The Grand is the latest member of the Toughpower series and features extravagant looks with a classy black finish. Designed for power users that enjoy showing their hardware off, the Grand power supplies will look right at home in virtually any setup. The proprietary 14cm dual-ball-bearing flower-shaped fan is designed to provide optimal ventilation for the internal components.

While the Grand power supplies are designed to be the most prestigious members of the Toughpower family and as such boast some very impressive specifications, they are surprisingly affordable. The 650 watt version retails for roughly $160 US, while the 750 watt unit costs $180 US. Although they are more expensive than many other Thermaltake units, the Grand series does proudly wear the 80 PLUS Gold certificate.

In fact, the Toughpower Grand is the first Thermaltake power supply series to be awarded the 80 PLUS Gold certification, so that in itself is quite a big deal. Furthermore, there are few 80 PLUS Gold certified power supplies available, so this helps to make this new series even more unique. There are cheaper 80 PLUS Gold certified products however, such as those from SeaSonic, for example their X750 Gold 750w costs just $150 US, and the Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800w is priced at $170 US.

However the Toughpower Grand looks far more impressive than either of these products. Still, the Toughpower Grand is far from the most expensive 80 PLUS Gold certified power supply series, as Enermax charge $190 US for the EMG700AWT 700w and Corsair are asking $195 US for their Z Series Gold OCZZ850M 850w unit.

The last Thermaltake range that we looked at was the EVO_Blue series, which was only “80 PLUS Certified”. This efficiency level certification means that under certain loads the EVO_Blue will meet specified efficiency ratings. For example the 80 PLUS certification means that the power supply will offer an efficiency level of at least 80% when under 100% load.

The 80 PLUS ratings also include Bronze (81% max load), Silver (85% max load), Gold (88% max load) and Platinum (91% max load) when using a 230v connection. This rating is important as it dictates the units operating efficiency. To measure the efficiency the output power is divided by the input power and the remaining power is converted into heat, we will speak more about this shortly.

Thermaltake says that the Japanese made and solid state capacitors are tested vigorously to ensure that they can withstand up to at least 105°C, allowing them to provide a robust foundation for the Toughpower Grand series. They also say that additional DC-to-DC converter modules for +3.3v and +5v rails ensure low A/C ripple and great system stability.

Another claim made by Thermaltake is that the Toughpower Grand series features an exclusive 12Vin1 feature, which delivers a powerful single 12v rail. Having said that, this feature is certainly not an industry exclusive and it’s not even exclusive to Thermaltake’s own power supplies. For example, the Toughpower XT series has a single 12v rail while the affordable TR2 and EVO_Blue series also feature a single 12v rail.

In fact only the original Toughpower and Purepower power supplies from Thermaltake feature a quad 12v rail configuration. These power supplies feature virtual quad +12v outputs (+12v1, +12v2, +12v3, and +12v4). The Toughpower Grand series on the other hand features just one 12v rail and does not split the load amongst four virtual rails. This is a better arrangement when compared to many of the older 700-800 watt power supplies which feature the four virtual rail design.

What this means is if you have a graphics card capable of sucking down more than 18A for example on a single rail, then the system will crash (BSOD) or something to that effect. The 52A (650w) and 60A (750w) single rail designs of the Toughpower Grand series makes them much harder for SLI/Crossfire graphics cards to max out, and with this arrangement it cannot be done without significantly more hardware added to the system. This kind of arrangement could also produce more stable and better overclocking results.

Another interesting feature is the FanDelayCool, which enables the user to manually set a time delay, ranging from 0 to 35 seconds, that the 140mm fan will stay running after the computer has been shutdown. The implementation of this feature is to allow components inside the power supply to gradually cool off, rather than relying on natural convection, which takes much longer and is less effective.

The Toughpower Grand power supplies all utilize a 14cm dual-ball bearing fan which features a new flower-shape design which Thermaltake claims allows for longer lifespan and lowers overall noise output by dramatically reducing bearing frictions. The fan is designed to operate at 1900 RPM with a ± 10% variation.

Finally, the last key feature is the 80 PLUS Gold certification, which means under 20% load the power supply will have an efficiency level of 88%, while this will increase to 92% under 50% load, and finally 88% at 100% load. This means that the Toughpower Grand power supplies waste 12% or less electricity due to heat when operating at room temperature.

However Thermaltake also claims that the Toughpower Grand series will deliver full power continuously 24 hours a day, 7 days a week when operating at temperatures as high as 50 degrees Celsius. Of course we are not sure what this temperature, which is just over two times greater than room temperature, does to the units operating efficiency.

The efficiency of a computer power supply is the amount of energy it supplies, divided by how much energy is input. The remaining energy is converted into heat. For example if a 750w power supply only had an efficiency rating of 60% under full load, it would draw 1250w from the wall, 500w of which would be lost as heat.

However if we had a 750w unit with an 80% rating, 930w would be drawn from the wall and just 180w would be lost as heat. Finally, the 80 PLUS Gold certification, which calls for a maximum load efficiency of 91%, means that the Toughpower Grand 750w will draw 820w from the wall which means it will lose just 70w as heat. So the greater the efficiency the more you save on your power bill and the “greener” you will become.

At the business end of the Toughpower Grand power supplies there are just eight connectors in total, though they do support a huge range of devices. In the image below you can see four peripheral/SATA ports and four 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The ports are color coded to avoid confusion here, though that said, it is not possible to plug a cable in the wrong port anyway.

Interestingly, both the 650w and 750w power supplies feature the same modular connectors, the 650w version just delivers less power on its 12v rail. Furthermore, they both feature the same amount of output connectors. Each unit features a 24-pin ATX power connector, an EPS/ATX 12V 4+4-pin connector, an EPS 12V Connector 8-pin connector, two PCIe 8-pin connectors, eight SATA 5-pin connectors, eight 4-pin peripheral connectors, one FDD 4-pin connector and two PCIe 6-pin connectors.

The Toughpower Grand power supplies also come with a pair of PCIe 8-pin to 6-pin adapters, along with a 4-pin 12v extension cable for those using abnormally large computer cases. Thermaltake has also thrown in a few other useful things such as the vibration-absorbent mounting pads, cable straps and the very cool cable clams which case modders will enjoy.

At the rear of the Toughpower Grand power supplies we have the power input connector along with the illuminated power on/off button, which looks much cooler than the typical power button, and a small screen that lights up the Thermaltake brand name.

Because these are switch power supplies, there is no need to include the option to switch between 110v/230v, which can destroy the power supply if set to the wrong setting. The rear of the power supply is covered in honeycomb holes which are designed to act as exhaust ventilation. The cool air forced in by the 140mm fan exits through the rear of the power supply and out of the case.

These power supplies met the standard ATX specification, measuring just 15cm wide, 16cm long, and 8.6cm tall. Furthermore, they are backed by all the standard safety features including Over Power, Over Voltage, and Short-Circuit protection.

Having removed the lid from both Toughpower Grand power supplies, we were not all that shocked to find that the design of each unit is much the same. That said, we were surprised at how little difference there was between them. When placing the 650w version right next to the 750w version we struggled to differentiate between the two.

The internal designs of these power supplies are quite busy, featuring three large black aluminum heatsinks. These three heatsinks are positioned directly below the 140mm intake fan. There is just one large Japanese made capacitor featured in each power supply, which was a little surprising.

This next image shows the single 140mm fan that is located in the bottom of the power supply. The fan was produced by YATE LOON and is designed to operate at up to 1900-RPM, at which speed it creates very little noise, just 16dBA.

Above we have an image of the DC - DC converter module for the 3.3v and 5v outputs, which Thermaltake claims will provide a higher level of efficiency. These modules also use Solid State capacitors, though they are not featured exclusively throughout the Toughpower Grand power supplies.

Finally some technical specifications that are found on the label included on the Toughpower Grand power supplies. For all three units Thermaltake has gone with a single +12v rail which provides better compatibility for the latest components when compared to a quad rail setup. However, the ratings of these rails obviously vary from unit to unit.

The single +12v rail of the 650w unit is rated at 52A, and the 750w version is rated at 60A. The rest of the specifications are the same as both units have a maximum output of 25A for the +3.3v rail, 25A for the +5v rail, 0.8A for the -12v rail and 3A for the +5VSB rail.

Hardware - Intel Core i7 980X @ 4.0GHz - x3 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 9-9-9-24) Module(s) - x2 Samsung 1TB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300) - Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 (1GB) - Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 (1GB) - ASUS P6T Deluxe (Intel X58) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - Nvidia Forceware 258.96 WHQL

Furthermore, we have overclocked this processor, causing it to not only run faster, but also consume considerably more power. The overclock saw the 3.33GHz Core i7 processor reach a lightning fast 4.0GHz! In addition, a few other devices were plugged in for the ride. These included a total of two 1TB hard drives, four large case fans, a water-cooling system, 6GBs of memory, and a single DVD-RW.

As you will see in our test measuring the amount of power being drawn from the wall, almost all reached 800 watts when under full load, while the EVO_Blue 750w unit exceeded this hitting 802watts. At idle the system still sucked down an impressive 403 watts when using the EVO_Blue 750w, while the Thoughpower Grand units were more conservative using around 390watts. Imagine what this system could do to your power bill if run 24/7. Despite using the world’s most powerful desktop processor in conjunction with two extreme graphics cards, the Toughpower Grand 650w was still able to complete all of our stress tests.

The performance of the Thermaltake Toughpower Grand series was excellent, as the voltages did not vary greatly when under load. The stress test results were recorded running Prime95 along with Furmark running. Both programs were able to maintain a constant CPU and GPU utilization level of 100% while using various other system devices. Furthermore, a number of the hard drives were being accessed at the same time via other networked computers. This had virtually no impact on the power supply's performance over several hours of hard usage.

Given that we took the world’s most powerful desktop processor, being the Core i7 980X, and overclocked it to 4GHz and threw in a pair of GeForce GTX 480 SLI graphics cards, we were impressed that the Toughpower Grand 650w was able to tackle this configuration. Keeping in mind we also threw in considerably more hardware as well.

This configuration was pushing the 650w unit past its recommended peak rating, and while it did pass our tests with flying colors, stressing a power supply like this over a much longer period, such as a year, could be fatal. Electrolytic capacitor aging for example, is a problem that concerns all power supplies. When used heavily or over an extended period of time, being 12 months or more, a power supply will slowly lose some of its initial wattage capacity.

Therefore it is recommend you allow for at least 20% wattage that is required if the power supply is intended to be used for more than 1 year, and even more if you run the system 24/7. For almost all high-end gaming systems, this makes the 750 watt version a smarter choice.

That said, this kind of power is really only required by those looking at installing two high-end graphics cards, such as a pair of Radeon HD 5870 or GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards. Given that these configurations cost between $800 and $1000 US, we feel the extra $20 US for the 750watt version will be easily justified.

The four PCI Express power connectors mean that the Toughpower Grand series is both CrossfireX and SLI certified, as we had no problem running a pair of GeForce GTX 480 SLI or Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire graphics cards off either the 650w or 750w version. The single +12v rail certainly helps to improve compatibility when using such extreme graphics card configurations.

It was also pleasing to learn that these new power supplies were 80 PLUS Gold certified, and will provide this level of efficiency at up to 50 degrees Celsius. Clearly this level of efficiency does come at a price premium, and this is why consumers can expect to pay a little more for a Toughpower Grand power supply when compared to non-certified units featuring similar output ratings.

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Another great feature of the Thermaltake Toughpower Grand series that we are yet to mention is the fact that it is backed by a 7 year warranty. This is an important factor worth considering, and you will not find such an extended warranty period on the cheaper 80 PLUS Gold certified power supplies. For example the KingWin units are backed for just 3 years, while SeaSonic offers a 5 year limited warranty.

The cable management system, or modular design as it is commonly referred to, helps to not only simplify the installation process, but it also makes for a very tidy install, and this is always something that we like to see. Finally, we have been very pleased with the Thermaltake Toughpower Grand series, and believe that they would make a fine addition to any high-end gaming system.