When I was putting together the last few parts for our In Win D-Frame Mini build I knew I wanted to stick with a black and red theme and get a power supply that matched the performance of the rest of the build. Going with a Thermaltake Power Supply really was the only option to get both. So they were kind enough to send over their Toughpower DPS G 750 Watt power supply. While it fit everything I needed, it also peaked my curiosity. I mean, this is a power supply that comes with software. So today, beyond taking a look at the power supply itself, I will also be taking a closer look at the included software to see what it is all about and find out If it is something you really need or if it is marketing fluff.
Product Name: Thermaltake Toughpower DPS G 750W
Review Sample Provided by: Thermaltake
Written by: Wes
Pictures by: Wes
**Disclaimer**
LanOC Reviews only covers the features of power supplies due to not having the equipment to test them up to our standards. Because of this you will not see a performance section, a final verdict, or awards. Therefore we prefer to call this a preview rather than a review. Thank you for understanding; we keep our standard to the absolute highest for you, our reader.
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Specifications |
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Model |
TPG-750DH3FCG |
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Type |
Intel ATX 12V 2.31 & SSI EPS 12V 2.92 |
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Max. Output Capacity |
750W |
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Peak Output Capacity |
900W |
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Color |
Black |
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Dimension （ W / H / D ） |
150mm(W) x 86mm(H) x 180mm(L) |
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PFC （Power Factor Correction） |
Active PFC |
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Power Good Signal |
100-500 msec |
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Hold Up Time |
> 16ms at 70% load |
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Input current |
10A |
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Input Frequency Range |
47Hz - 63Hz |
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Input Voltage |
100V - 240V |
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Operating Temperature |
0 ℃ to +40℃ |
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Operating Humidity |
20% to 90%,non-condensing |
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Storage Temperature |
-20 ℃ to +70 ℃ |
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Storage Humidity |
5% to 95%, non-condensing |
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Cooling System |
14cm dual ball bearing Fan: 1500R.P.M. ± 10% |
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Efficiency |
MEET 80 Plus GOLD at 115Vac input. |
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MTBF |
120,000 hrs minimum |
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Safety Approval |
CE, TUV, FCC, UL/CUL, BSMI |
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PCI-E Connector |
4 |
Packaging
The Toughpower DPS G comes in a fairly standard power supply box. On the front there is a photo of the power supply, the branding, and then along the bottom there is a gold strip with the wattage in large letters. Also along the bottom with the wattage are a few small logos like showing the 7 year warranty, 80 Plus Gold certification, and icons showing SLI and Haswell compatibility. On the back of the packaging Thermaltake includes a few more small photos of the power supply along with photos from inside and of the software. They also include a specification listing and a nice connector table that shows all of the different connectors that you get with the Toughpower DPS G, each also includes a small photo of the connection.
Inside the box, you get a small manual that mostly just has your specifications and information on the modular connections. The power supply sits in a thick foam shell to keep it safe and then the power cord and all of the modular cables come in a nylon bag with a Velcro flap to keep everything inside.
Photos and Features
The Toughpower DPS G 750W stuck with the same casing that we have seen with Thermaltake’s premium power supplies for the past few years. What that means is the casing has rounded corners where a traditional power supply with have right angled corners. This gives the power supply a classy look. That classy look is aided by the use of gold in the fan grill.
So as you can see the Toughpower DPS G is fully modular meaning every cable including the motherboard power and CPU power are modular. A lot of other power supplies will save money and only go modular on some cables. This makes doing individual sleeving much easier not to mention it is helpful in situations where you might run two power supplies, you won’t need to hide the extra cabling. The 24 pin power connection is split up into two plugs but other than that everything else is standard. The two PCI plugs are colored in red to help make sure you don’t accidentally hook up your CPU power to a PCI spot or the other way around. Really the most interesting part here is the small USB plug down at the bottom of the photo that lets us hook the power supply up to USB so the software can pick up on what is going on in the power supply.
The rear of the Toughpower DPS G is mostly covered in ventilation but you do have a standard power cord connection as well as a power switch.
The gold fan grill is screwed down from the outside but is mounted from the inside meaning you can’t just unscrew it and pop it off. This was a bit of a bummer for me because my original plan was to pull this off and paint it to match my build. I should also note that while it looks like it is metal it is actually made out of plastic.
On the side of the Toughpower DPS G Thermaltake put a small version of their logo and slightly larger branding for the model name. The 750 watt logo takes up most of the space though. They did also slip in the 80 Plus Gold badge as well though. Other than that the red band continues all the way around the sides unbroken. All in all this is what you will see with this power supply installed in most cases and it looks good. I might prefer a slightly cleaner design but it is still going to look good.
I mentioned it in the packaging section, but Thermaltake includes a nice heavy duty bag for storing all of your extra modular cables. I know in the past I have mixed up my cables a few times, so it is nice when they include these bags.
So for cables Thermaltake went with a thin flexible design on every single cable including the 24 pin motherboard power cable. Typically this cable uses a more traditional standard cable with sleeving over it. It’s great to see that they matched this with the others, both to keep the styling the same but also because the thinner design should make rounding the largest cable in your PC much easier. For your video cards you get two PCI cables with two 6/8 pin connections on each cable. So that means one cable per video card. To set these apart from the 8 pin CPU power cable they have red connections. For my use in the In Win D-Frame Mini the red and black theme went perfectly with everything else. For the other cables we have the 8 pin CPU power that I already mention, two Molex cables, and two SATA cables. For the one person who still has a floppy drive Thermaltake also slipped in a nice Molex to floppy adapter, I’m really glad they didn’t build it into the cable still like some other manufactures.
Beyond the cables you do get a few other accessories. For starters you get a heavy gauge power cable. Thermaltake also includes two rubber corner pieces with double sided sticky tape on the inside. Because of the round corners of the Toughpower GPS G you will need these to fill in gaps on the corners when you mount the power supply. They don’t provide any structure, but they do keep you from having tiny gaps at the power supply mount. They also include two small zip ties and four black screws for mounting. I do wish they would include more than just the two zip ties though, I know when I do a build I use at least 10 with some needing to be a little thicker than these.
One of the cables that really sets the Toughpower DPS G apart is this black USB cable. This is how Thermaltake’s software picks up on what is going on in the power supply. It isn’t a thin flexible cable like the other cables, but it is still blacked out and flexible enough, similar to a front panel USB connection.
Software
I know it’s a little weird, but yes this power supply comes with its own software. What sets the Toughpower DPS apart from the Toughpower Grand is the Smart DPS Software. So what is it all about? Well when you open up the software you get access to all of your voltages, fan speed, amperage, temperatures, wattage, and efficiency. How would this come in handy? Well for starters typically you have no idea how hot your power supply is running, being able to get a peek at the temperature is a nice bonus. Being able to see what efficiency you are running at is nice as well but what I found myself using the most is the wattage readout. A lot of people really have no idea how much power they are pulling at any point in time, being able to see your wattage at idle and under load is great, especially if you are considering adding a second video card or any other upgrade. You do get a few readout options as well. For one you can see five of the readouts at once under their icons, but with the readout selected you can get a gauge or graph.
The software also records all of your readouts anytime your PC is running. This means if you run into an issue and you think it is power supply related you can actually go back and look to see if a voltage dropped. For me I put this to use to go back later on and see how much power my LAN rig pulled when running different games.
Overall
While I can’t give the Toughpower DPS G any awards or a final verdict because we didn’t test its performance, I have been extremely impressed with its overall feature set. Thermaltake gave it a little style and class with its rounded casing along with a black and red theme that matched perfectly with my In Win D-Frame Mini build. For wiring the power supply is completely modular and they went all out with the thin flexible cabling, including the 24-pin motherboard cable. They didn’t force a pointless floppy power connection onto the Molex cables as well. What really sets it apart though is the software. Just having the option to be able to check temperatures and voltages is nice. But being able to also see and even graph out your power efficiency and wattage usage is great. If you are interested in keeping your power bill down you can use this to underclock your PC when you aren’t putting it under load. Or for me it is cool to be able to see just how much I can pull!
