Date: May 25th, 2005
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited By: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Thermaltake
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THERMALTAKE CORPORATE PROFILE
Thermaltake Incorporation, based in Taipei, Taiwan is the global leader Thermal Solution and Thermal Management for PC & Industrial Market. Its Engineering Staffs masters in Airflow Analysis, Material Conductivity and Heat Dissipation Efficiency. Thermaltake offers a wide range of products and services, providing effective and cost-conscious cooling devices. The Company has more than 1,000 employees worldwide supporting customers from its headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, as well as from offices in China, Europe and United States Continent.
PRODUCT INTRODUCTION
Power supplies are a lot like the late, great comedian Rodney Dangerfield. They “don’t get no respect”. The PSU gets shoved into the back corner of the computer case with an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude and expected to its (very important) job without the praise and attention given to its downstream colleagues the CPU, memory, drives etc. OK, maybe that’s a little harsh, but I have seen people build systems with less consideration given to the PSU than what color fans to use. Most experienced builders will agree with me when I say that choosing a quality power supply is one of the most important things one can do to assure stability and peak performance in a system.
When the power supply subject comes up, a name you’ll hear on most builders short list for quality PSUs is Thermaltake. They’ve been in the business a long time, stand behind what they sell and build quality products with innovative features. In this review we’re going to take a look at one of Thermaltakes newer power supplies, the TWV 500W(P/N W0057). With this PSU, Thermaltake has jumped on the “modular design” bandwagon, allowing users to customize which power leads they need, minimizing case clutter. Let’s see how this baby performs and see what extra goodies Thermaltake includes with the TWV 500W.
PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS
Thermaltake lists these impressive specs on their website. 30 amps each on the 3.3 and 5 volt rails and two separate 12 volt rails with 18 amps each is nothing to sneeze at. The TWV also incorporates Power Factor Correction (PFC) technology to increase efficiency. Thermaltake states an efficiency rating of “greater than 70%”, and while I have no way to test this, I would expect a percentage higher that 70. Cooling the TWV is a single 120mm blue LED fan with automatic temperature control. Thermaltake lists fan noise at 17 dBA at 1300 rpm. Very quiet, indeed.
