Date:
Monday , July 13, 2009
Author:
Paul Johnson
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Thermaltake Litepower 450W Power Supply

Introduction

Today Thermaltake Technology Company is back for a fifth time through our power supply testing program with their new LitePower 450W. As a company, Thermaltake has a rather short history being founded in just 1999, but in that short time they have grown rapidly. While Thermaltake's primary focus has been on thermal solutions, they have for some time now maintained a group of product lines dedicated to power supplies. The early power supplies in these lines were often manufactured by Sirtec, but with the launch of the Toughpower line almost 2 years ago Thermaltake took their power supply business in a new, and quite frankly better, direction as they paired with CWT. Today however, we are looking at a product not from Thermaltake's partnership with Channel Well Technology but rather from their partnership with FSP. This new product is the Litepower 450W (W0293RU).

FSP Group is one of the few actual power supply manufacturers and can be found providing OEM services for a number of other brands at various times including OCZ, Zalman, AOpen, Antec, SilverStone, Super Talent, Sigma, and now Thermaltake among others. This wide distribution of power supplies by FSP is not surprising given that they have been in business since 1993 and are one of the top 10 producers of power supplies in the world. FSP is also regarded as a manufacturer of basic workhorse type power supplies that "just gets the job done," although some of its more recent high powered computer power supplies have been plagued by power quality issues.

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Thermaltake goes on a Diet?

The Thermaltake Litepower 450W is an interesting product to look at for us as it is the first unit we have gotten in from Thermaltake's Litepower series, is the lowest powered unit we have seen from Thermaltake, and is the first Thermaltake unit produced by FSP we have seen. All of these things make this unit a bit hard to make any predictions about, but this unit is still a Thermaltake branded one and since their adoption of the Toughpower line a while back, Thermaltake has really turned around their PSU business. So today we are hoping to see this trend continue, especially because lower powered units such as this one generally are not nearly as high quality as their much more expensive high output relatives. With that in mind, how is Thermaltake positioning this unit? And what do they expect from it?

Designed with system integrators and mainstream users’ needs and specification in mind, Litepower series power supply offers the same level of reliability and power efficiency that is ever-so critical for today’s core audiences. Quality components with ease of installation and topped with industry’s leading 5 Year Limited Warranty, you cannot go wrong with the Litepower.

Let's move on to see what we have to look forward to when we purchase the Thermaltake Litepower 450W in terms of documentation, accessories, cable count, rail layout, output characteristics, and general build quality.