Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 650W Power Supply Review

Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 650W
(Image: © Tom's Hardware)

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The Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 model with 650W max power looks to be the best of the line, achieving very high performance in almost all sections. If the transient response at 12V was better, this unit would easily take the lead from the Seasonic Focus Plus Platini, with similar capacity. It is great to see a not-so-well-known manufacturer like HKC delivering such a capable platform. Moreover, this PSU comes with many modular cables and the corresponding connectors to support a strong gaming system. 

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

While Nvidia recommends at least a 750W power supply for its RTX 3080 graphics card, I was able to power a high-end system equipped with an Intel 10700K processor running at the same speeds as a 10900K CPU and an MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X 10G OC without any problems. Actually, I tried several popular high-end 650W PSUs: Corsair RM650x, Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 650, XPG Core Reactor 650, and none of them had any problem with this specific MSI card, which has a pretty low power limit, though, at 320W. There are some RTX 3080 implementations, e.g., the Asus GeForce RTX 3080 10GB ROG Strix, with much higher power limits where even 750W PSUs might have issues. 

All in all, the Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 650W is a very good power supply which could easily be the king of its category with a little better transient response at 12V. 

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Disclaimer: Aris Mpitziopoulos is Tom's Hardware's PSU reviewer. He is also the Chief Testing Engineer of Cybenetics and developed the Cybenetics certification methodologies apart from his role on Tom's Hardware. Neither Tom's Hardware nor its parent company, Future PLC, are financially involved with Cybenetics. Aris does not perform the actual certifications for Cybenetics.

Contributing Editor

Aris Mpitziopoulos is a Contributing Editor at Tom's Hardware US, covering PSUs.