Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 ARGB 750W Power Supply Review

Introduction

Thermaltake’s RGB-enabled power supplies have been a favorite with gamers for a couple of years now for their ‘bling factor’ and reliable power.

While nearly everything related to computers has gone RGB these days, the latest update to the aesthetics is complete control of every single LED, or ‘Addressable RGB’ of every device. What’s the fun of an RGB power supply if you have complete control of every other light in your system, but only get a handful of colors or effects on one device?

How annoying is it to have to adjust every device independently? Thermaltake solves this problem with the Toughpower GF1 ARGB family of power supplies. Featuring addressable RGB lighting that can connect to your favorite motherboard and perfectly sync up with the rest of your system, as well as an 80 plus gold rated efficiency and a 10-year warranty gives any gamer everything they need in a power supply.

ProClockers would like to thank Thermaltake for sending the Toughpower GF1 ARGB 750W power supply over to check out!

Thermaltake’s stance on the Toughpower GF1 ARGB power supply:

Toughpower GF1 ARGB Gold Series (650W/750W/850W) is crafted by using cutting-edge technology and materials to become the fusion of aesthetics and performance. The patented 16.8 million-color Riing Duo 14 RGB fan with 18 LEDs preinstalled helps deliver the brighter and stunning light effect. The meticulously designed ARGB side panels enable the light to glow through. The series supports synchronization with compatible RGB motherboards from ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, and ASRock for countless illumination possibilities. With the most stable but silent operation, the Toughpower GF1 ARGB Gold meets and even exceeds the demanding specification of the overclocker or enthusiastic PC user.

Features & Specifications

Illuminate with Twisting Blade

The built-in Riing Duo 14 RGB Fan features dual rings with 18 addressable LEDs, great light coverage, and uniform color and brightness to paint your build with 16.8 million colors.

Shining from Perfect Circles

Show off the fascinating illumination through the unique ARGB side cover design and add the amazing effect on your build.

Sync with Motherboard ARGB Software

To reach endless lighting customization, the Toughpower GF1 ARGB supports motherboards with a 5V addressable RGB header from ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, and ASRock. Users get to control the lights directly from the software released by those brands without enabling any additional lighting software or controllers. For more details, please visit ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI and ASRock official websites.

Zero Cable Platform

Farewell to messy cables! The daughterboards are directly soldered to the motherboard for better heat dissipation and impressive output power quality

Ultra Quiet Smart Zero Fan

With Smart Zero Fan starting to operate when the power supply working load goes over 40%, the undesired noise will be minimized. A user-friendly switch is set on the back panel for those who prefer the fan to spin constantly.

＜30 mV Low Ripple Noise

All ripples are lower than 30mV on +12V, +5V, or +3.3V from 0% to 100% load to ensure excellent performance and reliable operation.

Extremely Strict Voltage Regulation ＜±2%

The voltage regulation, stricter than Intel’s standard ±5% for major rails and ±10% for -12V, is set to no more than ±2% for major rails to meet the highest performance.

100% High-Quality Japanese 105°C/221°F Capacitors

It comes with high quality 105 °C (221 ° F) Japanese capacitors to help improve durability and offer impressive stability.

Fully Modular Low-profile Flat Black Cables

The series offers cable selection for users while powering the system at an advantageous voltage. The low-profile flat black cables make cable management easier, reduce clutter and increase airflow inside the chassis.

High Amperage Single +12V Rail Design

Powerful single +12V rail helps ensure a stable and reliable supply to other PC components.

80 PLUS Gold Certified and Intel C6/C7 States Ready

Saves energy through its high energy efficiency up to 90% and is certified to 80 PLUS® Gold. The series has been optimized to work with all generations of Intel’s processors to achieve maximum energy saving.

Packaging & Unboxing

Thermaltake’s packaging is almost as colorful as the Toughpower GF1 ARGB power supply inside. There is a picture of the unit inside, as well as several features available.

The rear of the box shows a few features but mostly covers specifications.

The sides of the box show all the fun stuff about ARGB and what it’s compatible with.

The bottom covers a few features in a multitude of languages.

Inside, we find a block of foam, a ziplock full of documentation and a black bag full of cables.

Inside the foam block, the power supply is wrapped in a Thermaltake cloth.

Inside the black bag, you get a plastic bag full of output cables, and another with the AC power cord and some zip ties.

A Closer Look

Thermaltake uses the same oval pattern grill on most of the power supplies. The internal fan has milky white translucent blades to show off the RGB effect.

The backside has the main label with all of the electrical characteristics.

The sides have the series label in a subtle grey… except for the RGB part.

On the business end, every connector is fully modular. Off to the side is the 3-pin ARGB connector.

The backside is covered in switches and buttons. Beyond the normal main power switch, you get one to switch the Smart Zero Fan on and off, as well as two buttons to control the RGB system when it’s not connected to your motherboard.

Cables included are the main 24-pin motherboard, an 8-pin (4+4 pin) CPU cable, two VGA cables that each has twin 6+2 connectors, three SATA cables, and a molex type cable. You also get a Molex to berg style adapter if needed, the ARGB cable, some cable ties, and some mounting screws.

The motherboard cables are decently long, but we wish the PCIe cables were just a bit larger. Large cases may not be able to route them cleanly.

Peripheral cables are plenty long enough for most uses.

Once you get it plugged in and lit up, it’s worth it though. The picture just doesn’t do the lighting justice on how rich and smooth the lighting effect is in person.

Inside

Thermaltake uses a large 140mm ARGB fan for cooling. It has no less than 4 cables going to it.

The power supply mainboard is very densely packed.

Incoming AC power is heavily filtered as it comes into the unit.

Main filter caps are Japanese Nichicon 105C rated caps that should provide a long and stable life.

The entire DC output side runs with heavy bus bars rather than wires like lesser units. A couple of 8-pin locations are not populated on the 750W model.

Even the casing has the same missing plug spots but is covered with a sticker from the outside.

The solder job looks great on the bottom of the PCB and, rather amusingly, uses a green solder mask since it can’t be seen while the top side and all daughter boards are black.

Testing

• CPU: Intel Core i9-9900k
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix Z390-E
• RAM: 16GB G.Skill TridentZ Neo 3200 MHz.
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080 Founders Edition
• SSD: Samsung 960 PRO 2TB
• OS: Windows 10 Professional X64

We’ll start out saying we aren’t equipped to do extremely detailed electrical analysis required to pick apart a modern power supply. It takes laboratory-grade dedicated equipment so we’ll have to make do with some less precise testing.

While we normally use a good Fluke Digital Multi-meter, we’ve found the onboard monitoring solutions in modern motherboards to be quite accurate and able to be easily logged with utilities like HWiNFO.

Thermaltake’s Toughpower provides very good regulation on all three main rails with each staying well within the 2% they promise and in fact, is able to stay under 1% regulation.

Next, we’ll look at ripple on the rails with our Owon VDS-1022/I Digital USB Oscilloscope.

 The +12V rail under a stress test load registers a peak of 80mV peak to peak ripple. This is really pushing the limits of our O-scope and it seems as if the rail generally does as Thermaltake promises.

 The 5-volt rail comes in around 40mV of ripple.

The 3.3V rail does a great job with 20mV of ripple.
 

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Thermaltake logs another outstanding entry into its power supply lineup with the Toughpower GF1 ARGB. A very well engineered power supply hides under the colorful fan that YOU control. If you want a light-up power supply, but want it to match that special look the rest of your system shares, Thermaltake makes it easy to sync up with the rest of your rig. If you don’t quite have that capability yet before the next big upgrade, the Toughpower GF1 can stand on its own with plenty of effects and even more colors to choose from. If you like pushing your system, or just having peace of mind that comes from a reliable power supply, the 10-year warranty should add peace of mind to the class-leading voltage regulation and ripple suppression. It really doesn’t get any better than this does it?

Great job Thermaltake!