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By Oneslowz28 at 2009-12-21 10:50
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Thermaltake has always hit home runs with their power supplies. Highly regarded for their quietness, longevity and strength, they have been a staple in the computer enthusiast community for years now. When Thermaltake debuted its first modular unit I was one of the first in line for it. Today I am reviewing one of their latest modular offerings, the EVO_Blue 750w. Read the full review here….
Thermaltake EVO_Blue 750 watt PSU
I have been wanting to review more power supplies so I asked Thermaltake to send me the EVO_Blue 750 Watt model. I chose this PSU for four reasons: - The EVO_Blue series is the only PSU series from Thermaltake with some bling.
- Its Modular
- It’s 75% efficiency rating.
- It is more of a general enthusiast level PSU compared to some of the 1000+ watt models that seem to be growing in popularity.
I have had the PSU for about 2 months now and wanted to take the time for it to “Burn in” before putting it through the paces, but before we get into that lets take a look at the specs.
Features
- Oversized 14cm whisper-quiet ball bearing fan dramatically reduces overall PC noise, increase system thermal efficiency.
- Intelligent variable speed controlled fan automatically increases or decreases fan speed to adjust to different system loading.
- Modular cable sockets with backlighting provided by blue LEDs & five user-adjustable LED environmental lighting effects.
- Active PFC (PF>0.9) reduces heat build-up and energy loss to promote a more stable and efficient power conversion.
- Robust and dedicated single +12V output provides superior performance under all types of system loading.
- Cable Management improves internal airflow by reducing cable clutter within PC to promote accelerated heat removal
- Features dual 8-pin PCI-E & dual 6-pin PCI-E connectors to support latest Nvidia 2-way / 3-way SLI & AMD 2-way / 3-way CrossFire X technologies.
- Uncompromised compatibility with all current and future system setup with Intel ATX 12V 2.3 & SSI EPS 12V 2.91 standards compliance.
- Individually tested to guarantee rock-solid continuous operation at 50℃ environment.
- Industrial-grade safety protections: Over Power, Over Voltage, and Short-Circuit protections.
- TT5Years Warranty:Thermaltake quality 5-years parts and labor warranty.
- Safety / EMI Approvals: UL,TUV, CE, FCC,BSMI and GOST certified.
Specifications
Packaging
The EVO_Blue came packaged quite nicely with everything thoroughly protected from any harm that might result in shipping from the factory to the retail outlet to your home.
Thermaltake packaged the EVO_Bue in a very attractive black box with vibrant graphics.
Opening the box we see the accessory bag containing the Velcro cable wraps, mounting screws, vibration dampener, and two 8-pin to 6-pin PCI adapter cables. To the left of the bag is the user manual.
Removing the accessory bag, protective foam that surrounds the PSU and user manual we find the PSU wrapped in yet another protective layer. This time its bubble wrap. The bag to the right contains all of the cables.
The contents of the accessory bag.
Overview
The EVO_Blue 750w differs from the other power supplies in Thermaltake’s arsenal by adding a little bling via an 140mm fan with an RGB LED located in each of the fans corners and an aggressive themed enclosure. There are 5 Preset color displays for the user to chose from. Thermaltake has a wonderful flash based display of the color options on this page, so I will not try to recreate it with photos. Changing the color show is as simple as pressing a button on the back of the PSU. The control circuit for the LED lighting does not have any memory however so with each power on of your case you have to set the color display again. One option I would recommend to Thermatake would be to include a modular cable with this button on the end so we modders can locate the button in a more accessible place and to add a small memory chip to the LED control circuit so it stores the last used lighting option. Lastly each of the modular cable ports are back-lit by a blue LED. This might come in handy if you’re trying to plug in an new cable in the dark. I do wish Thermaltake would have made these RGB LEDs also but we can’t have everything now can we?
Moving on to the cables, Thermaltake provided every cable one could possibly ever need. There are a total of 13 cables all with enough length to reach anywhere even in the most spacious cases. The 24 PIN power cable is extra long for those of us with full tower cases that have bottom mount PSU locations and motherboards with the 24Pin connector all the way at the top. I had enough room to rout my 24pin cable from the bottom under the motherboard tray and out the top to loop over and plug into the connector. In fact every cable was long enough to rout behind the motherboard tray in my case and still have ample length to reach its destination. The Thermaltake EVO_Blue 750W comes with the following cables:- 1x 20/24-pin cable 650mm long
- 1x ATX 12V 4-pin and EPS 12v 8-pin 650mm long
- 1x Molex 4-pin with 3 Molex connectors and a FDD connector a total length of 950mm
- 1X Molex 4-pin with 3 Molex connectors a total length of 800mm
- 2x S-ATA cables with 3 connectors each. Both at 800mm long
- 2x PCI-E 6-pin at 500mm each
- 2x PCI-E 8-pin at 500mm each
- 2x PCI-E 8-pin to 6-pin adapter cables at 100mm each
The cables. Note that they come pre sleeved in black flex sleeving.
The cables come packaged neatly in this cloth bag.
The 140mm fan is topped off by an fan grill branded with the Thermaltake logo.
Here we can see the modular connectors. The red set are for the PCIE connections. Supporting up to 4 cards. The black connectors under the red ones are for the Molex and S-ATA cables. The lone connector just above the 24 pin power cable is for the 4 and 8-pin CPU power connectors.
The top sports a cool design with mesh panels.
Notice the small push button on the back. This is the button you use to change the LED lighting effects.
I want to take a second and mention the AC power cable. It is very heavy gauge which I am glad to see. This should prevent any overheating that might occur from a heavy load being put on the power supply.
The AC power cable is heavy gauge
Testing
The EVO_Blue 750W is remarkably quiet. Even under a full load in our testing using OCCT I could not make out any noise coming from its fan. I even turned the Thermaltake BigTyp14 CPU cooler all the way down and still could not make out a sound from the PSU. Those of you looking for a quiet PC should seriously consider this PSU. Under Max Load I could not feel any excessive heat being blown out of the PSU, that leaves me to believe Thermaltake did a bang up job on designing the circuit and used high quality components when populating the boards. Thermaltake included an Active PFC/PWM control circuit as well as an in-house engineered EMI filter.
I tested the EVO_Blue 750W using OCCT version 3.1.0. Its PSU test stresses the PSU by maxing out your GPU and CPU at the same time for a time duration chosen by you. You can see the specs on my test Rig here. The Thermaltake EVO_Blue showed little ripple on its 3.3V,and 5V rails. The 12V rail had a little more ripple but nothing dangerous. The Vcore was a little up and down but well within safe limits.
Vcore Graph
12V Graph
3.3V Graph
5V Graph
Conclusion
The Thermaltake EVO_Blue 750W is a remarkable PSU for its price. You get so many features all from a reliable and well trusted name. I would not hesitate to put this PSU in all but the most extreme systems. (only because of the wattage rating). The Evo_Blue750 excelled in all of our tests and looked good while doing it. That’s something not many high end PSUs can claim. I would recommend this PSU to all of our readers looking for that PSU with bling and the power to back it up. With that said I am awarding the Thermaltake EVO_Blue our highest award of 5/5.
You can purchase the Thermaltake EVO_Blue 750W at Newegg.com or Amazon.com for under $140.
Additional Photos
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This product was provided by its manufacturer free of charge for purpose of review
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