Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1200 W Review

Name: Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1200 W
Brand: Thortech

crmaris

on Feb 16th, 2012,

in Power Supplies.

Manufacturer: Thortech

Performance Rating & Performance per Dollar »

Ripple Measurements

In the following table you will find the ripple levels that we measured on the main rails of TTBPK20G. According to ATX specification the limits are 120 mV (+12V) and 50 mV (5V, 3.3V and 5VSB).

Ripple Measurements Thortech TTBPK20G
Test	12 V	5 V	3.3 V	5VSB	Pass/Fail
20% Load	35.3 mV	15.1 mV	19.0 mV	10.3 mV	Pass
40% Load	40.7 mV	17.6 mV	22.0 mV	11.7 mV	Pass
50% Load	44.7 mV	18.0 mV	23.2 mV	12.7 mV	Pass
60% Load	48.0 mV	19.4 mV	25.2 mV	13.3 mV	Pass
80% Load	55.4 mV	21.1 mV	27.1 mV	16.2 mV	Pass
100% Load	68.4 mV	23.0 mV	28.2 mV	18.7 mV	Pass
Crossload 1	39.3 mV	29.1 mV	35.8 mV	26.7 mV	Pass
Crossload 2	65.8 mV	18.3 mV	20.9 mV	12.5 mV	Pass

Ripple suppression on +12V is not exactly what we expected to see from a high-end unit. Ripple on this unit should be below 50mV and ideally under 40mV. In our opinion Thortech should use some extra caps on the modular PCB to reduce ripple at +12V. On the other hand, ripple on the minor rails is low, although not among the lowest we have ever seen. To sum up, the most important rail is +12V and although 68.4mV of ripple are far of the 120mV limit, in modern PSUs we expect to see a much cleaner output.

Ripple at Full Load

In the following oscilloscope screenshots you can see the AC ripple and noise that the main rails registered (+12V, 5V, 3.3V and 5VSB). The bigger the fluctuations on the oscilloscope's screen the bigger the ripple/noise. For all measurements we set 0.01 V/Div (each vertical division/box equals to 0.01V) as standard.