Thermaltake Purepower RX 500W & 600W

Thermaltake did a wonderful job bringing traits of a high-end product to the less expensive line of power supplies. Now you can power your dual core CPU along with an enthusiast graphic board for no more than $97 green dollars and worry about nothing.

INTRODUCTION

Albeit we mostly review high-end power supplies, it would be unwise not to check out what Thermaltake has to offer for folks that don’t need 800 Watts. The RX series of power supplies had been recently introduced and are already available to the public. If you remember Toughpower models, they sported four 12V lines and high amperage across all rails.

The boom for SLI / Crossfire cards as well as dual core CPUs brought us a lot of new products in the power supply market. As PC components become more powerful each year, we have to keep up with the power to feed them. This statement shouldn’t be taken so seriously as there are plenty of mid range products that require half the power the big boys do. Die shrinks and low power consumption technology provide less budgeted customers to enjoy very best of PC computing.

On today’s test bed we have two mid-range power supplies from Thermaltake: Purepower RX 500W and 600W — both featuring cable management system. Knowing Thermaltake, these will perform marvelously.

Thermaltake is a well known company among enthusiasts. It was founded back in 1999. Their success started with manufacturing high-end CPU coolers and case accessories. The most memorable cooler was the Golden ORB available for both Intel and AMD platforms. The introduction of PC cases, power supply units and liquid cooling systems gave the company a nice head start in the market.

2004 – Restructure of the company in correspondence to the global scale it has grown into: reorganization of patent, channel, chassis, power supplier & computer accessories, and industrial design departments to strengthen organizational management and reinforce our commitment to research and development. Designs cooler for the heat-conducting pipe to the specification of desktop Silent Tower and four other types of CPU. Manufactures fanless power supplier with Fanless PSU. Unveils Tsunami chassis, incorporating the mirror bake-coating technology and a transparent, see-through side-window. Designs 12CM, applying low-noise liquid cooler Big Water which receives AMD’s outstanding partner award. Size of net capital now grows to NT 75 million while the cash capital increases to NT 255 million.

FEATURES: RX 500W

Thermaltake Purepower RX 500W is fitted with three 12V rails instead of four like its 600W brother. It can do roughly 100W on 3.3V rail, 140W on 5V line and up to 432W on main 12V power rails. Each 12V rail feeds power to different devices. For example 12V1 is dedicated for the CPU, 12V2 and 12V3 circuitries deal with the motherboard, PCI-Express add on cards and the rest. You’ll find more detailed specs right below.

Thermaltake Purepower RX 500W rail specs

• Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 version
• Compatible with latest PCI-Express and Dual Core CPU configuration
• Three +12V output circuitry provides stable voltage for system: 12V1 for processor 12V2/12V3 for PCI-Express, peripheral, and motherboard
• Modularized cable management improves internal airflow
• Universal AC input 115~230V automatically scans and detects the correct voltage for different country
• Quiet and reliable 140mm ball bearing fan
• Industrial grade protections: Over current, Short-Circuit, and Over voltage
• Safety / EMI Approvals: CE, FCC, UL, CUL, TUV, and BSMI certification

FEATURES: RX 600W

The most powerful of all RX’s is the 600W model which can deal with more hungry PC components: dual core CPUs, SLI / Crossfire setups and more. It comes with four 12V rails which can push 576 Watts at 72A total.

Thermaltake Purepower RX 600W rail specs

• Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 version
• Compatible with latest dual PCI-Express and Dual Core CPU configuration
• Four +12V output circuitry provides stable voltage for system: 12V1/12V2 for processor and two PCI-E 12V3/12V4 for Motherboard, peripherals, and another PCI-E
• Modularized cable management improves internal airflow
• Universal AC input 115~230V automatically scans and detects the correct voltage for different country
• Quiet and reliable 140mm ball bearing fan
• Built-in industrial grade protections: Over current, No load operating, Short-Circuit, and Over voltage
• Safety / EMI Approvals: CE, FCC, UL, CUL, TUV, and BSMI certification

BUNDLE & CABLING

With the introduction of RX line the overall design of the box had changed. They now look far more professional than before and contain only important information about the product. On the negative side the box grew bigger and comes with no carrying handle.

Click a picture to see a larger view

The inside bundle hasn’t changed and is exactly the same as with Toughpower series — set of screws, installation manual, power cable, silicone noise reduction gasket as well as a sticker. The cables are braided and appropriately labeled; PCI-Express and motherboard cables have tags near the ends so you don’t end up plugging the wrong ones. The only hard-wired connection on the Thermaltake Purepower RX 500W is the 24-pin connector. This indicates its inferiority to the 600W model which comes with additional PCI-e cable. This is actually the only difference between models when it comes to cabling system. The amount of extra wiring stays the same for both PSUs — you can connect the same number of devices to each of them. Here is exactly what you get:

• Main cables
  • 1x 24-pin motherboard connector (RX 500W & 600W)
  • 1x 6-pin PCI-Express cables (only RX 600W)
• Modular cables
  • 2x 6-pin PCI-Express cables (RX 500W & 600W)
  • 1x 4-pin / 8-pin +12V power connector (RX 500W & 600W)
  • 7x 4-pin peripheral connector (RX 500W & 600W)
  • 2x floppy connector (RX 500W & 600W)
  • 4x 5-pin SATA connector (RX 500W & 600W)

EXTERNALS

The Purepower RX line of products now feature the Toughpower look. They are coated with nickel black paint and glossy finish. The whole Purepower RX line feels really like cheaper variation of Toughpower PSUs.

Click a picture to see a larger view

Honeycomb chassis is a standard feature in today’s power supplies. It increases heat dissipation and improves ventilation throughout the whole PSU. With additional 140 mm fan, Thermaltake makes sure your juice box runs cool and almost silent (16 dB at 1300 RPM). The embedded sockets are well thought out with clear labeling and easy access when inside the case. Note that the two red sockets are for additional PCI-Express video cards. The top sticker gives you most important information about the PSU, including total power on 3.3V, 5V and 12V rails

As far as internals go, I didn’t bother looking inside since I would find exact quality components that were present in Toughpower series. Here is an excerpt from that review:

Because Thermaltake uses high quality components, their power supplies last long. The neatness inside the housing is incredible. The solder joints are far more professional than on Dark Power circuit board. The heatsinks come in standard silver color, the cables inside are nicely tightened up and clutter-free. The fan which is 140 millimeters is the biggest one available for ATX compliant power supplies.

TEST BED

Obviously I can’t load the PSUs to their limits as I don’t have proper equipment, but the above should give you food for thought. I am however in the process of making such device though it’s taking time which I currently don’t have.

Overloading high power PSUs with only PC components is really hard. There is no doubt however that this is real world testing and should be appreciated more than just simulating peak power. We do our best however when measuring the performance of power supplies by throwing everything we have at them. That includes a lot of multitasking and applications that simply load the overclocked processor.

My device of choice will be SEARS 982016 digital multimeter which will help me gather some scores throughout this section.

TESTING

Let’s put these Purepower RXs into some action and see how they go against each other. This is how the experiment will look. I’ll be checking voltage regulation and fluctuation on four different levels: stock idle / load and overclocked idle / load. Usually, companies specify what they call a “tolerance level” Basically, it’s a difference (in percentages) between maximum and nominal limits. In our case the nominal values are: 3.3, 5 and 12. We will compare them with the averaged values we gathered from the multimeter.

Above, we have consolidated values inside a table. All voltages were averaged to give you a narrower look at the performance.

Both Thermaltake Purepower RX 500W and 600W perform well in real world environment. Haven’t seen a lot of voltage fluctuation on either PSU even with overclocked CPU and various applications running in the background. Neither PSU reached the 3% tolerance level. The closest was 600W model with 2.72%, but we have to take into consideration some sort of margin of error. Purepower RX 500W was pretty much loaded so it returned more accurate results. The 12V rails seem very healthy on both power supplies and run at around 0.85-1.66% tolerance.

I wouldn’t recommend running SLI/Crossfire configuration on the 500W model as it might topple your system at some point. It’s fine if you’re running single card and do some CPU overclocking, but I wouldn’t count for more.

CONCLUSIONS & CLOSING THOUGHTS

Whether you’re building a gaming platform or simple PC station, you’ll need stable power being fed to your components. I’m sure a lot of you out there that bought or will buy one of those cheap power supplies just to save up few bucks — nothing more erroneous! Saving money in power supply field will cause your wallet to dry up fast than you think. Unexpected short circuits, over voltage or over current might and probably will damage your devices if the PSU isn’t fitted with proper protection. Why not invest and get a true power supply that you can be certain will work?

The new line of power supplies from Thermaltake shine in every aspect. Purepower RX 500W & 600W tested to be worth putting inside a high-end system. If you’re looking for an upgrade or are building a brand new system you’re ought to consider either of the two. Depending on your graphic card / CPU set up, choose between the two and forget about system instabilities and power shortages while overclocking.

Thermaltake did a wonderful job bringing traits of a high-end product to the less expensive line of power supplies. Now you can power your dual core CPU along with an enthusiast graphic board for no more than $97 green dollars and worry about nothing. With low noise 14 cm fan, modularized cable management and high quality circuitry you should give either of these RXs a try.

Pros:
+ Stable rails
+ 140 mm fan
+ Very quiet
+ Design
+ Price

Cons:
– +5V values could be lower

For phenomenal stability, quality circuitry and quiet operation, Thermaltake Purepower RX 500W & 600W get the rating of 9.0 (Extremely Good) out of 10 and the Bjorn3D Golden Bear Award.