Tough Power – Thermaltake XT 775W PSU

Specifications and Packaging

Our Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W PSU arrived in this aesthetically pleasing box with a satin finish.  You will find a tough reusable canvas bag for your cables and inside a really nice sticker for your case awaits.  Class!

We open the box and see the well-packed contents inside.  The packaging is minimal so there is not too much to recycle.

Opening the box further, we see it is well-packed to protect the precious contents from any transportation damage

We see instructions printed in several languages to accompany the cables, screws and the PSU itself; the warranty information is printed on the yellow card – 5 years warranty which is excellent for a PSU.  The accessories come in a canvas bag and the power cord comes in a throwaway cardboard box.  Strangely, it has a “new car” smell when you open the accessory bag and this might be the cheapest way to get that kind of “fix” without spending thousands of dollars.  Alas, sadly it does not last.

The Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W features and specifications are detailed right on the box.

Here are the specifications, right off the box and also in an easy-to-read chart:

Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W PSU is a handsome, compact, solid and rather heavy unit that appears well put together. It has a unique color that is a change from the generic or typical all-black PSU color.  The specifications are also right on the unit as shown:

Here is what is included to make connections with your PC right out of the box (below). The cables are of a flat design which have become popular as they restrict less airflow if laid out properly inside the case.  Since the PSU design is modular, you only use the cables that you need.  And everything you need is supplied right with the PSU as shown below.

Two cables are permanently attached to the power supply. The rest of it is modular which has eight connectors, four black connectors for SATA/peripherals power cables and four dark red for video card power cables.  The cables are 18 AWG wires which is ideal.

The cables attached to the Toughpower XT 775 W are:

• Main motherboard cable with a 24-pin connector.
• One cable with one EPS12V connector and two ATX12 volt connectors which couple together.

The modular cables included with the ToughPower XT 775 W are

• Two video card power cables with one six-pin connector each.
• Two video card power cables with one six- plus one two-pin connector (which can form an 8-pin connector) each.
• Two cables with four SATA power connectors each.
• Two cables with three standard peripheral power connectors each.

The Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W PSU’s PCIe cabling allows for the most modern 6-pin plus 2-pin connectors for two power-hungry videocards; you could use two GTX 480s (or in our case, GTX 480 + GTX 280) or two HD 5970s in CrossFire-X without needing anything other than the cabling that is included in the box (except for the multi-GPU bridge connector which is specific to either AMD Graphics cards or NVIDIA cards, of course)

Here is where you connect your PC to the Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W. The modular design makes it impossible to mix up connections.  Red connectors are for PCIe; black is for everything else.  The PCIe cables are also marked to eliminate any doubts about what connects where.

As you can see, the modular design allows you to use only what you need.

Here are all of the included cables before they are neatly installed and many of them are to be routed behind the motherboard:

Here are the same cables after they are organized a bit with HD 5870 CrossFire; notice that only the 6-pin + 6-pin PCIe configuration is used for each videocard; the other two pins are not connected except for higher power usage cards like HD 4870-X2, HD 5970, GTX 280/285 and GTX 480:

Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W features 25 amps each on the 3.3 volt and 5 volt rail as well as 64 amps on the single 12 volt rail. It is rated for a total of 775 watts at 82% (plus) percent efficiency. It is rated “Silver” by a company,“80 Plus” but is more conservatively advertised as “Bronze” by Thermaltake.  80 Plus tests (for a fee) power supplies from many vendors to certify that the submitted PSUs are actually over 80% efficient at 20%, 50% and 100% loads as claimed.  80 Plus has expanded their testing to include bronze (82%), silver (85%) and gold (87%) certifications for power supplies.

Efficiency is the ratio between the useful output of a PSU and the input. For example, if your computer actually uses 600W but draws 800W from the outlet, then its PSU’s efficiency is 600W/800W, or 75%. It also means in this example, that 200W of AC power is not converted into DC and is wasted. Older or generic computer PSUs are typically 75% or less efficient.  The more efficient your power supply is, the less your computer will waste power. Since any AC power that isn’t converted into DC is exhausted as heat into your room, a more efficient power supply unit will run cooler and your room’s air conditioner will also not have have to work as hard.

Take a look at the 140 mm fan used to cool the Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W. Because of the excellent efficiency of the PSU, it allows Thermaltake to use a slower and quieter fan to cool it.   One thing for sure, if you have a normal PC setup, your ToughPowerXT fan will never be heard over your videocard, CPU cooling, or case fans.  It is extraordinarily silent.

Everything looks great so let’s head for the installation of Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 watt PSU.