Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 ARGB 1200W Power Supply Review: RGB Power

Specifications and Part Analysis

The Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 ARGB with 1200W max power is a high-end and super expensive power supply, offering good performance along with RGB lighting features. Its major downside is the noisy operation. The Corsair HX1200 and the similar-capacity Asus Rog Thor power supplies offer equally high performance along with much lower noise output. 

Thermaltake's Toughpower PF1 ARGB line consists of three models, with 850W, 1050W, and 1200W capacities. As the naming scheme implies, those units feature RGB lighting, so they are ideal for users with windowed chassis. All three are based on a Channel Well Technology (CWT) platform, and the build quality is high. Unfortunately, the price tags are also high, while the availability is restricted since Thermaltake had to pull from all major US stores those products, because of the recent tariffs in PC parts that are made in China. Currently, the US users can only buy a Toughpower PF1 unit through Thermaltake's ttpremium store. 

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Product Photos

The PF1 1200W utilizes a fully modular cable design, and at its front, we find two buttons for the manual control of its RGB lighting. Besides the power switch, there is an additional one for toggling on/off the semi-passive operation.

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Product Photos

Specifications

Besides an 80 PLUS Platinum certification, the PF1 1200W is also certified by Cybenetics, achieving ETA-A and LAMBDA-S+ efficiency and noise ratings. 

Power Specifications

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PSU Photos

Cables and Connectors

The amount of provided cables and connectors is vast since this is a 1200W power supply. Moreover, all cables have sufficient length, and the distance between the peripheral connectors is adequate, at 150mm. Finally, as expected, the ATX, EPS and PCIe connectors use thicker, 16AWG gauges, and there are no in-line caps. 

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Cable Photos

Component Analysis

We strongly encourage you to have a look at our PSUs 101 article, which provides valuable information about PSUs and their operation, allowing you to better understand the components we're about to discuss.

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Parts Photos

This platform has the code name CST. CWT, the OEM of this power supply, is fond of naming its designs, and we like it as well since it helps us distinguish them. This is a semi-digital design because it uses MCUs for the APFC converter, the primary and the +12V FETs, while analog ICs control the minor rails. There isn't also a USB interface for monitoring and controlling the PSU's circuits. 

The build quality is high, since CWT used good parts, including Japanese electrolytic caps with the majority of them belonging to Chemi-Con's KY line. Some of the polymer caps are not from prestigious brands, but those caps don't have a problem operating at high operating temperatures. 

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Soldering Quality

As usual, for a CWT implementation, the soldering quality is good.

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The cooling fan uses a hydraulic bearing, which is identical to a fluid dynamic one offering the same high lifetime and low noise output. The major downside of those bearings is the intolerance to high operating temperatures, which are not a problem for double-ball bearings. The latter have increased noise output, though. 

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