Thermaltake Purepower 360W

Going solo
550W is probably a waste for the vast majority of even enthusiasts' high-end rigs, but there are plenty of mid-range power supplies with more timid, but sufficient, power ratings. In this comparison, we're looking at Thermaltake's latest Purepower 360W unit, and even though there's really not much to a power supply, the Thermaltake unit manages to distinguish itself in a few areas. The Purepower 360W is also the lowest-rated power supply in our test, which should make stress testing quite interesting. I'm not lucky enough to have a multi-drive, SCSI-equipped, dual-Athlon test system, but as you'll see later I did manage to assemble a nice stack of hardware for our stress tests.

But back to the Purepower 360W, which is pictured below.

Wait, aren't we missing a fan here?

The Purepower 360W's most unique trait is its single-fan design, which eschews the second and sometimes third internal fans that some manufacturers are putting on their power supplies. Single-fan power supplies aren't new by any stretch, and I've got a small collection of 200-250W power supplies that are years old and also feature only a single rear exhaust fan. However, I don't think I've seen any 300W+ power supplies with only a single fan, and I wish you the best of luck getting all but the most bare systems stable on one of my old 250W power supplies.

Extensive venting is used throughout the Purepower 360W's external casing to make up for the lack of a second fan, but I wouldn't expect airflow within a case to be nearly as good with only a single exhaust fan spinning away. One benefit to a single-fan design is lower sound levels, however. All that internal venting should, for all intents and purposes, be silent when compared to the noise created by an auxiliary fan.

The real question, of course, is whether or not the single fan can keep the power supply cool enough under load, and whether the fan speeds necessary to do so with a single fan produce less noise than a dual-fan setup. We'll get into some noise testing a little later, but it's something to keep in mind as we discuss the power supplies.

I haven't dealt with Thermaltake power supplies before, so I was relieved to find that Thermaltake does offer an external power switch on its Purepower 360W. And it's a big sucker. There's no way you're going to miss this one, even if you do have to contort your body into an awkward position just to flail around behind your case in the hopes of hitting the switch.

I should note that the particular Purepower 360W power supply we're testing features Thermaltake's Passive PFC technology, which uses parallel capacitors to help regulate output current. All of the power supplies we're testing today actually feature power correction technology, so Thermaltake doesn't get a leg up on the competition in terms of features. However, since Purepower models are available with and without Passive PFC, it's worth noting.

The Purepower 360W offers the lowest wattage rating of the power supplies we're testing today, and it has the fewest number of MOLEX connectors to match.

There's a total of six MOLEX connectors to play with, plus two connectors for FDD power. The MOLEX connectors have 28" of working reach, so you shouldn't have to worry about reaching all of your hard drives.

All the standard motherboard power plugs are there, but Thermaltake has left the motherboard power cable bare. Given that many of Thermaltake's products are coolers and cases targeted at enthusiasts, I was expecting a sheath over the power cable, but all you get is a couple of zip-ties to hold things together along the cable's 20 inches of bundled wire. The zip ties still hold the wires together, but it's not the most elegant solution.