Thermaltake PurePower PST520W
2. A Closer Look
Thermaltake are in the habit of using 12cm fans for their power units, since they produce less noise and have similar air flow like the noisy 80cm ones. In this P.S.U., you can see a 12cm fan that lights up blue when the P.S.U. is powered.
There is no extra fan in the back, since there is no need for one. The “Honeycomb” air ventilation will do the job the way it did with the PurePower 500W unit. However, there is no way to control the speed of this fan manually, as it is automatically done by a small temperature sensor that lies in the center of the fan.
This is the famous P.S.T. that Thermaltake is so proud of. All peripherals, except the VGA cards, are powered by this unit. You can see small leds on the front panel of the P.S.T., indicating the safe operation of different voltage rails.
The small P.S.T. unit can be used to power up only low power consumption units; at least that’s what Thermatake suggests. However, we tried to power up two hard disks and a DVD burner, and we had no problem with doing so. But, in any case, if you want a 100% stable system, it would be wiser if you did not undertake such a task with your home PC.
At the back of the P.S.U. you will only find the PCI-Express slots, the 24/20-pin connector, the 4-pin +12V connector and the P.S.T. connector. Power is transferred from the main P.S.U. to the P.S.T., and then all the other peripherals are powered by the 5 .25” P.S.T. This is a very clever way to get all these cables out of the way, leaving more space for the VGA cards and the CPU. Of course, you can use only the cables that you need, depending on the peripherals you have installed, and keep the other cables in a safe place out of the box, just in case you need them in the future.