Date:
Tuesday , March 04, 2008
Author:
Paul Johnson
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
Google +1

PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 860 Power Supply

PC Power & Cooling has been purchased by OCZ since our last review of its aging PSU infrastructure. Today PCP&C brings a new build to the table that sports an impressive feature set and hopefully that PCP&C build quality many enthusiasts love.

Introduction

PC Power & Cooling was originally founded in 1985 by Doug Dodson and specialized in fans but the company quickly moved into the realm of computer power supplies. Over the years the PC Power & Cooling name has become most popular from their branding of the Turbo-Cool and Silencer lines of power supplies. That string of 21 years as an independent company recently ended when PC Power & Cooling was acquired by OCZ. Today we will be looking at the PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 860w (PPCT860) which is produced in conjunction with one of PC Power & Cooling’s manufacturing partners Win-Tact. Win-Tact is one of PC Power & Cooling’s longest running OEMs having built the Turbo-Cool series for a number of years now.

Win-Tact was formed in 1994 and by 1996 was a full service design to production manufacturer of power supplies. They remain an almost unknown to US consumers as the majority of their products are not aimed at the end user but rather to integrators of different product types. Indeed most people never know that that slot machine they just hit the spin button on runs on a Win-Tact power supply (WP203F11), or is humming along in the server chassis behind closed doors. During their tenure though as the OEM behind the Turbo-Cool line of power supplies their products have been regarded as some of the best in the business.

Article Image

Second Verse; Same as the First?

Previously, PC Power & Cooling's Turbo-Cool lineup has been devoid of Turbo-Cool models between 510w and 1000w after PC Power & Cooling quickly discontinued the Turbo-Cool 850 SSI for whatever reason, though the unit featured a very unfortunate multi12v rail design that may have been a factor in its cancellation. Finally, though PC Power & Cooling has moved a product back into that gap left by the discontinuing of the 850 SSI with the new Turbo-Cool 860w and its all new design. Having never officially reviewed the 850w we can’t compare the two units today but we can see how PC Power & Cooling plans to position the new Turbo-Cool 860w.

Turbo-Cool 860

The Turbo-Cool 860 leads the industry in reliability with a 200,000 hr MTBF. This is a professional, industrial-grade PSU in a standard ATX case.

Claiming a 200,000hr MTBF is certainly good and longer than that claimed for the Turbo-Cool 1KW-SR we reviewed (120,000hr at an unknown temperature) but users should temper that expectation with the fact that the unit’s MTBF is determined at 40c according to PC Power & Cooling not 50c that the unit’s DC output is rated at. So in whole it seems PC Power & Cooling is looking to move this platform into a more mission critical role than many other products on the market and at the very least positioning this unit as having a longer service life than the older Turbo-Cool designs. Indeed the unit now advertises elsewhere that it uses "Heavy-Duty Caps," inductors, and heatsinks. So can this unit indeed best the older Win-Tact based Turbo-Cool’s we have seen or are the older designs still running strong?

First, let’s see what we have to look forward to when we purchase the PC Power & Cooling 860 power supply in terms of documentation, accessories, cable count, rail layout, output characteristics, and general build quality.