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Thermaltake Purepower TWV480 PSU
Author: JonnyGuru
Date Posted:01/05/2005 12:47.37
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Bottom Line:
Initially it appears to be a very capable power supply..... but when you entice the buying public with bling and gizmos, slap a 400W label on it, and then bundle a 20-to-24-pin adapter, you invite disaster.
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Introduction
This review is one of a series of PSU reviews, if you have not read any of the others you can read all about the test set up and methodology below.
- Testing Overview
- Wattage
- Parameters
- Methodology
And now... ON TO THE POWER
SUPPLY TESTING!
Thermaltake Purepower TWV480
I was presented with another
Thermaltake to review.
My only standard for these tests
is that the power supply be 450 to 600W. Unfortunately, not all 480W's
are created equal. Case
and point: The 450 LION I just reviewed. It's "only" a
450W, but it did 30A on a 12V rail only rated for 28A. That's pretty
good. The Thermaltake we're reviewing today, the TWV480 with active
PFC, only has 18A available on the 12V rail. That's
only 1A more than the Butterfly power supply I had reviewed earlier, which
now seems to have been an "older
model" since
Thermaltake's website now states that the Butterfly has 18A on the 12V rail
as well.
I have to wonder why they bothered at all. All of
the rails have different specs, but if they had to migrate over to a different
platform,
why not either completley
redesign the power supply or discontinue it? Truth be told, I could
get any number of mere 400W power supplies if I wanted something with less
than 20A
on the
12V
rail. This one is 480W. That's what's irritating to me. Not that
this power supply can't do 480W; but that to get to that wattage, one would
have to have almost all of their load on the 5V rail. So this would
be a good power supply for someone with a Socket A board, perhaps a micro
ATX Socket A board, or a Pentium III.

The side of the power supply looks cool in it's own "Warning Will Robinson!"
kind of way.
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