Thermaltake RGB 850W Power Supply Review
Thermaltake as a brand now has earned a great reputation in the desktop and PC enthusiast market globally with their vast products line. From PC case, peripherals, power supply up to custom liquid cooling solution and more, everything is here with quality.
Today we are reviewing our first Thermaltake product, a Power Supply from Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB Gold PSU product line, the Toughpower Grand RGB 850W Gold Full Modular power supply. The Toughpower Grand RGB Gold PSU are available in 650W, 750W and 850W variant, all with same feature and build quality with change in only maximum power handling.
Over the years Thermaltake has provided some extremely good power supplies and maintained a quality image among enthusiast and system builders. With the Toughpower Grand units Thermaltake took a step further by adding some great aesthetic features and promising the user a piece of mind with a grand 10 Years of warranty.
Now let's see what this Thermaltake RGB 850W PSU has for us.
Features
One Button to Your Desired Color
By pressing the RGB lighting button, the fan color can be switched among a 256 Color RGB Cycle with variants including Solid Red, Green, Blue, White, and a LED Off mode. The fan is also constructed with a built-in memory function, saving the color applied and insuring the same color selection every time you boot your PC.
Power Supply Fan Face-Up Placement for Better Cooling
With the face-up placement of the fan, users can freely gaze upon their patented circular 256 multi-colored RGB fan and at the same time obtaining additional performance by using the fan as a additional exhaust mechanism, repelling unwanted heat from your chassis.
As the thermal image testing shown, the temperature of PSU and computer system will decrease around 3°C (5.4 °F) by placing PSU face-up.
Riing 14 RGB Fan with Concentrated Compression Fan Blade
Riing 14 RGB fan blade is designed for high static pressure requirements of demanding applications; the concentrated compression blade is engineered to focus the weaker, inner circle of air outward, allowing the outer section to pressurize the air. The fan blades are optimized to enhance static pressure for an impressive cooling performance. Hydraulic bearings for silent operation guarantee ultra-low noise, and the anti-vibration mounting system strengthens the product's stability during operation. Moreover, In-mold injection anti-vibration rubber pads provide hassle-free usage for 80% protection coverage, including all four corners.
Ultra Quiet Smart Zero Fan
Smart Zero Fan ensures zero noise when the fan operates below 20% working load to minimize audible noise.
The fan will operate when the power supply working load over 20%. A switch is provided for those who prefer the fan to spin constantly.
< 30 mV Low Ripple Noise
All ripples are lower than 30mV for high stability on +12V, +5V, or +3.3V from 0% to 100% load to ensure a high quality power supply. Low ripple noise will keep your performance-critical components, such as high-end graphics cards, to operate reliably for longer.
Extremely Strict Voltage Regulation < ±2%
The voltage regulation of the PSU is set to no more than ±2% for major rails to meet the highest performance. The strict voltage regulation of the Toughpower Grand RGB Gold is better than Intel's standard ±5% for major rails and ±10% for -12V.
100% High Quality Japanese 105°C/221°F Capacitors
100% high quality 105 °C (221 ° F) Japanese made capacitors which greatly improve the durability and offer the highest stability and reliability.
High Amperage Single +12V Rail & DC to DC Design
Toughpower Grand RGB 850W Gold is equipped with a powerful single +12V rail, eliminating the limitations caused by voltage distributions, delivering the power your CPU and VGA demand in any situations. Besides, with DC to DC design, the unit optimizes maximum energy harvest for computer systems, providing the best compatibility, conversion efficiency and stable voltage output.
Fully Modular Low-Profile Flat Cable
Fully modular Toughpower Grand RGB 850W Gold offers cable selection for users while powering the system at an advantageous voltage. Low-profile flat black cable can make cable management easier, reduce clutter and increase airflow inside the chassis.
80 PLUS Gold Certified and Skylake Ready
Deliver up to 90% efficiency under real world load conditions to promise lowest power losses. Additionally, Toughpower Grand RGB 850W Gold has been optimized to work with Intel's latest, Sixth-generation Skylake processors to achieve maximum energy saving.
RGB Lighting Provides Best Aesthetics for All Chassis
Toughpower Grand RGB Gold Series is the best idea for users to go with when they are looking for an RGB PSU which permits remarkable functionality and aesthetics in all cases, especially Open Frame or Tower cases.
Specifications
Package
Thermaltake RGB 850W comes in a securely packaged box with PSU graphics, Model name and features highlights on front and the back of the box.
Inside the box
Box contains securely foam packed Thermaltake RGB 850W PSU. Modular cables comes within a pouch along with Power cable, cable-ties, Mounting screws and User manual
Modular cables length and available connectors are
Looks
Thermaltake RGB 850W PSU features a 140mm RGB Riing fan and solid build quality. With air vents on side of PSU which are not just to improve the air flow but also to maintain constant air pressure resulting in lowering the fan noise giving quieter computing experience for uses having PC on top of their desks.
Inside
The OEM for Thermaltake RGB 850W power supply board is Sirfa Electronics Co. Ltd. known for manufacturing High Power related products and also provides OEM service to other brands like Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, SilverStone and others.
The build quality is actually very high with use of all Japanese capacitors in the primary and secondary stage.
Thermaltake uses their Riing RGB 140mm (TT-1425) fan inside this PSU with a 12 V and 0.3 A rating.
Thermaltake follows a modern LLC resonant half-bridge topology for this unit with MOSFET rectification and DC-DC conversion at secondary, resulting lower ripple, great voltage regulation and 80PLUS Gold efficiency rating.
PSU have all the requisite components for Input transient filter stage along with a 15 amp bridge rectifier and a Rubycon 680uf/400V 105C rating main capacitor.
APFC circuit consist of a diode and two Toshiba K16A60W MOSFETs with 15.8A of continuous drain current and Infineon 3PCS01G PFC controller.
Main MOSFETs are Infineon IPP50R140CP CoolMOS Power Transistor with 23A of continuous drain current and Infineon ICE2HS01G Resonant Mode Controller or generalized as PWM controller here.
For 5V Stand-by this PSU uses a SanKen STR-A6069H IC which is a PWM Controllers with Integrated Power MOSFET giving upto 30W of power out at 230VAC.
PCB is having a quality build with thick soldered traces for high current handling along with current sense resistors both on primary as well as secondary..
Secondary is have two 12v rails each used 2 x IRF87437 MOSFETs for rectification along with Chemi-Con caps. One 12v rail is used for DC-DC conversion for 5v and 3.3V output with solid caps. Even the modular connection board is having few solid caps close to each output for great ripple management. A vertical daughter board on secondary section have a SiTI PS223 IC, a 4-channel secondary monitoring chip with Over-Voltage/Under-Voltage Protection (OVP/UVP), Over Current Protection (OCP) and additional Over Temperature Protection (OTP) with three temperature sensors installed.
Load Test
To test the PSU on my Active load test, I have manually increased the load in Amps on 12v first rail, 12v second rail, 5v and 3.3v rail to simulate 100%, 80% 50% and 20% load.
5V stand-by and -12V supply was left at a constant 0.5amp load throughout the test run.
Maximum theoretical load handling capacity of my tester is somewhat around 1500W, but due to MOSFETs safe operating area (SOA) characteristics and thermal load handling capacity of the heatsinks, this tester can handle Max 1300W.. For safety reasons I have also installed a thermal controller which turn OFF the attached PSU if temperature exceeds SOA specifications.
Over Load Run
During this test we try to pull more than specified power of the PSU. So at certain point PSU should turn OFF by itself showing proper working of Overload protection or should die showing absence of any protection.
962W was max power we were able to pull from this PSU and at this point the PSU safely turned itself OFF.
Voltage Ripple
We measured range of ripple using oscilloscope at maximum rating of the PSU for 12v, 5v and 3.3v supply output in Pk-Pk(mv).
ATX specification for Ripple Pk-Pk(mv) for +12v is 120mv and for +5v and +3.3V it is 50mv. And following are our findings for this Thermaltake PSU