Tough Power – Thermaltake XT 775W PSU

The PSU Test

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-920 at 3.80 GHz (Turbo boost is off)
  
• Gigabyte GA-X58 (latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; SLI16x+16x).
• 8 GB OCZ Fatal1ty DDR2-PC1800 RAM (2×2 GB, tri-channel at PC 1600 speeds)
• ATi Radeon HD 5870 (1GB, reference clocks 850/1200) by Diamond
• ATi Radeon HD 5870 (1GB, reference clocks 875/1225) by PowerColor; both Radeon video cards used together in CrossFire-X
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 (1.5GB, reference clocks)
  
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 (1 GB, reference clocks); both GeForce video cards used together in PhysX configuration
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive
• Thermaltake Element G mid-tower case (supplied by Thermaltake)
  

• Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 watt power supply (supplied by Thermaltake)

Test Configuration – Software

• ATi Catalyst 10-6; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver, Catalyst AI set to “Standard”
• GeForce 257.21; high quality filtering; optimizations off and LOD clamp enabled
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• DirectX May 2010.
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths

First we start with a GTX 280 plus a GTX 280 in a PhysX configuration from our last test attempting to overheat our Thermaltake Element G case. This would normally be a heavy load for a 775 watt PSU with plenty of headroom for every day use:

Here is our peak reading from Kill-a-Watt using our pair of GeForce videocards in PhysX.  And the PSU voltage is of course, rock solid as we measure all three rails from boot-up to the maximum wattage that we observed.

As you can see, it is rock solid and there is plenty of room for even more wattage draw. The Thermaltake’s ToughPowerXT 775 W PSU can clearly handle two demanding video cards in PhysX configuration.   But what if we push it further? What if we use our pair of HD 5870s in CrossFire? As you can see from the following screen image, we did just that.

Our Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W PSU can easily handle HD 5870 CrossFire! Under extreme load, the system pulled over 680W continuously right on up to blipping just over 700w at its peak and our Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 watt PSU did not shut down or become unstable – our Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.80 GHz remained 100% stable.  Best of all, the voltages measured at all three rails were incredibly solid – with almost no variance from start up through extreme load and to shutdown.  Your precious hardware components will love Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W’s stability.

Considering that the temperature in our test room was a constant 78-80F during the testing and the Thermaltake’s ToughPower XT 775 W is also rated for 82% efficiency at 775 watt at a correspondingly realistic temp; and the PSU did not shut down or become unstable.  One would conclude that it definitely acts like a solid 775 watt PSU. Thermaltake is very conservative in its ratings.

Here are the standards:

• 3.3V – 3.125 to 3.465
• 5V – 4.75 to 5.25
• 12V – 11.4 to 12.6

Here are a few shots of my digital multimeter and Kill-a-Watt together measuring each rail – these are the most extreme variances that I could find from power turn on through to maximum power draw and they are well within specifications. Here is the 3.3V rail and it is very healthy.  +.01 volt variation was observed over the entire range of its power output:

Now the 5V rail; again very solid with almost no variation measured from startup to maximum near 700W continuous and back to shutdown:

. . and finally the 12V rail:

We monitored all of our rails individually from Post to the highest voltage used by the PSU when running FurMark Hot-as-Hell Burning Test. The 3.3v rail was dead on most of the time. Plus (not minus) .1V and no other variance at any wattage that we could give it.  Everything else was within + or – .02 volts and probably our digital multimeter was incapable of being any more accurate.  Whenever you use a digital multimeter make very sure that it is calibrated properly.

Every test that we threw at this power supply – Everest Ultimate, 3D/PC Mark Vantage, FurMark’s Hot-as-Hell burning test – it took in stride.  Amazingly we see our Thermaltake’s ToughPower  XT 775 W PSU acting very much like a very conservatively rated power supply unit. Very impressive!  This is a great power supply!  Let’s wrap up this review and sum up our conclusions.