Page 2 - Physical Look - Outside
As expected, the Thermaltake Litepower 450W is fairly simple in terms of design. In fact, one could actually say that it looks fairly 'generic'. The metal gray/silver color (or more so, lack of color) dominates the entire PSU. There are also no fancy LEDs at all that keep you up all night and, personally, I believe all of this is just fine. Since the power supply is budget friendly, this should be expected. Unless you have a windowed case (Read: Costs more), how often will you be looking at your power supply anyways? Unlike the "value oriented" power supplies in the olden days, the Litepower inherited many features from previously high end power supplies such as a bottom-mounted 120mm fan that has more or less become today's standard. The fan draws air from inside your case, and pushes the air through the back of the power supply.
A honeycomb mesh is used all over the rear of the Thermaltake Litepower 450W power supply; except for the power switch and power input adapter -- which is located near the left side of the back. Similar to all newer power supplies, this features an automatic full range (100V-240V) AC line voltage selection, which automatically detects the voltage from your AC outlet for use in differing countries that incorporates different outlet voltages.
The Thermaltake Litepower measures in at 150mm x 140mm x 86mm; making it one of the smaller PSUs that we have examined. This is due to the budget oriented design that uses relatively less internal components. It is quite close to the 14cm lenth standard, therefore its compactness makes it very easy to install.
When the Thermaltake Litepower 450W is rotated and flipped over, the bottom mounted 120mm fan is revealed. The fan is behind a standard 8-ring fan grille to protect those curious fingers from getting into the fan. The fan itself is located more to the right side of the power supply (From the bottom; which is usually directly above all the internal components for standard ATX cases). There are four screws for the fan grille, and an additional four screws that holds the power supply casing. A small sticker covers one of the casing screws warns the user about voiding the warranty if the seal is destroyed.
The cables are all tied together neatly with a Velcro strip right out of the box to make packaging much easier. There is no additional tying at the cable lead-out of the PSU, so the overall cabling will look a bit less aesthetically please than normal -- but it should be acceptable if done properly.
The rail information label is located to the right side of the power supply; which convenient also displays various certifications that the Thermaltake Litepower has obtained -- most notably, the 80 Plus Bronze certification. This means that the power supply is certified to be at least 85% efficient at 50% load, and 82% efficient at 20% and 100% load. Combined DC output is rated at a maximum of 450W for continuous use as denoted by its Litepower '450W' name. The +3.3V and +5V rail's output comes to a 123W combined maximum. Independently, the +3.3V rail's theoretical maximum output is 79.2W and the +5V rail's theoretical maximum output is 120W. For the +12V rail, it is split into two virtual rails with both rated at 17A maximum each (Not combined). Using this to calculate the wattage, the +12V rail's independent theoretical maximum is 408W. Using any combination/restrictions listed above, the total capable power output is 450W as aforementioned. All of the calculations were done with the following standard P=IV formula.
In terms of cable length, everything seems to be of adequate length -- although a longer 20+4 pin motherboard connector would not hurt (It's 40cm according to my measurements). The rest of the cables are measured as follows: 6-pin PCIe 40cm, Molex 60cm, and SATA 80cm. These cables seems to be of good quality; although the only one that is fully sleeved is the motherboard connector. The rest are tied together by a white zip tie. To be honest, these little things aren't a big issue since steps has to be made to reduce the cost of this power supply. Each component connector features squeeze-release locks to disconnect the cables. The only annoying thing I found is that the Litepower 450W only has a single SATA power cable. It just makes installation a bit tedious if you have a lot of SATA devices.
These are the cables that are permanently affxied to the Thermaltake Litepower 450W:
-1x 20+4 pin Main Connector
-1x 4+12V CPU Connector
-1x 6 pin PCI-E Connector
-4x SATA Connector
-5x 4 pin Molex Connector
-1x Floppy Connector
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
