Overall
Like I mentioned in our disclaimer at the start of our coverage. In order to keep up the standards we use in other LanOC reviews I can’t in good conscience put the Toughpower SFX 450W through halfhearted testing and say it’s great. Testing power supplies to our standards requires equipment that we don’t have. So today we aren’t doing a full review, just a preview by taking a look at what the Toughpower SFX 450W is about. So beyond performance testing, what do we know about Thermaltake's new SFX power supply? Well like I said at the start, I’m really excited to see other manufacturers jumping into the SFX market.
The Toughpower SFX lineup has a 600W and 450W so Thermaltake has done a good job of covering the two power ranges that are most popular in that form factor currently. With a 450 watt, you should be able to power any of the ITX sized video cards as well as a higher end ITX motherboard and CPU. The 600-watt variation is really good for SFX cases that support full-length video cards. You can comfortably power a GTX 1080, GTX 1070, RX 480, etc with 600 watts and not have to worry about pushing the power supply to hard.
The design of the Toughpower SFX 450W is a lot like the comparable 450W and 600W models from Silverstone. I would have preferred they followed the direction corsair went with a slightly larger fan design and a little more styling, but overall the power supply doesn’t look too bad. While it does have the smaller fan they did still make sure that the fan isn’t on all of the time. In my testing, it only turned on when my video card started pulling power and that was only when I got into game. I’m less likely to be worried about noise when I have my headset on but I will say it was comparable to the Silverstone SFX models for noise.
I think Thermaltake really stands out with their inclusion of the painted ATX to SFX adapter plate. It might seem like a small thing, but I’ve been stuck with the unpainted Silverstone adapters a few times and I recently bought one of the painted adapters for $6 for a build. Corsair doesn’t even give you an adapter at all. Beyond that, the Toughpower SFX 450W does have the flat cables that I love. Corsair has them as well and from what I’ve seen Silverstone has moved to them as well so Thermaltake isn’t really standing out with them, but I’m really glad they have them.
As the end of the day, I’m told the MSRP of the Toughpower SFX 450W is going to be $90, so it should be right at the way price point that the Silverstone 450w and Corsair 450 are selling. So you really just have to pick what you prefer. Both the Corsair and the Thermaltake have impressive 7-year warranties and the Silverstone only has a 3 year. In my opinion, the Corsair looks better and it does have the larger fan, but Thermaltake included the nice painted adapter plate that would cost you about $6 plus shipping to pick up if you went with the other two.
Live Pricing: HERE
