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PurePower PST520W ATX Power Supply

Over the past few years power supply units have gone from being a rather low-level device to something rather out of the ordinary; they have become a very important and essential piece of gear in today's PCs. See, a good PSU is a very important component yet is still underestimated by many. It must meet the requirements of today's gaming rigs, and with the better, faster and more power hungry graphics cards and processors sucking up over 75-110 Watt each the importance factor of the PSU has risen greatly. Next to that something else has happened, call it a new trend that has appeared over the past few years: case aesthetics. People want beautiful looking PC cases, they modify them in the most wicked ways and just as people like to pimp their rides, they also like to pimp their rigs.

The ongoing trend of modability (changing certain parts of your PC) certainly has become a development over the past few years. We started modding videocards with little heatsinks and special cooling, cases got windows and the most wicked designs, and last year we noticed a new trend .. modular power supply units. Usually this means special removable cables (think UV reactive and such) that you can attach/detach to your PSU to prevent all that crowded wiring in your PC.

Guess what ? Thermaltake has taken moddable PSU's to the next level ... and in a very clever way I must add. So, this is our second Thermaltake review in a couple of weeks time as Thermaltake were kind enough to ship out their latest newborn power supply unit. I wanted to get this review out before Christmas as I know for sure one or two (x20k) of you will be intrigued by this new concept.
The PSU we will be testing today is a truly hefty SLI/Crossfire ready piece of gear. It carries the label "Pure Power P.S.T. Series" and this model comes with a 520 Watts rating. Now I stated that this product is going to the next level of modability for a very specific reason. See, usually you have cables running through your entire system and they all originate from one very crowded source .. the PSU. The Pure Power P.S.T allows bridging your power cables through your PC. So literally you are taking the power from point A towards B, towards C. Does that sound confusing ? Basically you can redistribute power with the help of two distribution boxes. Don't worry as we'll show it all to you, but not before we have a closer look at the features of this unit.

Features

• The ingenious Modularized Cable Management and Power Station that allows you to arrange cables easier and smarter.
• 5.25 P.S.T fits any 5.25 driver bay and offer various connectors for all peripheral devices.
• Mini P.S.T offers convenient output for devices and accessories at various location.
• Blue LED around 5.25 P.S.T socket to illuminate your system.
• Rubber Sleeved Cable increase air flow and decrease clutter inside the chassis.
• Active PFC, improve energy efficiency and reduce current load on AC delivery systems.
• Protections against Over Power, Short-Circuit, Over-current, Overload, and Over-temperature.
• Safety / EMI Approvals: CE, CB, TUV, FCC, UL, CSA, and CUL certification (For Active PFC). FCC, UL, CUL, CSA certification (For Non PFC)
• Dual 6-pin PCI-Express connectors for High-end VGA card.

Oh hey I'll immediately squeeze in why I mention & SLI/Crossfire so often on this introduction page, this PSU offers not one, but two dedicated 12 volts rails (and connectors). Now while writing all this something just hit me, how on earth will we be able to actually stress this beast?! Well yeah .. SLI of course .. let's push power consumption towards 500 Watts and see how it behaves. In the upcoming photo shoot you'll be able to see the two important functions that this PSU entails, those being stable power management and nice aesthetics.

You will notice that all supplied connectors are nicely wrapped in a black colored foil/plastic and are detachable. That is looking good for sure. It's advanced cable management that facilitates the installation and gives you the option to only use the required cables. So... detachable and bridged cables. :)

Let's startup the review and have a look at the specifications shall we?