Thermaltake Toughpower SFX 550W Power Supply Review

A Closer Look

The first thing that grabs your attention when you get this power supply out of the box is just how small it is. Yes, I already knew it was a small form factor design, but when you’re accustomed to dealing with ‘standard’ power supplies, it’s always nice to actually have something that can easily sit in the palm of your hand.

In terms of aesthetics, the Thermaltake ToughPower SFX presents itself well with a sleek black external casing offset with silver highlights. While there is branding evidence, it’s well-sized and placed, meaning that it doesn’t detract from the strong overall visual appearance.

The top of the power supply is well vented with the 92mm cooling fan set direction beneath. With its central location, this should help promote a good airflow throughout the power supply, meaning that, all going well, this will give us some nice results when it comes to our testing.

The modular cable input bank is well organised which each section being clearly denoted for its usage. Coming with a back-to-back design, this also means that cable insertion and removal are amazingly straightforward and easy to do. Something undoubtedly handy when it comes to the often cramped conditions within small form factor PC builds.

Although not vented to all of the space visually available, the rear of the power supply still allows for plenty of space for a good solid level of airflow. In addition, although this power supply does not have a manual ‘hybrid’ fan function control, we do understand that this has already been integrated into the design, meaning that, all going well, the fan should only operate when necessary. This does have some ‘passive’ features to help keep the noise levels as low as possible.

As this is an SFX power supply, we thought it wise to give you some visual representation of just how small this actually is. Sat next to what I consider to be a fairly standard external hard drive, you can see that the Thermaltake ToughPower SFX is highly comparable. As such, if you just needed a visual representation of how tiny this is, well, here you are.

Cabling

Although you are not exactly given a huge amount of cabling, what you are provided with should be more than suitable for the vast majority of small form factor PC designs. Although the cabling length is largely more than suitable, however, we should note that the main motherboard power cable is a little on the short size. As such, while this does offer ATX support through the bracket, optimal cable management for those particular case designs could prove difficult.

Internals – A Look Inside!

Opening up the Thermaltake ToughPower SFX is remarkably straightforward. Not, incidentally, that we’d recommend you do it as this will automatically void your warranty. Once inside, however, the presentation is excellent. Despite its small size, all of the components look well organised and, surprisingly, spaced.

Thermaltake has utilised one of their own ‘TT-0925’ 92mm cooling fans within this power supply, and not only does it sit well inside the unit, but given that this is one of their own products, this is more than indicative that it should perform well with what the power supply requires.

A closer look at the PCB again highlights just how well organized things are in here. All of the key components look well situated and spaced, meaning that the fan shouldn’t have to work too hard to keep everything cool. In addition, we can also see the main heat sink is located directly beneath the fan, which again adds to our thoughts that the cooling performance on offer here should be excellent.

As Thermaltake specifically cited 100% Japanese capacitors, although we have never found this claim to be incorrect in the past, we always feel it important to confirm it. Thankfully, and in something that is of no surprise, we find that the capacitors are, indeed, entirely Japanese, with the primary manufacturer being ‘Nippon Chemi-Con’. A well-reputed manufacturer and, as such, seeing them here has us highly confident that this power supply should provide some nice results in our testing process.

Overall Thoughts!

The Thermaltake ToughPower SFX looks excellent internally and externally, both in terms of aesthetics and design quality. If we’re honest, the internals are significantly better than we expected as usually, small form factor power supplies can be quite a messy affair on the inside. None of that here, though.

So, it looks great, but how does it perform. Well, there’s only one way to find out. Let’s get this hooked up to our test bench and see what results it provides!