Thermaltake Toughpower GX1 700W Power Supply Review

Thermaltake products are no stranger to us at Play3r and today we take a closer look at the Toughpower GX1 700W power supply. It has an 80PLUS Gold efficiency rating, comes with a 5-year warranty and is suitable for NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFire gaming systems.

The Thermaltake Toughpower GX1 700W is non-modular and is advertising low ripple noise, an ultra quiet fluid dynamic bearing fan and its use of Japanese capacitors rated to 105 degrees Celsius. It has a current selling price at Scan of £77.99 which is pretty competitive with other 700W 80PLUS Gold options.

Let’s look at the specifications and features, then dig into what the Thermaltake Toughpower looks like…

Thermaltake Toughpower GX1 700W Specifications & Features

Features

P/N – PS-TPD-0700NNFAGx-1
Model – SP-700AH2NCG
Type – ATX 12V v2.4 and EPS v2.92
Max. Output Capacity – 700W
Peak Output Capacity – 840W
Color – Black
Dimension ( W / H / D ) – 150mm(W) x 86mm(H) x 140mm(D)
PFC (Power Factor Correction) – Active PFC
Power – Good Signal 100-500 msec
Hold Up Time > 12msec at 80% of full load
Input current 10A max.
Input Frequency Range – 47Hz – 63Hz
Input Voltage 100V – 240V~
Operating Temperature – 0°C to + 40°C
Operating Humidity – 20% to 90%, non-condensing
Storage Temperature – -20°C to + 70°C
Storage Humidity – 5% to 95%, non-condensing
Cooling System – 12cm fluid dynamic bearing fan
Efficiency – Meet 80 PLUS®Gold at 115Vac input.
MTBF – 100,000 hrs minimum
Safety Approval – CE/cTUVus/TUV/FCC/BSMI/EAC/S-Mark
PCI-E 6+2pin – 4

Thermaltake Toughpower GX1 700W Closer Look & Performance

(Images by Gavbon: He needed a new PSU)

The Thermaltake Toughpower GX1 700W looks to do things differently than the last couple we’ve seen including the Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGN 850W Power Supply we looked at last time. For starters, there’s no RGB LED fan or LEDs within the unit itself. Not a bad thing and if anything reduces the price a little bit as RGB products usually come with some kind of ‘RGB tax’.

On the overall exterior of the Toughpower GX1, it has a black frame all over with Thermaltake branding throughout. The side panels have venting along with the top panel. Cooling the internal components is a basic 120mm fan, with no information available about its specifications.

There’s no silent mode so if you’re looking for a passive power supply, then you’re going to have to go elsewhere I’m afraid. All the cables are hardwired and come from a small exit point on the rear panel. The cables themselves have a plastic mesh coating which is fairly common on basic themed power supplies such as this one. One element to consider with non-modular units is cable management. In the more bog standard systems, finding a place to hide all the unused cables can be troublesome so keep that in mind!

Connections wise, the Thermaltake Toughpower GX1 700W has a single 24-pin ATX, a single 4+4-pin ATX 12V CPU, 8 x SATA, 4 x PCIe 6+2-pin, 4 peripheral 4-pin MOLEX and a single FDD connector. This power supply is suitable for both 2-way CrossFire and 2-way SLI gaming setups.

Since we don’t currently have access to an ATE load tester, a multimeter is used to show each of the power supplies performance on the 3.3v, 5v, and 12v rails. Although we can’t do full load tests, we can provide relative information regarding variance and fluctuation of current and ripple on the rails which is integral and indicative of quality in a power supply.

To perform the above tests, the components and methodology were as follows:

Intel Core i7-7820X @ Stock
ASUS X299 TUF Mark 1
ZOTAC GTX 1060 – Power limit set to the maximum
Crucial (2x8gb) 32GB DDR4 Ballistix Elite 3000MHz
1 x 525GB Crucial MX300 SSDs

Voltages will be monitored via a multimeter and the AC power draw will be monitored via a power monitor when drawn from the wall. For the idle test, the system will be simply booted up and let to run into windows and after 5 minutes when the power draw has levelled out, the readings will be taken.

To load and apply power to the power supply, a combination of IBT and Furmark will be run to put as much strain on the power supply as possible. After 10 minutes the readings will be taken and to ensure maximum strain, the CPU will be overclocked to 4.8GHz. Depending on the power of the power supply, multiple graphics cards could be used in line with how comfortable I feel that the power supply will cope with such a load. In the case of this unit, the GTX 1060 doesn’t support SLI. We will endeavour to improve our testing methods going into 2019 though!

ATX themselves specify that a fluctuation and variable of 5% is acceptable so to number crunch it means that:

3.3V = 3.135V-3.465V is acceptable
5V = 4.75V-5.25V is acceptable
12V = 11.4V – 12.6V is acceptable.

Any readings outside of these figures will be an automatic fail.

The Thermaltake Toughpower GX1 700W Review: The Verdict

While performance is decent from our limited tests, the Thermaltake Toughpower GX1 700W power supply provides more than just that. Sure it’s not fully modular or even semi-modular, but the price reflects the hard-wired design. The truth is that the Toughpower GX1 series offers good value for money.

What’s hot:

• Competitively priced
• 80PLUS Gold efficiency rating
• Support for 2-way CrossFire and SLI
• Decent quality

What’s not:

• Requires more effective cable management due to being non-modular

The main pitfalls of a non-modular power supply other than some aspects of quality which I will touch on in a moment, but the main issue is cable management. In tight cases with little room at the rear of the case, having all of the cables pre-attached can leave bundles looking for somewhere to go. On the quality front, it’s rare that non-modular power supplies these days come in anything more than 80Plus Gold. In reality, it’s not a big issue as efficiency rating doesn’t equate to quality, but it’s a good indicator of what’s good and what’s not.

Overall the Thermaltake Toughpower GX1 700W has enough about it to deserve our Silver Award and if it were slightly cheaper, it would be a clear-cut gold. A price of £77.99 at Scan Computers makes this a good purchase if you’re not too bothered modular and want to make use of the extra budget in another key area such as memory or storage. It’s good, it’s good value and it does enough to satisfy me even though it’s no frills; that isn’t a bad thing!

Thanks to Thermaltake for sending a sample of the Toughpower GX1 700W in for review.

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