TTGI 520SS Power Supply

Company: TTGI
Product: TT 520 SS
Street Price: ~$80 USD
Date Reviewed: December 17, 2002
Reviewed By: Jason R.
Rating: (9/10)

Features and Specifications (Cont):

There is a single pot to adjust the +5V & +12V rails, HOWEVER opening your power supply will void your warranty (and you could shock yourself severely if you aren't careful). Most people really wouldn't need to tinker with this, but for people who are looking specifically for a power supply with this functionality, here ya go!

Testing:

The testing method that we used for this review was to use a digital multimeter to take voltage readings direct from the power supply’s 20-pin motherboard connector. We placed the red probe into the back of the motherboard connector where there is some bare wire to take readings from. The orange wire is the 3V, red wire is the 5V, and the yellow wire is the 12V. I used the PSU casing as a ground. We then let the system idle in Windows while voltages were monitored. We took the lowest reading over the course of 15 minutes and then ran the same tests at full load running two Folding @ Home clients.

The voltage you should be most concerned with is the readout from the multimeter since it is a reading of the actual voltage going into the motherboard. I took a reading from Motherboard Monitor just so you could see the difference between the actual voltage going into the motherboard and what the system reports. If your motherboard readings deviate too far from readings taken directly from a multimeter that could be a sign that there is a problem with your board.

Note: These voltages are "straight out of the box", i.e. the pot was not adjusted at all.

All the reading fell within 4% deviation, which is pretty darn good considering it is powering a dual processing monster!

Conclusion:

This power supply performs flawlessly. With more peripherals being put into systems, and newer CPUs consuming more power, a dependable power supply is becoming much more important. It used to be that users could get away with using a lower wattage power supply but now it seems like most require at least 400W for a decked out system. The TTGI 520SS performs very similar to its smaller cousin the TT420 SS and the PC Power and Cooling 475W PSU we reviewed earlier. The main difference here is that the PC Power and Cooling has separate potentiometers for the 3.3V, 5V, and 12V lines where as the TTGI models only have one pot that controls both the 5V and the 12V line. The other difference is cost. TTGI power supplies costs a noticeably less, yet perform very well. For a person who cannot afford the PC Power and Cooling PSU, we highly recommend looking into the TTGI power supplies.

Special thanks to TTGI for sending this power supply out to us for review.

Pros:
  Good Power
  TRIPLE Fans that are adjustable
  Supports Dual Athlon & Xeon boards
  Internal Pot
  Price

Cons:
  Have to adjust 5V and 12V using 1 pot

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