OC3D Member Review: Thermaltake TR2-430w PSU

[NickS]

Posted: 5/28/2006

Author: Nicholas Sarpolis (NickS)

Hardware Acquired: Newegg.com

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Introduction

Thermaltake's PSU's are well known for being good, reliable, and stable unit's. With their good reputation, you usually don't think twice about purhcasing one, but what if one is unbelievably cheap, and sleeved! Too good to be true? Take a look inside.

Packaging

Thermaltake did a good job with the packaging. Not too "overdone" like some of Thermaltake's packaging. On the front, there is a picture of the PSU on its bottom and side, with some of the main features listed. The back of the box shows you the detailed features of the PSU, along with the quantity of connectors and the types it has. It also displays an informative cooling diagram explaining the way the PSU is cooled. The right side of the box re-lists the features that are also on the back of the PSU, along with the specifications of the unit. The left side shows you the model you have.

When I opened the box, I was greeted with a manual and an accessory box. The accessory box is a neat little thing, a lot of PSU manufacturers seem to be using latley. In the accessory box you'll find a standard American 120v AC power cable, and four screws. This is all you need to get you up and running, which the manual clearly explains how to do so.​

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[NickS]

Specification & Connectors

Posted: 5/28/2006

Author: Nicholas Sarpolis (NickS)

Hardware Acquired: Newegg.com

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Specification

The following is taken directly from Thermaltake USA's website.

For the most part everything looks ok. Adequate amperage on all of the rails for many modern computers with dedicated graphics cards.

Cables & Connectors

x1

x1

x1

x9

x2

x2

The Thermaltake has more than enough connectors for any perhipheral out there. The PSU has an unbelievable amount of molex connectors, especially for a 430w PSU.

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[NickS]

Posted: 5/28/2006

Author: Nicholas Sarpolis (NickS)

Hardware Acquired: Newegg.com

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Appearence

When removing the PSU from the box, I first noticed the sleeving job. Every single wire on the TR2-430w is sleeved and heatshrinked all black, making it look amazing. This is one of the major features of this PSU, especially for the price. I also noticed the paint job. It has a unique matte but slightly reflective black finish. Overall the PSU look's great, nothing what you'd expect from a PSU in the value segment of any PSU manufacturers line. Moving on to the label, you will see the PSU's specs clearly printed, along with label's of certification for electrical safety.

Connectors

As you can see, this PSU has a sick amount of cables, more than most 500w+ PSU's have. As mentioned before, all the wires on this PSU are sleeved in black mesh, with black heatshrink. If you look closer, you can see the molex connectors are the "quick release" style. What this means is the molex connectors have little plastic grip tabs on them for much easier removal vs. standard plugs. This may be a blessing for some of us, who have a picky CD-ROM or HDD that makes it nearly impossible to unplug a molex connector from at times. This is a sign of quality, and attention to detail... which makes it seem like all of the money went into aesthetics and not the internals of the PSU.

Taking a closer look at two out of the three molex strands, you'll notice they have a weird way of chaining them. It's very different, I've never seen anything quite like this on any other PSU I've worked with. When hooking it up I noticed no problems with the different cable layout. One thing I did notice, is the quick-release molex connectors don't work well with things like 4-pin fan wires, etc. They seem to slide out overly easy, a simple tug will pull it clear out. For things like HDD's, Optical drives, etc, they're fine.

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[NickS]

Posted: 5/28/2006

Author: Nicholas Sarpolis (NickS)

Hardware Acquired: Newegg.com

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Testing

For testing, I used my friend Dan's rig.

Test Rig

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice

Mobo: eVGA nF4 SLi Motherboard

RAM: 2x512MB Corsair XMS (TCCD)

Video: eVGA 7800GT 256MB

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 120GB ATA

Optical: Lite-On 48x CD-RW

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (Black)

Other: 2x 80MM Antec Fans, 1x 120MM Aspire LED Fan, 1x 80MM Aspire LED Fan, 6x Blue LED's, Backlit Temperature LCD (Bezel Mounted)

For rail measurements I used a Radio Shack DMM. For load, Prime 95 was running in Small-FFT mode (most CPU heat + power use), while playing Need For Speed: Most Wanted.

Despite the Thermaltake's +12v rail being a little on the low side, the PSU handled the load from the PC exceptionally well. Even after hours and hours of NFS:MW, the PSU remained silent. No weird noises, no clicking, nothing. The air coming out of the back felt only slightly above room temperature. While in NFS:MW I closely monitored the mutlimeter and in-game, the 12v rail was rock solid, only occasionally bouncing from 11.88v to 11.89v. The same was observed while monitoring the +5v rail, but this time it went up under load. There was almost zero voltage fluctuation on the 5v rail, only once did I see it move from 5.11v to 5.12v. The 3.3v rail, stayed the same even when under load.

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[NickS]

Posted: 5/28/2006

Author: Nicholas Sarpolis (NickS)

Hardware Acquired: Newegg.com

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Conclusion

The PSU is a great unit, regardless of price.. but the fact that it cost me $39.99 shipped to my door from Newegg.com, is amazing to say the least. I'm very happy with the results from it and would reccomend it to almost anyone looking for a nice stylish PSU for cheap.

Pro's

-Rail Stability

-Low Noise

-Low Heat

-Sleeved Wires

-Quick Release Molex

-Low Price

Con's

-None that I can think of

 

[FarFarAway]

Nick this PSU does not deserve OC3D 10/10 award

 

[FarFarAway]

Nick this PSU does not deserve OC3D 10/10 award

removing

 

[NickS]

Nick this PSU does not deserve OC3D 10/10 award

removing

And you could have easily PM'ed me or MSN'ed me instead of being rude about it. Fixed.

Nick

 

[FarFarAway]

Soz twas late and I was knackered

I just don't think that we can give an award above 7 for a PSU that has saggy RAILs

Nice review though

 

[JN]

Good review Nick, but as Kemp sayas the award was on the generous side

 

[NickS]

How about we compromise, an 8/10

Nick

 

[twisted5]

I really like TT PSUs except for the one that decided to kill itself and an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe, 2x36gb raptors, and a 7800gtx. Suprisingly the 3700+ and mem were still good in the system. Fry's ended up replacing everything that fried though and haven't had a problem with the new TT psu since.

 

[JN]

U wanna give it better than the 600w model?

 

[NickS]

Well your 600w version obviously didn't perform as well as this one did, under the testing you used. The way I tested it, in a realistic situation, it performed great. The 12v rail only sagged 0.06v, my PSU sag's WAY more than that under load. (From approx. 12.35v to about 12.27v when CPU under load, and when the video card kicks in about 12.11-12.09v.) So you can't say it's a bad PSU...

See how I'm thinking now?

Nick

 

[JN]

The way I tested it, in a realistic situation, it performed great.

Nick

What you might consider to be a realistic situation for you, might not be a realistic situation for others. Your system may only consume in total less than half of the power of somebody else reading you review.

Unless you can fully load up each and every rail in a PSU then the results are only good for people with systems spec'd exactly the same as yours.

Hence the reason for the OC3D PSU tester.

 

[JN]

Thread cleaned up.

As this is a Member review, please feel free to give the PSU whatever rating you wish.