It was not until we tried to open up the power supply that the true purpose of this metal sticker thing was revealed. The Toughpower series of power supplies is, by far, the toughest to open up. Whereas on most power supplies, all that is required is to remove 4 screws that secure the two sides of the power supply casing together, the Toughpower requires the removal of 9 screws. That would not be too problematic, however, if two of the screws were not cleverly hidden behind this metal sticker thing. It was not until after we realized that these screws were present that we had to bend back this sticker, which caused it to become permanently deformed. This was by far the most exhaustive experience we have ever had trying to open a power supply.


Before we delve into the internal features of the Toughpower 1200W, let’s take a look at what is one of the cooler and more useful features. The TP1200 is a modular power supply, but unlike others, the ports on the back are labeled to aid in cable configuration. If you are running an ultra high-end system, you want to be able to distribute the load across the +12V rails (of which the TP1200 has 4) evenly so as not to overload any one specific rail. Thermaltake has a color-coded key for each modular port on the back of the power supply that allows the user to do just this. We found this tremendously useful not just for installation, but testing each rail individually as well.


Inside the TP1200 is a pretty cool looking layout that is highlighted by the modular riser and the interestingly configured heatsink layout. Whereas most power supplies tend to employ the use of cookie-cutter-esque parallel heatsink designs, the TP1200 uses a more spread out design that utilizes most of the space available within the unit. In fact, if you picture the unit with the fan side connected to it, you can see there is very little empty space. You will also notice that the characteristic bright red shrink-wrapped chokes (inductors) that add a certain amount of flair to the external appearance of the powersupply (when looking through the rear grill). As with most of the other power supplies we have reviewed, there are two large transformers used in the TP1200. These are very high quality transformers (this is based solely on the reputation of the supplier of these transformers) but unfortunately we were not provided with details as to how each one is tapped to supply the rails. The coolest feature on the inside of the TP1200 is the active PFC correction. Very few power supplies have this feature anymore, and fewer still high-end power supplies do. Inside the TP1200 however, you can clearly see the secondary switching circuit that conditions the input power to the device. This means that the power supply will be using almost all of the power it is supposed to be using or that it draws from the wall. Bear in mind this has a small effect on efficiency, though the two terms are not one in the same. We will discuss efficiency in slightly greater detail shortly.