprietary nature of the fan controls is acceptable, but not very friendly.
A search of PriceGrabber finds the TWV480 Total Watts Viewer Power Supply available from two locations for about the same price... $71.49 at Newegg and $70.99 at Chief Value. Definitely a competitive price for the performance, not to mention the great looks and extra goodies included.
If the bay device and the supply were separate products I would give the supply 5 stars. The bay device would only receive 3.5 stars. Put them together and I give the Thermaltake TWV480 4 out of 5 stars, "Recommended".
Final Rating (4 out of 5 stars): 
Pros:
• Top notch power supply
• Great looks
• Perfect cable lengths
• Sleeved bundles
Cons:
• Questionable wattage readout
• Strange wire lengths on watt viewer
• Proprietary fan control
Special thanks to Thermaltake for providing the TWV480 Total Watts Viewer Power Supply to BigBruin.Com for review!
Please drop by the BigBruin.Com forum and feel free to discuss this review.
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