Thermaltake Xaser III Silent Power 480W PSU

Something else about the cables, is that Thermaltake didn't get carried away with their length.  PSU to tip of the longest power connector measured 42 inches.  A nice compromise between the standard lengths and the Medusa like lines of the Enermax units on the market.

Under the hood you can see several oversized aluminum heatsinks to keep the heat down.  Very nice and tidy in there.

Performance

To test things out we plugged in a bunch of gear in and checked our levels with ABIT's Hardware Monitor.

Test Bed

• ABIT KD-7 (KT400) mainboard

• AMD Athlon XP 2100+

• ThermalRight SLK-800 heatsink w/ Tt Smart Fan II running at full honk.

• Chaintech GeForce 4 Ti4200 with Tt GPU CoolMod

• Maxtor D740X-6L 40gb ATA-133 7200RPM HDD

• Generic 52x CD-ROM

• Three quad lighted neon fans

• Windows XP Pro

Conclusion

The Thermaltake Silent Purepower PSU is a nice unit.  While I don't really get the practical usefulness of having variable rate fans in a PSU, I do concede it is better to have an option available and not use it than not have the option at all.  Both the included Rheostats were aesthetically pleasing and got the job done.  I like the idea of having an extra one after you hook things up, or two if you let the PSU control its fan speed in automatic mode.  Another thing I especially liked was the extra length of the power cables.  This makes the unit useable by most everyone.  The inclusion of Serial ATA should not be overlooked either at SATA comes into its own.

The Thermaltake PSU gives you the juice you need and some extras you can't find elsewhere.  Pending their to be announced price and availability, I don't think you could go wrong with its inclusion in your next system.

Pros

• 480 watts baby!

• Available in black or silver

• Variable rate fans controlled automatically or manually.

• Two included Rheostats with unit

• Quiet operation

• Slightly longer power lines are a nice plus.

• Gold finger guards

Cons

• Can get noisy with fans set at full speed.

• Price and availability questionable at time of this writing.

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