Hardware Bistro

Product: ToughPower Grand 650
Manufacturer: Thermaltake
Supplied by: Thermaltake
Price: 185USD/RM583
Launch Date: July 2010

 

Besides the chassis and cooling products, Thermaltake is also well known with their power supply units. Today we will have a quick look on one of their latest PSUs; ToughPower Grand. Thermaltake ToughPower Grand meets all the latest technologies and features for today's extreme PC systems but yet still affordable. Let us explore this eye-catching trendy PSU together in this review.

 

Company Profile

Started from the passion for the DIY (Do It Yourself) concepts and the desires to realize the goal of "Ideas are originated from humanity; Realizing ideas is our belief." Thermaltake Technology was established in January, 1999 and has been market to the world with "Thermaltake" brand name ever since.

Thermaltake became the number one choice for PC DIY enthusiast worldwide with its innovatively breakthrough product designs. The concept of "Quality", "Performance", and "Reliability" have been incorporated into the design of Thermaltake PC Chassis, Cooler and Power Supply to assure the components meet the highest standard.

 

Features

• Compliance with Intel ATX 12V 2.3 & SSI EPS 12V 2.92 standards.

• 80 PLUS Gold certified - extreme efficiency PSU series with 87-92% efficiency @ 20-100% load to cut down electric cost.

• 24/7 @ 50℃: Guaranteed to deliver 650W continuous power.

• Pure aesthetic design with uncompromising performance.

• Proprietary dual ball bearing 14cm flower-shape fan enables longer lifespan and lowers overall noise output by dramatically reducing bearing frictions.

• 100% 105℃ (221℉) Japanese made electrolytic capacitors: the foundation of a robust and reliable power source even under the harshest operating environment.

• 105°C (221℉) Solid state capacitors not only last longer than electrolytic capacitors but also offer excellent durability and reliability.

• Newly designed Active PFC circuitry provides higher efficiency during low-voltage input.

• Double-forward switching circuitry: compared with traditional circuitry, double-forward switching circuitry offers low power loss and high reliability.

• Unparalleled DC to DC converters for 3.3V and 5V outputs to reach high efficiency.

• 12Vin1: single +12V rail design providing up to 52A.

• FanDelayCool Technology: allows 14cm fan to continue to operate 15-30 sec after system shuts-down to ensure all components are properly cooled.

• Multi-GPU ready: 2 x PCI-E 8pin & 2 x PCI-E 6pin for PCI-Express graphic cards.

• Auto switching circuitry for universal AC input from 90-264V.

• Active Power Factor Correction (PFC) with PF value of 0.95 at full load.

• High reliability: MTBF>120,000 hours.

• DIMENSION: 5.9"(W) x 3.4"(H) x 7.1" (L);150mm(W) x 86mm(H) x 180mm(L)

• Built-in industry grade protections : Over Current, Over Power, Over Voltage, Under Voltage and Short-Circuit protection.

• Safety / EMI Approvals: CE, TUV, FCC, UL, CUL, GOST and BSMI certified.

 

Specifications

Package & Contents

 

Thermaltake is a premium computer hardware vendor and hence ToughPower Grand is well packed without any question. The outer box of ToughPower Grand is soft box which is used for marketing purpose while the inner black box is a strong box to ensure the PSU is well protected as Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is a heavy-weight PSU.

 

Besides the boxes Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is kept inside a nice cotton bag while the modular cables are also kept inside another soft case. Additional cables are provided for Thermaltake ToughPower Grand are 1 x +12v extension cable and 2 x PCI-E adapters which might be missed out during product development.

 

Other bundled accessories for Thermaltake ToughPower Grand are vibration absorbents, badge, screws, cable clams, cable straps and couple of documents. The cable clamps are something new to us and it works as the same way of cable straps. Vibration absorbents are provided for easier installation and vibration reduction which is caused by its curve chassis.

 

A Closer Look on Thermaltake ToughPower Grand 650

If you browse through Thermaltake's website, you will be amazed with the number of their PSU series and models; from entry till extreme performance. The existing available series are ToughPower Grand, ToughPower XT (All New), ToughPower XT, ToughPower, Purepower, TR2, Litepower and EVO_Blue. ToughPower Grand is one of the newest PSU series where it comes trendy and eye-catching design but yet still affordable.

There are two models available for Thermaltake ToughPower Grand; 650W and 750W. One of the attractiveness of Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is the seven years warranty which is a strong selling point and absolutely attractive. In term of certifications, Thermaltake ToughPower Grand are certified with ATI CrossFireX, NVIDIA SLI and the most important one is the 80Plus Gold (able to achieve 87-88% efficiency during 100% full load). 

 

Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is worn with a black-coated chassis and the red line is basically a long sticker; a simple yet attractive design. As the newly launched PSU, Thermaltake ToughPower Grand comes with latest technologies; ATX 12V 2.3 form factor where the efficiency recommendations were increased to 80% (at least 70% efficiency) and the 12V load requirement was lowered down.

 

Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is equipped with 140mm cooling fan with 1900RPM but only at 16dBA. Thermaltake ToughPower Grand's air vents are in honey-comb shape; the best proven way for maximizing air flow and this 140mm cooling fan will be running for another 15-30 seconds after the system is shut down to dissipate the remaining heat inside for longer life span.

 

The rear panel of Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is full of air vents to ensure the heated air can be dissipated fast enough. A red LED switch is added for user to manually turn on/off the PSU; a pretty useful button. There is an additional LED display which is used to show the "Thermaltake" brand logo but we prefer other useful display like PSU loading %.

 

Most of the modern high power PSUs come with dual or quad +12V rails but Thermaltake ToughPower Grand only comes with single +12V rail with maximum 52A. This is not a problem if the Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is stable enough to provide all the juices to the hardware. Thermaltake ToughPower Grand's enclosure can be opened after removing nine screws and the red sticker but this is not recommended as the warranty will be voided.

 

Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is a modular cable PSU where all the cables can be detached from the PSU when they are not being used except the three main cables. There are total eight 8-pin female connectors on the PSU; four (red) for PCI-E graphic card while another four (black) for peripheral hardware; all these female connectors are one-way inserting so it will be safe to plug in the modular cables.

 

Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is a modular PSU but there are still three fixed main cables; 24-pin ATX, EPS 12V (8-pin) and EPS 12V (4+4-pin) cables. All these fixed and modular cables are well sleeved and tighten up with heated heat shrink. All these fixed cables come with 550mm lengths which are long enough to support most of the chassis even in upside position.

 

Thermaltake ToughPower Grand comes with total eight modular cables (four for peripherals while another four for PCI-E VGA) and three extension cables. Among the four peripheral cables, two are Molex cables with four Molex connectors and one FDD connector each. For the other two cables, they are SATA power connectors with supporting up to total eight SATA devices.

 

For the PCI-E graphic card modular cables, two of them are come with 6-pin connectors while another two come with 8-pin connectors to support higher end graphic cards. Additional two 8-pin PCI-E VGA to 6-pin PCI-E VGA extension cables are given for supporting quad graphic cards setup since 6-pin PCI-E VGA connector is a much common than 8-pin PCI-E connector.

Thermaltake has listed down all the fixed and modular cables with the exact lengths and the quantity of the connectors. This is very useful information if you are unsure whether Thermaltake ToughPower Grand can be supported by your rig or not.

 

Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is equipped by 105C/221C Japanese made electrolytic capacitors & solid State capacitors with low ESR for improving the durability greatly and offering the highest stability and reliability. Besides that Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is also using DC to DC converter and double forward circuit for gaining higher efficiency and offering low power loss.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

 

To setup a PSU is not a problem but how to manage all cables is an important skill to ensure the internal airflow is not messed up by these cables. For our setup, we have installed Thermaltake ToughPower Grand at the bottom of our Maelstorm chassis. It will be much easier to manage the cables for a modular PSU since all unwanted cables can be removed out and thank to the cable straps and cable clams which help to tie up the cables together to improve the internal airflow.

 

Overall we did not encounter any compatible issue with Thermaltake ToughPower Grand but due to the unique curve shape of Thermaltake ToughPower Grand, the provided long screws have to be used in order to secure the PSU on the chassis. Most probably three modular cables will be required for normal setup; Molex, SATA Power and PCI-E VGA. The "Thermaltake" brand logo looks cool if and only if you are attending any Lan Party or gaming events.

 

Test Bed

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/Gigabyte G31M-ES2L
Heatsink: Noctua NH-D14
Memory: Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR2 8500
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: Galaxy GeForce GTX260+
Casing: In Win Maelstorm
PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower Grand 650W
Optical Drive: HLDS DVD RW +/-
Controller: Aerocool Touch 2000
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Operating System: Window XP Pro SP2/Win 7 HP
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

For better accuracy and understanding about Thermaltake ToughPower Grand, we have tested it with different loads from 125W to 650W. The voltage rails of Thermaltake ToughPower Grand are not exactly same during the low and full loads but the variance gaps are not too broad so Thermaltake ToughPower Grand can be considered as a reliable PSU; no abnormal restart was observed. Thermaltake ToughPower Grand's efficiency for different loads are quite stable and maintain between 88% till 90.6%; this is the reason why Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is certified with 80Plus Gold.

The cooling fan of Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is spinning accordingly to the PSU's loading and once the PSU output wattage is more than 525W then the fan starts to spin harder for better heat dissipation and the maximum speed is 930RPM with 25 dBA noise during full load; a bit noisy but not too loud. Anyway most of the PSU will be operated within 50% so the 19dBA noise is definitely quiet enough. The temperature of Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is around 25 to 47 degree depend on the loads; pretty standard and it seems the 140mm cooling fan is working pretty fine here.

Verdicts

Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is currently available for 650W and 750W which are the most common PSU wattages that most of the users will go for it for providing enough juices to their latest powerful hardware without emptying their pockets. Thermaltake ToughPower Grand is not only come with decent performance, reliability but also comes with stylish and eye-catching design. 185USD for Thermaltake ToughPower Grand 650W is neither too cheap nor too expensive but it is definitely worth for it as Thermaltake is providing 7 years of warranty for this killer product and 80Plus Gold Certified is the guarantee proof of energy saving.

 

Pros: 

+ Stylish design & well packed
+ Quality products with reliable components
+ 80Plus Gold Certified with high efficiency
+ Promising & decent rails
+ Modular cable management
+ 7 years warranty
+ Low temperature & noise
+ Thermaltake brand logo display

Cons:

- Prefer a much useful LCD display

 

Thanks to Thermaltake for providing this sample for us to review.

 

 

 

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