Today's Hard|Forum Post
Today's Hard|Forum Post
Date:
Friday , May 15, 2015
Author:
Paul Johnson
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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Thermaltake Toughpower Gold 550W Power Supply Review

We have used Thermaltake Toughpower computer power supplies here in our offices for over a decade with many of those units still in use today. This 550 watt unit comes in a bit towards the smaller end of enthusiast power supplies, but does that keep it from fully showing off its tough Thermaltake heritage?

Introduction

Today, Thermaltake Technology Company is back for another trip through our power supply testing program with a more mid-range capacity product than we last saw from it. As a company, Thermaltake has a rather short history being founded in just 1999, but in that short time it has grown rapidly. While Thermaltake's primary focus has been on thermal solutions, it has for some time now maintained a group of product lines dedicated to power supplies. The early power supplies in these lines were often of lower quality but over the years Thermaltake has taken its power supply business in a new, and quite frankly better direction as it paired with higher quality OEMs like CWT and Enhance. Today, we are looking at another product that is part of the Toughpower Series of power supplies from Thermaltake the Toughpower Gold 550W (TP-550AH3CCG-A but also variously listed as TPD-0550M, TPD-550M, PS-TPD-0550MPCG, etc.). This unit is produced in conjunction with CWT.

Channel Well Technology (CWT) was founded and began manufacturing power supplies in 1993. Since 1993 Channel Well Technology products have shown up under various guises including Antec, Xclio, 2theMax, CWT, Thermaltake, Xigmatek, and Corsair. While most familiar to our US users from when it used to provide OEM services for Antec, CWT is one of the more complete OEM manufacturers as it has a fairly high level of vertical integration providing transformers all the way up to its well designed independently regulated SMPS. Recently however, CWT has begun stretching out and is providing OEM services for a number of brands as today’s unit demonstrates.

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A Tiny Gold Nugget?

The Thermaltake Toughpower Gold 550W is the 15th power supply we have seen from Thermaltake. In that time, we have seen power supplies as large as 1500 watts and as small as 450 watts, and today's Toughpower Gold 550W is the second smallest unit we have seen from Thermaltake. Looking more broadly, the Toughpower Gold 550W differs from a number of other "small" power supplies we have seen in that it is part of one of Thermaltake's higher end product lines. So, today, we have an opportunity to see what a high quality and low capacity (by modern standards) power supply looks like from Thermaltake. Before moving on though, let's see what Thermaltake has to say about this unit:

The Thermaltake Toughpower series is a premium 80 PLUS GOLD certified power supply that uses the highest quality components for stable performance, excellent features with unbeatable efficiency vital to the current high-end system in market even in demanding conditions. With the 80Plus Gold certification for its high power efficiency, and a single strong 12V rail flexibly routes the maximum available power to your CPU and graphics card, offering maximized power usage and easy setup. Toughpower 550W GOLD (Modular) comes with modular design to reduce cable clutter; and ultra-quiet fan delivers silent cooling, thus the entire computer and power supply can operate at its peak moment.

Since none of that is a surprise given this units placement in Thermaltake's lineup, let's take a look at what we get when we purchase the Thermaltake Toughpower Gold 550W power supply in terms of documentation, accessories, cable count, rail layout, output characteristics, and general build quality.