TT Silent PurePower 480W PSU

<B>Testing</B>:

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I tried a multitude of ways of testing this power supply. My multimeter could not go over 10 Amps (and I blew a few fuses by accident). In the name of testing, I happened to short the 12v line and the power supply shut off, not damaging my other components. This is a very good thing, as I happened to know of a few incidents when some power saving circuitry would save some hardware I have, but ohh well.

Don't be fooled by other reviews giving you motherboard monitor scores for voltage, it is taking readings off of the motherboard. You need to take the voltages directly for it to mean anything.

So just how did this PSU fair during testing? Very well actually. My multimeter has a +-.5% accuracy, so knowing that, let's see the numbers.

I did the test PSU mod thing, and I tested all the voltages alone, not under load.

<table class="line" cellspacing="1" align="center"><tr class="background"><td>Theoretical</td><td>Actual</td></tr><tr class="background"><td>12v</td><td>11.70v</td></tr><tr class="background"><td>3.3v</td><td>3.43v</td></tr><tr class="background"><td>5v</td><td>5.19v</td></tr><tr class="background"><td>-5v</td><td>-5.07v</td></tr><tr class="background"><td>-12v</td><td>-11.40v</td></tr></table>

This is not under any load whatsoever. The numbers are okay, but not as great as you want them. Under load, and in the case, I could only test the +5 and the +12v lines, no motherboard monitor readings here (They are BS).

First up, in the system, with no stress.
<table class="line" cellspacing="1" align="center"><tr class="background"><td>Theoretical</td><td>Actual</td></tr><tr class="background"><td>12v</td><td>12.01-12.02v</td></tr><tr class="background"><td>5v</td><td>5.11-5.13v</td></tr></table>

While the power supply is in the system, we see that the voltage is better for some reason. Let's see what happens when the system becomes loaded (with 3D Mark 2K3 running loops).

<table class="line" cellspacing="1" align="center"><tr class="background"><td>Theoretical</td><td>Actual</td></tr><tr class="background"><td>12v</td><td>11.86-11.90v</td></tr><tr class="background"><td>5v</td><td>5.14-5.13v</td></tr></table>

The 12 volt line sees around a 1.5% fluctuation, while the 5v line sees hardly any (less than accuracy). 1.5% is generally okay, and the voltage is pretty steady throughout the entire testing, no system crashes to speak of.

No voltage fluctuations were seen when increasing or decreasing the fan speed, and there was hardly any noise at the slowest speed, you won't hear it over case fans or CPU fans, even at the highest setting.

<B>Conclusion</B>:

A power supply is a difficult thing to really review. It needs to stand the test of time, and that is something that is impossible to test. Regardless, the Thermaltake Silent PurePower 480watt power supply is pretty damn expensive at around $100 from various places, but it is 480watts of sustained power than is generally unheard of in computer power supplies. If you've got a power hungry machine, you should consider picking one of these things up, but if you don't, stick with something cheaper.

I'd like to thank Weller at <a href="http://www.thermaltake.com">Thermaltake</a> for sending this unit for review.