14 DAY TRIAL // No matter how amazing 80 Plus Gold or better power supply units may be, they sell in rather low numbers compared to 80 Plus Bronze and simple 80 Plus rated models. Knowing this, Thermaltake has just released a new set of PSUs.
Called TR2 Bronze Series, the power supply units obviously bear the 80 Plus Bronze certification, which means that the energy efficiency is of 82% at 20% load, 85% at 50% load, and 82% at 100% load.
That means that less than a fifth of the total power is lost, no matter how demanding the applications you're running on your PC are.
Thus, you should be able to recover your investment in about a year or so, from just the savings on the power bill compared to the waste that a non-certified PSU would generate.
The Thermaltake TR2 Bronze Series of Power Supplies
There are three of them, with wattages (outputs, whatever you want to call it) of 450W, 500W and 600W, respectively.
All of them comply with the latest ATX 12V 2.3 standard, which demands a certain level of reliability and compatibility with motherboards and PC cases.
They also possess large, quiet fans with a diameter of 120 mm and intelligent RPM control (rotations per minute), based on temperature. Thermostats are wonderful things.
Single +12V rails power each power supply. As odd as it sounds, this means superior performance for a PC system than with multi-rail builds.
Then there's the high quality Japanese main capacitor, which ensures stable power generation and endurance, making the TR2 Bronze reliable over extended periods of runtime.
Finally, the elongated cables make sure you can easily install any hardware, and route cables for good airflow, even if the case has a bottom-mounted PSU bay.
Availability and pricing
There isn't any such information to be had we're afraid. While the hardware maker does already have full, comprehensive product pages for the Thermaltake TR2 Bronze Series 450W, 500W, and 600W models, they are already up and running. We guess that means you'll either run into them while browsing online retailers or you won't.
We won't go so far as to say you should put your DIY PC plans on hold though. Nice these new PSUs may be, but they don't offer much more (or less) than other 80 Plus Bronze PSUs of similar wattages on the market. The only thing “missing” is a (semi-)modular cabling system, but that's not really all that important in the grand scheme of things.
