We decided to disassemble this power supply to see what it looks like inside, how it is designed, and what components are used. Please read our Anatomy of Switching Power Supplies tutorial to understand how a power supply works and to compare this power supply to others.
In this page, we will have an overall look, while in the next page we will discuss in details the quality and rating of the components used.
We can point out several differences between this power supply and a low-end (a.k.a. “generic”) one: the construction quality of the printed circuit board (PCB); the use of more components on the transient filtering stage; the active PFC circuitry; the use of a thermal sensor on the power diodes heatsink for controlling the fan speed and for shutting down the power supply in case of overheating; the power rating of all components; the design; etcetera.
On Figures 9 and 10 you can have an overall look from inside this power supply.
click to enlarge
Figure 9: Inside Toughpower 750 W.
click to enlarge
Figure 10: Inside Toughpower 750 W.
Several funny things caught our attention inside this power supply. The most obvious was the use of this funny green tape everywhere (see Figures 9 and 10). We also found out that this power supply isn’t manufactured by Thermaltake, but by a company called CWT. In fact it looks like that Toughpower 750 W is actually a CWT PSH750V-C01 power supply. We found “Model: PSH750V” written on this power supply label, which corroborates our guess.
click to enlarge
Figure 11: This power supply is actually a CWT PSH750V-C01.
Is this a problem? Not necessarily, as several other well-known “manufacturers” are doing the same thing. The big question is: does this power supply use a good design? That’s exactly what we’ll try to answer.
Another funny thing about this power supply is that half of its 140 mm fan is covered with a transparent plastic, as you can see on the right in Figure 12. The part that is covered is the one above the rear part of the power supply, near the mesh found on the power supply’s rear.
click to enlarge
Figure 12: Half of the fan is covered with a transparent plastic.
