A Look Inside TX750W

We decided to disassemble this power supply to see how it looks like inside, what is the design used and what components are used. Please read our Anatomy of Switching Power Supplies tutorial to understand how a power supply works inside and to compare this power supply to others.On this page we will have an overall look, while on 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 power rating of all components; the design; etcetera.

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Figure 6: Overall look.

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Figure 7: Overall look.

As soon as we opened the power supply we had a déjà vu feeling. The layout was very similar to the one used by Thermaltake Toughpower 750 W, which is also manufactured by CWT. However, after a closer inspection on the printed circuit board we could find enough differences to say for sure that even though they have the same labeled power and are manufactured by the same company, they are definitely different products (also Thermaltake’s product has three 18 A +12 V rails while Corsair’s has a single 60 A rail).

As we mentioned on other articles, the first place we like to take a look when opening a power supply to have a hint about its quality is its filtering stage. The recommend components for this stage are two ferrite coils, two ceramic capacitors (Y capacitors, usually blue), one metalized polyester capacitor (X capacitor) and one MOV (Metal-Oxide Varistor). Very low-end power supplies use fewer components than that, usually removing the MOV, which is essential for cutting spikes coming from the power grid, and the first coil.

On this section this power supply is flawless, as it has more components than the necessary – one extra X capacitor, four extra Y capacitors and one extra coil. This power supply also features an X capacitor after the rectifying bridge.

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Figure 8: Transient filtering stage (part 1).

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Figure 9: Transient filtering stage (part 2).

A very interesting feature from this power supply is that its fuse is inside a fireproof rubber protection. So this protection will prevent the spark produced on the minute the fuse is blown from setting the power supply on fire. As you can see on Figures 6,7 and 9 all coils used on this power supply are also protected by the same material.

Talking about protection you can see the thermal sensor used on this power supply – which is attached to the secondary heatsink – on Figure 10. The purpose of this sensor is shutting down the power supply in case of an overheating situation and also controlling the fan speed according to the power supply internal temperature.

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Figure 10: Thermal sensor.

This power supply uses a CM6800 integrated circuit, which is a very popular active PFC and PWM controller combo. It is located on a small printed circuit board shown on Figure 11.

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Figure 11: Active PFC and PWM combo controller.

Now let’s have a more detailed discussion on the components used on TX750W.

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