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CWT's semi-digital CST platform looks to be popular among large brands, which need powerful and high-performance PSUs in their portfolios. First, be quiet! utilized this platform and managed to notably lower its noise output, thanks to the innovative frameless fan design that allows for increased airflow. And now, Thermaltake has used it for its flagship product, the ToughPower TF1 1,550. The latter achieves slightly higher overall performance than the be quiet! unit, but it gets noisy under tough operating conditions.
Not many systems require this much power, but if you want to use multiple high-end graphics cards or highly-overclock your system, then a powerful PSU with over 1,200W max power is a great consideration. Thanks to their modern designs, these platforms also have high efficiency under light and super-light loads, so there is no compromise there, and the same goes for noise output at light and moderate loads. Currently, the Corsair AX1600i is the performance king. At the same time, the Wentai Aidan T-1616 is not available anywhere, and the excellent EVGA 1600 T2 is not manufactured anymore since EVGA broke its cooperation with Super Flower. This means that available choices in the high-wattage category are limited. The main competitor for the Toughpower T1 1550 is the Dark Power Pro 12 1500, although another notable unit is the SilverStone Decathlon DA1650.
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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.
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