Thermaltake SP-430PCWEU Review
Manufacturer: ThermaltakeUK price (as reviewed): £34.72 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): Unknown
At £35, the Thermaltake SP-430PCWEU is the equal-cheapest PSU on test. It’s rated as being able to supply a healthy 430W of power, so on paper it should be able to power a small but capable budget rig. Like Cougar and Rasurbo,Thermaltake has opted to use HEC as the manufacturer for both its PSUs in this group test.
Like the £35 Corsair Builder Series CX430 V2, the SP-430 is armed with just a single 6+2-pin PCI-E connection; as most modern graphics cards require two, this is a disadvantage for the PSU. You could use a Molex to PCI-E adaptor, but you’d have to give up two of the four Molex connections available to do this. However, at least the SP-430 offers five SATA connections, ensuring that you shouldn’t be short of connectors for hard disks and optical drives.
Thermaltake rates the SP-430 as being able to carry a maximum of 24A on its 3.3V rail, 15A on its 5V rail and a chunky 34A on its 12V rail. Unfortunately, apart from the 24-pin ATX cable, the wires that carry these currents are unbraided and captive, so building a good-looking PC around the SP-430 is likely to result in a crash course in cable routeing.
The SP-430 managed to stay within the ATX spec during our entire barrage of tests, which means that it receives full marks for stability. It was very close to the lower limit of the specification on both its 3.3V and its 5V rails, though, which could lead to problems in the long term if both these rails are heavily loaded throughout its life.
Meanwhile, the SP-430PCWEU hit a peak efficiency of only 84 per cent at half load and 81 per cent at full load. This meant that the PSU needed to draw 516W from the wall to supply its rated 430W.
Granted the SP-430 is a budget PSU, but the Corsair CX430 V2 and the Thermaltake SP-530PCWEU are also keenly priced, and both were noticeably more efficient.
The poor performance continued in the ripple test; at full load, we saw a peak ripple amplitude of 53.7mV. While still within the ATX spec, this compared badly to many of the other PSUs on test.
Interestingly, the PSU was very close to meeting the ATX recommendation of allowing 17ms of holdup time over its rails – only the 12V rail fell below this, and only by 0.55ms.
There’s little attraction to the SP-430 other than its bargain-basement price. Unfortunately, its bigger sibling, the Thermaltake SP-530, costs only £14 more, is more efficient and includes that all-important second 6+2-pin PCI-E connector.
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Posted by Zinfandel - Tue Sep 13 2011 13:30
FINALLY.
My faith is restored.
Although... Lack of conclusion confusion
And given the price range of £30ish to £110 ish I can't help feel there are a lot of PSUs missed out that I'd like to have seen included. But very nice to see a round up of any kind from BT
Posted by supermonkey - Tue Sep 13 2011 13:37
I'm pretty certain that my assumption is correct, and that the graph is read from top to bottom (i.e. 12V1 is at the top, then 12V1, 12V2, etc.). However, in the interest of clarity it would have been nice to see the rail designations along the Y-axis instead of the power supply model, which is already identified in the graph header.
Posted by lehtv - Tue Sep 13 2011 13:59
1) No fan noise level comparison charts. A really big part of a power supply's quality is how much noise it makes at different load levels (e.g. 50% and 100%).
2) No overload tests. The point of this is to see exactly how much can be pulled from the PSU over its rated wattage, and how the PSU reacts to being overloaded - i.e. are its protections fully functional. It's a pretty big no-no if a PSU sparks up when overloaded, as opposed to simply shutting down without endangering the components.
Posted by Zurechial - Tue Sep 13 2011 14:15
Introductory text to explain concepts and testing methodologies, summary on each product tested; graphs, performance results and individual product scores - That's what I expect from bit-tech and please let it continue.
Some of the scores are a bit odd (75% for a PSU that one should leave on the shelf because of only just meeting the ATX spec?!) and the lack of a conclusion is odd too; but then again the results are clear and speak for themselves so I don't really have a problem with that.
The results from the Seasonic go to show why we so often see Seasonic PSUs recommended by people in the know.
I've been using a Corsair CX430 in one of my builds here and I confirm that it's a nice, quiet PSU. It doesn't get any heavy loads in my usage, but it's nice to see the touted reliability & quality of Corsair's PSUs confirmed in testing.