Reviewed by: Jason Hambly
Date: July 13, 2006
Manufacturer: Thermaltake
Model: Purepower 600W
Supplied by: Thermaltake
Category: Enthusiast
Price: $115.27-$143.83
Grammatical and Spelling Editor:
Thermaltake is not a new name to any PC enthusiast. Made
famous by their PC enclosures, Thermaltake also builds air and water cooling
solutions along with power supplies. Tt has also recently teamed up with Radio
Shack to deliver a line of computer modding components. With an extensive line
of products it is no wonder Tt has made such a name for themselves. Today we are looking at the Thermaltake
Purepower 600W PSU. Let?s see if Tt can
impress us with this new unit.
{mospagebreak title=Package and Specifications}
Package and Specifications:
Package
Thermaltake ships the Purepower 600W in a sturdy cardboard
box with a handle on the top for easy carrying.The front of the box shows the
unit along with some of its features. The back side shows several pictures of
the unit and the many connectors that it offers, along with a list of the
features.
Once inside the box we see the mass of wires and PSU wrapped
in bubble wrap. The PSU easily pulls out
of the box and the bubble wrap comes off without any hassle. Also in the box is
a user?s manual and an additional box containing the power cord and the
mounting screws.
Specifications:
Taken directly from Thermaltake.com
Features:
-Complies with SSI EPS 12V & ATX 12V 2.2 version
-Supports dual PCI Express and 24-pin detachable main power connector
-High efficiency (80%) with 0.99 Active Power Factor value
-Seperate 12V rails provide sufficient 52A for PC system
-PCI Express, SLI, Cross-Fire, and dual-core CPU ready
-Low noise 12cm ball bearing fan and mirror effect housing
-Gold-plated connectors for better conductivity
-Protections: OVP, UVP, Short-Circuit, Over-power, Overload,
and Over-temperature
-Safety / EMI Approvals: CB,CE, FCC, UL, CUL, TUV
certification
Package and Specifications: 4.5/5
{mospagebreak title=Appearance}
Appearance:
The Purepower 600W is a very nice looking PSU. Tt calls the
color Electroplate Black Nickel finish. It is a mirror finish that looks great
but loves finger prints. It is too bad that the PSU is usually hidden in the
corner of the case and can?t be seen very well. Everyone likes a nice, clean
looking case and lately many have been switching to modular PSUs that enable
you to only connect the wires that you need. The Purepower 600W is not modular so you will have to find a spot to
hide all the extra wires if you are not using them. All of the wires are
sleeved though so it does look a lot better than a mess of unsleeved cables.
There is only one fan on the Purepower 600W and it is a 120mm fan located
across the bottom of the unit. The external portion of the PSU is grated to
allow good air flow out of the case.
Appearance: 4.25/5
{mospagebreak title=Installation}
Installation:
The Purepower 600W installed like any other PSU. The only difference was trying to prevent
getting finger prints all over it. Rather than having separate cables for the 4 pin and 8 pin 12v
connectors; Tt uses a 4+4 pin connector. These two connectors clip together; I found these wanted to slide apart
a little while moving the cable into place, but were very secure once clipped
in place. All of the wires were plenty
long to reach anywhere in the case. Even the 24 pin connector could reach
almost anywhere if needed.
{mospagebreak title=Performance}
Performance:
To test the performance of the Purepower 600W PSU I first
tested it on two different PCs. The first is an average system while the 2nd
is a much more power hungry dual-core/SLI/water cooled machine. All voltages were recorded using a digital
multi meter. Voltages were recorded in
the BIOS, idling in Windows, under load in Windows, and gaming. To load the average system I used
Folding@Home, rthdribl video stress test, and ran the TV tuner on live TV. To load the performance system I ran
Folding@Home on each core, and rthdribl video stress test. Battlefield 2 was used for the gaming test on
each system.
Test Systems
Average System
DFI RDX200 CF-DR
AMD Athlon64 3000+
Corsair TwinX PT 2x512MB
Sapphire X1600 Pro
Seagate 7200.9 SATA3G
Pioneer DVR108 DVD+-RW
Performance System
DFI LP UT SLI-DR Expert
AMD Opteron 165
Corsair TwinX PT 2x512MB
2x Leadtek 7800GT TDH Extreme in SLI
LG Super-Multi DVD+-RW
2x Samsung 80GB SATA 3G in RAID 0
Seagate 7200.9 SATA 3G
Danger Den Watercooling
Average system at stock speed of 1.8GHz.
Average system overclocked to 2.5GHz.
Performance system overclocked to 2.5GHz.
As you can see from the testing results the rails on the Purepower 600w are pretty rock solid. I was very impressed how well it handled the range of systems that I used it on.
During testing I unintentionally tested the overheat
shutdown feature of the PSU. There was an issue with the PSU and the
fan would turn off once the PSU was cool enough but not turn back on
after the temperatures started to rise back up.
This turned out to be a bad unit, Tt replaced the first PSU with a
second and this problem went away. This is the only thing holding this unit back from a higher performance score. Even though we received a second unit that did not have this same problem I have to be cautious of it happening again.
Performance: 4.25/5
{mospagebreak title=Price/Warranty}
Price/Warranty:
The Purepower 600W PSU can be purchased online from many
retailers with a range of prices. According to Pricegrabber this PSU can be
purchased from $115 to $143. This is around what we have come to expect to pay
for a dependable PSU. The days of
running a $20 generic PSU have come and gone.
Warranty
Thermaltake offers a three year warranty on all of their
products from the date of purchase. Tech Support and eRMA are both available
through Thermaltake?s website.
Price/Warranty: 4.25/5
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
After running the Thermaltake Purepower 600W for a while in
each system, I can say that I am impressed with what I have seen. I was
skeptical as to how it would perform after hearing about subpar performance
from Tt’s PSUs in the past, but now having used one I will certainly look into
using them again in the future. The
Purepower 600W looks great and works very well. The sleeved cables make it easy to keep your case looking clean and
tidy. There are lots of connectors for
just about any setup that you may have, and then some. The unit ran very quiet
and stayed pretty cool. Other than the fan problem which was solved with a new unit I am very happy with the Purepower 600w power supply. I look forward to seeing what else Thermaltake offers in the future.
Pros:
- Three 12v rails
- 600 watts
- Looks great
- Very quiet
Cons:
- 8 Pin 12v plug slides apart during installation
- Fan not restarting in our test unit
Package and Specifications: 4.5/5
Appearance: 4.25/5
Performance: 4.25/5
Price/Warranty: 4.25/5
Overall: 17.25/20
Acknowledgements:
We would like to thank Thermaltake for sending us this
power supply for testing.