Thermaltake Toughpower SFX 550W Power Supply Review

Efficiency

Coming with an 80-Plus Gold Efficiency Rating, the Thermaltake ToughPower SFX certainly packs a pretty hefty punch despite its relatively small stature. Can this be backed up in our tests though? Well, the short answer is yes, very much so!

In our testing across various power output ranges, the efficiency rating never dropped below 90% which is significantly higher than the official ‘Gold’ rating requires. In fact, this almost tiptoes into Platinum territory which, for a small form factor design, is almost entirely unheard of. – These results are, without a doubt, exceptionally impressive and get the Thermaltake ToughPower SFX 550W off to a great start!

PFC (Power Factor Correction)

Although starting off quite low at 20% load, this is entirely as expected, and as soon as you start asking this power supply to work harder, the results very quickly improve. So although the results are a little bit lower than we usually see from Thermaltake power supplies, they are still perfectly acceptable. Remember, this is a small form factor design and, as such, some compromises should be expected. Even with that in mind, these results are still as good as most ‘standard’ PSU models.

Voltage Regulation

Consistency is King here. Across the various power output tests we performed, the Thermaltake ToughPower SFX 550W provided amazingly solid results providing us with an exceptionally good average deviancy score. Admittedly, the 12V rail does overvolt slightly, but certainly not to any usual or concerning degree.

When taking the results as a whole, this power supply is again proving to be an exceptionally potent little package!