Returning readers have most likely seen a wide selection of SFX power supplies coming through the LanOC office over the years. I have to admit, I have a little bit of an obsession with these tiny power supplies. It’s because I love building small form factor LAN rigs and you can’t go small without having the power to push it, so when I first saw Silverstone introducing them a few years ago I jumped on them and used them in Lunchbox 2. I later built our entire Lunchbox 3 all around one as well. Recently a few other manufacturers have been jumping into the SFX market. This is exciting for two reasons. For one it means more options. But the most exciting thing is that most of the companies who have been bringing them out also manufacture cases, meaning there may be more SFX based case options coming in the future. Well, Thermaltake introduced a 450 watt and a 600 watt recently and today I’m going to check out the 450 watt and see what it is all about and find out how it compares to the Silverstone and Corsair SFX options.
Product Name: Thermaltake Toughpower SFX 450W
Review Sample Provided by: Thermaltake
Written by: Wes
Pictures by: Wes
Amazon Link: HERE
**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.
| Specifications | |
| Form Factor | SFX |
| Short P/N | STP-0450F-G |
| Color | Black |
| Dimension （W / H / D） | 125mm(W) x 63.5mm(H) x 100mm(D) |
| PFC （Power Factor Correction） | Active PFC |
| Power Good Signal | 100-500 msec |
| Hold Up Time | > 16msec at 75% of full load |
| Input current | 3.5A – 7A |
| Input Frequency Range | 50Hz - 60Hz |
| Input Voltage | 100V - 240V |
| Operating Temperature | 0 ℃ to +40℃ |
| Operating Humidity | 20% to 85%,non-condensing |
| Storage Humidity | 5% to 95%, non-condensing |
| Storage Temperature | -20 ℃ to +90 ℃ |
| Cooling System | 8cm fan |
| Efficiency | MEET 80 PLUS®Gold at 115Vac input. |
| MTBF | 120,000 hrs minimum |
| Safety Approval | CE/FCC/UL/Bauart Mark+CB/EAC |
| Type | Intel SFX 12V 3.3 and ATX 12V 2.4 |
| Model | STP-450AH1FEG |
| Max. Output Capacity | 450W |
| Peak Output Capacity | 540W |
| PCI-E Connector | 2 |
Packaging
The box for the Toughpower SFX 450W is really simple and to the point. Everything Is in black or grey and the cover of the box has a photo of the power supply on it. They have the Thermaltake branding up in the top left corner and Toughpower branding up top and down at the bottom with the wattage. In the middle, they did highlight a couple things like the zero RPM smart fan, fully modular design with flat cables, 80 Plus Gold certification, and the impressive 7-year warranty. On the back of the box, they have graphs showing the power efficiency breakdown as well as a graph showing the fan RPM profile. There is a small output specification listing and they have photos of each connection type with the number of connections of each that the power supply is capable of. Basically, they don’t mess around with any marketing fluff and show you exactly what you need to know if you were shopping for this power supply I a retail store.
Inside the power supply comes wrapped up in bubble wrap with all of the cables and accessories tucked in next to it. I will go through all of the modular cables in the next section, but you do get a nice power cable, four zip ties, and four black screws to install the PSU. They also include an ATX to SFX adapter plate. Silverstone includes one with most of their models but they aren’t painted at all and Corsair doesn’t include one at all. So it’s a nice touch to have a black adapter plate in case you want to use this power supply in a case that is designed for an ATX power supply. I’ve done this a few times and it always gives a lot more room for larger video cards or more airflow. For documentation the include a small paper with warranty information and a quick guide with installation instructions and a list of everything that should come in the box.
Photos and Features
Well if you haven’t ever seen an SFX power supply, they are considerably smaller than your standard ATX power supply. It’s hard to tell with a normal picture, but the SFX PSU is about 5 inches wide and 4 inches long. A normal power supply is about 6 inches square. There are two SFX form factors SFX that Thermaltake went with and the SFX-L platform that is square.
The side profile of the Toughpower 450W that you will normally see through a side panel window is simple, just like the packaging for the power supply. Up top is a grey strip with the Thermaltake logo and the Toughpower branding. Then down on the bottom is a small 80 Plus Gold logo and then the Toughpower SFX 450W branding with the wattage highlighted in large white letters.
Like Silverstone and Corsair, Thermaltake went full modular with the Toughpower SFX 450W. Each of the connections has a label printed on the side of the power supply and to make sure you can tell the difference between the 8-pin CPU connection and the PCI-e connection the PCI-e plug is bright red. Each of the connections does stick out slightly from the power supply and the panel is knocked for each of the retention clips as well.
Up on top of the Toughpower SFX 450W is a large sticker. Here they have a full output specifications breakdown. There is a whole section filled with all of the different certifications and standards including the 80 Plus Gold certification. They also slipped in a logo for the 7-year warranty as well.
On the back of the Toughpower SFX 450W, the entire back is covered in hex grid venting. The power plug is up in the top left corner but it comes covered by a warning sticker reminding you that the fan turns off under low load. We have been seeing this on video cards as well, I guess a lot of people have been freaking out and calling support when they look in and don’t see their fans turning on when they turn their PC on.
Speaking of fans, the bottom of the Toughpower SFX 450W has an 80mm intake fan. It’s a little weird seeing a fan not taking up the entire bottom of a power supply these days, but the SFX form factor is a rectangle and there isn’t room for a large 120mm fan. Corsair, however, was able to pack a 92mm fan into their SFX power supplies. The 80 does match what Silverstone has on their SFX power supplies, though.
For cables, you really only get a few thing, one for each of the modular connections on the power supply. You get a 24-pin motherboard power cable and an 8-pin CPU power. The cable with red ends on it is the PCIe power cable, it has two 6+2 connections on it. This covers any variation of video card you will run into but will of course only handle one card. Being an SFX power supply I doubt many people will be trying to pack two cards into them. Then for accessories, you have one Molex cable with two connections as well as a floppy connection, who knows why we need that floppy connection anymore, though. Then the last cable is a SATA power cable with three connections on them. Each of the cables is shorter than they would be with a normal power supply, especially the 24-pin motherboard power that is 13 inches long. Being for SFF cases, there is no room to hide a bunch of extra cable so that that is a good thing.
All of the cables including the 24-pin all come in all black flat cabling. I wouldn’t use a power supply these days that didn’t have flat cabling, its always clean looking and you can fit the thin cables into tight spots. They are also very flexible so if you do have any extra cable length you can fold them up and hide them really well.
Overall
Like I mentioned in our disclaimer at the start of our coverage. In order to keep up the standards we use in other LanOC reviews I can’t in good conscience put the Toughpower SFX 450W through halfhearted testing and say it’s great. Testing power supplies to our standards requires equipment that we don’t have. So today we aren’t doing a full review, just a preview by taking a look at what the Toughpower SFX 450W is about. So beyond performance testing, what do we know about Thermaltake's new SFX power supply? Well like I said at the start, I’m really excited to see other manufacturers jumping into the SFX market.
The Toughpower SFX lineup has a 600W and 450W so Thermaltake has done a good job of covering the two power ranges that are most popular in that form factor currently. With a 450 watt, you should be able to power any of the ITX sized video cards as well as a higher end ITX motherboard and CPU. The 600-watt variation is really good for SFX cases that support full-length video cards. You can comfortably power a GTX 1080, GTX 1070, RX 480, etc with 600 watts and not have to worry about pushing the power supply to hard.
The design of the Toughpower SFX 450W is a lot like the comparable 450W and 600W models from Silverstone. I would have preferred they followed the direction corsair went with a slightly larger fan design and a little more styling, but overall the power supply doesn’t look too bad. While it does have the smaller fan they did still make sure that the fan isn’t on all of the time. In my testing, it only turned on when my video card started pulling power and that was only when I got into game. I’m less likely to be worried about noise when I have my headset on but I will say it was comparable to the Silverstone SFX models for noise.
I think Thermaltake really stands out with their inclusion of the painted ATX to SFX adapter plate. It might seem like a small thing, but I’ve been stuck with the unpainted Silverstone adapters a few times and I recently bought one of the painted adapters for $6 for a build. Corsair doesn’t even give you an adapter at all. Beyond that, the Toughpower SFX 450W does have the flat cables that I love. Corsair has them as well and from what I’ve seen Silverstone has moved to them as well so Thermaltake isn’t really standing out with them, but I’m really glad they have them.
As the end of the day, I’m told the MSRP of the Toughpower SFX 450W is going to be $90, so it should be right at the way price point that the Silverstone 450w and Corsair 450 are selling. So you really just have to pick what you prefer. Both the Corsair and the Thermaltake have impressive 7-year warranties and the Silverstone only has a 3 year. In my opinion, the Corsair looks better and it does have the larger fan, but Thermaltake included the nice painted adapter plate that would cost you about $6 plus shipping to pick up if you went with the other two.
Live Pricing: HERE
