Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 Snow 1200 Watt ATX 3.0 Power Supply Review

A Closer Look – Internal

One thing I love to see is when brands use their own in-house fans on their PSUs, it just helps the aesthetics match and shows that they’re capable of doing it all in-house.

The fan is a TT-1425, which can operate from 800 to 2000 RPM, and is a larger 140mm unit rather than the typical 120mm fans we usually see in most power supplies.

The AC line-in is pretty busy, with both the power switch and the hybrid fan switch tucked in next to it. The soldering could be a bit cleaner, but it’s robust enough that I’m not concerned, with the LLC filtering just behind that (the other end of the wires), with some thick shielding on the cables there.

The PFC MOSFETS have a thick heatsink on the side, but surprisingly, the two heatsinks in here look quite small for a PSU of this wattage, but they are both quite thick and the PSU has extra ventilation on the sides, so I’m assuming it’s more than enough. Interestingly, there’s a lot of empty space here, with the PCB not filling the case, so it seems Thermaltake made the PSU larger simply to accommodate a 140mm fan rather than a 120mm fan.

There are a few daughter boards in here, such as this one for the 5V and 3.3V conversion boards, and a controller board next to that. This vertical layout is great for cooling and airflow throughout the PSU.

Wow, look at that! This is one of the fattest capacitors I’ve ever seen in a PSU, and it’s rated for a whopping 420v and 1150 uF, it’s a beast!

There are some 2200 uF 16v caps tucked down behind it too.

As well as some 3300 uF 16V caps here. Now, they’re mixed brands, with both Nippon and Nichicon, but they’re all high-quality Japanese-made 105c-rated parts, which is good to see.

Everything else looks great too, with a large coil for the PFC inductor (left), and a large LLC Main Transformer (right).

The connector board looks neat and tidy too, with a layer of shielding around the back of it, protecting all the external connector ports.

With everything we need now hooked up for testing, let’s first up the load tester and see just how good this 1200W unit really is!