Pros, Cons, And Final Verdict
Rosewill's super high-end Tokamak 1500 leaves us with mixed feelings. On one hand, it demonstrates very high efficiency, has tight load regulation, its 5VSB rail is one of the most efficient we've seen in this category, and the +12V rail's transient response is amazing. On the other hand, its ripple suppression at +12V is terrible and the fan is ridiculously noisy. We can understand the excess ripple a little bit since Enhance clearly prioritized top-shelf efficiency and tight load regulation. However, we cannot fathom why the company didn't use a more relaxed fan profile and/or a semi-passive mode. 80 PLUS Titanium PSUs don't put out a ton of heat, and we saw this first-hand when we had to constantly use the heating elements in our hot box to keep the temperature up, even with the Tokamak under full load. Normally those elements aren't needed at all during high-load tests since the PSU itself affects ambient temperature. The large heat sinks that Enhance uses inside would easily facilitate semi-passive operation. What we get instead is acoustic readings that start above 30 dB(A).
Fortunately for Rosewill, this is a high-capacity power supply aimed at enthusiasts and overclockers who aren't always picky about noise, so long as performance is solid. Should you find yourself looking for high capacity and quiet operation, though, alternatives like Corsair's AX1500i and EVGA's SuperNova 1600 P2 come recommended.
The Tokamak 1500 has enough good aspects to make it an appealing PSU, including 80 PLUS Titanium efficiency, good build quality, a nice finish, and the cool external design. If ripple suppression was better, we might have considered an award. As far as noise is concerned, we think that's an easy fix since Enhance only needs to modify the aggressive fan profile. Since the thermal loads we see aren't that high, lower fan speeds wouldn't compromise reliability over time.
We'd also like to see Enhance stop putting out platforms without power switches. This is a major omission from any PSU. The fact that the Tokamak 1500 is top-end only adds insult to injury.
Finally, some of you might frown on the idea of non Japan-made capacitors inside of a flagship PSU, even though Unicon caps are considered to be of good quality in general. We must note here that Unicon's HQs might be in Japan, however two of its factories are located in Taiwan with the third located in China. We admit that in such a high-end PSU we would like to see only quality Japan-made caps being used, however the five year warranty that Rosewill provides shows that this unit's caps won't be a problem even on the long run.
MORE: Best Power Supplies
MORE: Power Supplies 101
MORE: How We Test Power Supplies
MORE: Picking The Right Power Supply: What You Should Know
MORE: Computer History: From The Antikythera Mechanism To The Modern Era
MORE: All Power Supply Content
