Thermaltake Toughpower PF3 1200W PSU Review

Thermaltake's Toughpower PF3 1200W Platinum power supply is finally on our test bench, and it's designed to power the most demanding gaming rigs and workstations, with 1200W of power more than meeting the demand of most extreme builds. It's built with high-quality components and adheres to the latest standards, as you might expect, ensuring stable performance and reliable power delivery under intense workloads. This PF3 series fully embraces the ATX 3.0 specification, meaning it can easily handle the transient power spikes of next-gen graphics cards. It's also ready for PCIe 5.0, with a native 12VHPWR connector that can deliver up to 600W of power to your GPU through a single cable. I love this cable, as it's much easier than routing two or even three 6+2 cables like we did on the last gen of GPUs/PSUs. System builders will appreciate the compact 140mm depth of the Toughpower PF3. This makes it compatible with a wider range of cases, such as those with limited space and is certainly a stand-out feature given the power output is so high. The fully modular design is going to appeal too, allowing you to use only the cables you need, minimising clutter and maximising airflow within the case. Thermaltake has prioritised reliability with the Toughpower PF3. It utilizes 100% high-quality Japanese capacitors, which are well respected due to their increased durability and performance at high temperatures. Plus, with the 80 PLUS Platinum certification, it guarantees exceptional efficiency which at 1200W is really important, and a nice upgrade from the previous model, the GF3, which was rated 80 Plus Gold at 1200W. Key Features ATX 3.0 and PCIe 5.0 ready: Supports the latest hardware and power delivery standards. Native 12VHPWR connector: Powers high-end graphics cards with a single cable. 100% Japanese capacitors: Ensures reliability and stability. 80 PLUS Platinum certified: Guarantees high efficiency and low energy waste. Compact 140mm depth: Offers wider case compatibility. Fully modular design: Provides flexibility and clean cable management. Power Delivery The Toughpower PF3 1200W Platinum features a single +12V rail design with a maximum output of 100A, delivering the full 1200W to components such as CPUs and GPUs. This single-rail configuration ensures compatibility and simplifies power distribution within the system. The +3.3V and +5V rails offer a combined 100W of power with a maximum output of 20A each, providing power to motherboards, drives, and peripherals. Finally, a dedicated +5VSB rail delivers 15W (3A) for standby power. Packaging & Accessories The box is nicely designed, with the usual Thermaltake grey and black aesthetic, a nice clear photo of the power supply right on the front, and all key features are listed, such as the PCIe Gen 5 and ATX 3.0 support, Japanese Capacitors, and the 10-year warranty. Around the back, there's a good run-down of key features, and some graphs showing you the efficiency, ripple and other aspects of the performance, as well as a list of all the included cables and connectors. The cables all come in their own protective bag, allowing you to keep them protected if they're not being used. The cables are just bundled tightly together when you first take them out. However, if we separate them out, it includes everything, if not more, than you'll likely need. 1x Main Power Connector (24Pin): This is the primary cable that connects to your motherboard to provide power. (600mm long) 2x ATX 12V (4+4Pin): These cables connect to your motherboard to provide power to the CPU. (650mm long) 2x PCIe (6+2Pin): These are for your graphics card(s). You get two cables, each with two connectors (one 6-pin, one 8-pin), offering flexibility for different GPU configurations. (500mm + 150mm long) 1x PCIe (6+2Pin): A single cable with one 8-pin connector. (500mm long) 1x PCIe 600W (12+4Pin): This is the new 12VHPWR connector designed for high-powered PCIe Gen 5.0 graphics cards. (600mm long) 3x SATA: Each cable has multiple SATA power connectors for your SSDs, HDDs, and optical drives. (500mm + 150mm + 150mm + 150mm long) 2x Peripheral: These have the classic 4-pin Molex connectors, often used for older devices like case fans or optical drives. (500mm + 150mm + 150mm + 150mm long) 1x FDD Adapter: This is for a floppy disk drive, which is very rarely used these days. (150mm long) A Closer Look - Exterior The latest PSU from Thermaltake looks pretty familiar, as they use this design throughout the range, and it's not a world away from the models of a few years ago either. Of course, a power supply doesn't lend much room for innovation on design elements, but it's a nice enough-looking unit, and the ventilation pattern matches the design Thermaltake uses on their PC cases. The connectors are all pretty straightforward and are all clearly labelled. Down the side, there's some additional ventilation. And on the bottom, the usual specification sticker. I love that they've expanded the ventilation at the back, and all the extra ventilation will help with the passive zero RPM fan mode. However, there's a switch to enable/disable that mode should you want the fan always on. A Closer Look - Interior Opening up the unit, we can see that Thermaltake has used one of its own fans, and it's the TT-1225, a durable 120mm unit that uses a Fluid Dynamic Bearing design and operates at 12v. The interior is pretty packed, but given they've gotten 1200W out of such a compact ATX unit, that's hardly surprising. However, that can mean a lot of heat building up, so Thermaltake has equipped it with plentiful heatsinks to ensure everything keeps running optimally. Space is tight in here, but there's plenty of ventilation in the outer case, and thanks to the DC-to-DC design and 80 Plus Platinum Efficiency, less power is wasted and less heat is generated, allowing the PSU to run with zero RPM fan at lower loads and temperatures. There are two main bulk capacitors, which are 105c-rated Nichicon Japanese-made. Furthermore, all the smaller capacitors are Japanese-made too. The side of the PSU is impressive, but Thermaltake uses taller heatsinks and smaller vertical PCBs for things like the 3.3v and 5.5v conversion, saving space and helping to better distribute heat and airflow. Methodology & Testing At eTeknix we take the power supply testing procedure very seriously and have invested a lot of resources into acquiring the appropriate testing equipment. For all power supply reviews, we test the power supplies with dedicated power supply testing equipment. This means we can get the most accurate results from our testing as opposed to using software benchmarks (such as OCCT) or multi-meter readouts which are broadly inaccurate. Testing Hardware Sunmoon SM-8800 Active Load Tester Stingray DS1M12 USB Oscilloscope Voltcraft DT-10L laser tachometer What the eTeknix Test Procedure Involves Testing each power supply at 20/40/60/80/100% load (with load balanced across all rails) and measuring PFC (power factor correction), efficiency (actual power divided by power "pulled at the wall") which also uses a 50% load test, and voltage regulation (deviance from expected voltages of 3.3/5/12 on the main rails). Measuring ripple with an oscilloscope at 20/40/60/80/100% load. Transient loads taken with an oscilloscope are taken from 0% to 100% on the 12v raid, 3.3v rail, and then both combined. Measuring fan speed after a stabilisation period of five minutes at each loading scenario using the Voltcraft DT-10L laser tachometer and a reflective strip on the fan. Testing each power supply's OPP (Over Power Protection) mechanism and seeing how many watts each power supply can deliver before shutting down. Any deviation from this will be explained per review as appropriate on the respective testing pages, but this methodology page will remain unchanged. Other Things to Consider We recognise that a single 12-volt cable can provide only 6 Amps before overheating (which corrupts voltage regulation and efficiency) so we used an adequate number of cables for each power supply to ensure there is no efficiency loss from poor cable selection. If there is more than one 12VHPWR on a PSU, all will be used to test their combined loads. We use the same time scale and horizontal millivolt scale on our oscilloscope for all ripple tests, that is a 20ms T/DIV (horizontal) and a 0.02 V/DIV (vertical) meaning the scale is from -80mV to +80mV, ATX spec dictates that the 12v rail must fall within 150mv of ripple and the 3.3/5 within 50mv so that scale allows us to include both 150 and 50mV peaks. (Some older PSU reviews use different scales which were later ditched as the visual representation they give is inadequate, in these reviews written measurements are provided only). Deviance is the terminology used to represent the way voltages diverge from the expected values Voltage Regulation To test voltage regulation we load the power supply to five different load scenarios that give an equal spread of load across every single rail. So that means 20% on all rails, 40% on all rails and so on. We then calculate the average deviation of each rail from its expected voltage. Ideally, anything of +/- 2% regulation is seen as a very good result. Power Efficiency Power efficiency is measured by calculating the supplied wattage divided by the wattage drawn at the wall/plug, multiplied by 100 to give a percentage. We then compare that to the particular 80 Plus certification the company claims to see if it meets that. You can see the 80 Plus certifications below, we always test power supplies at 230v. Transient Loads Power Factor Correction Power Factor Correction is the ratio of the real power flowing to the load, to the apparent power in the circuit. PFC aims to make the load circuitry that is power factor corrected appear purely resistive (apparent power equal to real power). In this case, the voltage and current are in phase and the reactive power consumption is zero. The closer the number to one the better as this allows the most efficient delivery of electrical power (Source - Wikipedia). Ripple An oscilloscope can easily measure noise and Ripple. These show how much voltage fluctuation there is on a particular rail. We tested the rail stability of the 3.3-volt, 5-volt and 12-volt rails using an identical time and millivolt scale for all graphs. millivolt ripple is measured by the peak-to-peak size of the voltage curve. The latest ATX 12-volt version 2.3 specifications state that ripple from peak to peak must be no higher than 50 millivolts for the 3.3-volt and 5-volt rails, while the 12-volt rail is allowed up to 120 millivolts peak to peak to stay within specifications. Millivolt figures are stated to the closest increment of 5 given their variability. OPP Power supplies are often quoted as having various protection mechanisms and the most important of these is Over Power Protection. In our testing, we crank up the power draw until the power supply either shuts down (meaning the OPP mechanism is present and working) or blows up (meaning it is either not present or not working). We then note the maximum power consumption before the power supply shut down, or before it blew up. Fan Speed When testing in a power supply laboratory it is difficult to take fan noise readings as the noise from the Sunmoon test equipment and air conditioning corrupts everything. The next best thing in our circumstances was reading off the fan speed with a tachometer to get an idea of the noise. The ambient temperature during testing is held constant at 22 degrees, with 1 degree of variation. Each power supply had a consistent period of 5 minutes to stabilise between each load scenario. In my experience, the following general relationships apply between noise levels and fan speeds, though it can vary greatly between the type of fan used. Below 800 RPM - Inaudible/Silent 800 to 1000 RPM - Barely audible 1000 - 1200 RPM - Audible but still quiet 1200 - 1400 RPM - Moderately noisy 1400 - 1800 RPM - Noisy 1800 - 2000 RPM or above - Intolerable Internal Components This is just an example of what you can expect to see on a PSU interior. Efficiency This is an 80 Plus Platinum rated unit, so as you might expect it performs excellently here. It's always over 90% throughout all load tests, which is going to mean less electricity wasted and lower running costs overall. PFC (Power Factor Correction) The PFC is fantastic too, very close to the ideal perfect of 1.0, and with such a tight power factor correction and efficiency, the PSU will typically generate a lot less heat. Voltage Regulation Voltage regulation is extremely tight, with stable voltages on all of the important rails, which is going to give you cconfidence in your system stability at any load level. Ripple Ripple is exceptionally low, and honestly, I wouldn't have expected anything different from such a highly rated power supply. The scores are well under the 150mv and 100mv limits for the 12v and other rails, so really a big thumbs up here. 3.3V 5V 12V Over Power Protection and Max Wattage The PSU is already rated at 1200W, which is a lot of power anyway, but we managed to push it to 22% above the rating to 1462 watts before the OPP kicked in and shut things down. So if you are pulling near the max output and have a power spike, it will handle it just fine. Cross-Loads Unsurprisingly, the cross load voltage regulation is exccellent, with no rail passing our +/- 3% upper limit, so there shouldn't be any issues here. Fan Speed So far, everything has performed excellently, with great efficiency, voltage regulation, and much more. However, I'm not overly impressed by the 120mm fan they're using. It seems to be set on quite a high curve, hitting around 2200 RPM at 80% load, so it is audible. 120mm does seem a small fan for a 1200W PSU, and while it's obviously doing a good job at cooling, I think a slightly larger PSU design to fit a bigger and quieter fan would have been even better. That being said, it's completely silent at low loads and temperatures, so if you're just watching YouTube or something, the fan stops. How Much Does it Cost? The Thermaltake Toughpower PF3 1200 WATT ATX 3.0 PCIe 5.0 power supply is available now from Amazon for just £199.02. Obviously, that is a lot of money, but this is a very high power output power supply, and 80 Plus Platinum efficiency comes at a premium too. The benefits to upgrading to 80 Plus Platnium over 80 Plus Gold are pretty significant too, as doing so can save you around £170 over 10 years (the same timespan as the PSUs warranty), and that's just based on running a gaming PC for 8 hours a day. If you're building a workstation that's going to be rendering for hours on end, the savings are going to be much bigger over the same timespan. Overview Thermaltake has a strong offering here, but what stands out the most is the price. £199.02 is cheap, and the equivilent Corsair HX1200i costs £259.99 but is also a much larger unit. Silverstones Extreme 1200R is £299.99 and the ASUS equivilent is £299, but that does come with a more "gamer" aesthetic that comes at a premium. There are some cost saving aspects that I did notice though, such as the use of a cheaper and frankly noiser 120mm fan, and the cables are good qualtiy, but they're not braided and sleeved like some of their rivals. But hey, for around £60-100 less, I can suck it up, because this power supply is very affordable. The Thermaltake Toughpower PF3 1200W Platinum is a high-quality power supply that offers excellent performance and features. It is compatible with the latest hardware and complies with the ATX 3.0 standard and PCIe Gen 5, meaning it will work on the latest graphics cards, and upcoming hardware. Plus, at 1200W, dealing with any of the most extreme CPU/GPU combinations isn't going to be an issue, making it very suitable for extreme performance systems. The Toughpower PF3 1200W Platinum has a low ripple noise design and extremely strict voltage regulation. This ensures that your components receive clean and stable power. The power supply also has a high amperage single +12V rail, which can handle even the most demanding graphics cards and just simplifies the suetup for high-end systems with multiple CPUs or GPUs. Should I Buy One? Overall, the Thermaltake Toughpower PF3 1200W Platinum is an excellent choice for gamers and enthusiasts who are looking for a high-performance power supply. It is well-built, has a good range of features, and comes with a 10-year warranty that gives any consumer peace of mind. I would like to see it with an upgraded fan, but if you're running it in a high performance system, cooling fans and your graphics card will likely drown it out anyway, and given the affordable price tag, it's a minor issue that I could happily live with. This is one of the absolute best value for money enthusiast power supplys on the market right now.

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Over Power Protection and Max Wattage

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