The TurboCool 850 SSI is a massive beast at 15cm x 8 cm x 23cm she's long, lean and has substantial weight. I once thought weight was a prima facie indicator of quality, I'm reversing my position in this respect as I believe I'm prejudiced from my years as an Audiophile. Tube Amplifiers are very different in their goal and they require huge copper wound transformers, and coke-can sized capacitors to perform their task.

Books have been written on this subject and if there's one hobby where people are even more zealous about their hardware it's high-end audio. As a brief example the Wavac which includes the Wavac SH-833 is a 150w per channel (monoblocs) single-ended tube amp with power supplies which weigh approximately 200Kg for the pair and cost $350,000 and that's just the amps, we haven't even begun to discuss the pre-amp. The mentality behind High-End audio is difficult to shed. Nonetheless for its peak 950W power the TurboCool 850 SSI isn't exceedingly heavy. Its innards are markedly different from any other PSU I've seen including those built by PCP&C, for it is the first truly proprietary rail power supply.

Parts are well organized taking full advantage of the single exhaust fan design and laid out in a parallel linear fashion where the "flow" of the circuitry is clearly visible.


Potentiometers

This is not the first BTX ready PSU where I've seen "sealed" potentiometers and while the seals are easily broken, recent Form Factors.org ATX12V Design Guide Rev.2.2 and SSI (Server System Infrastructure) EPS12V Rev.2.8 place 17A limits on 12V rails to maintain 240VA in accordance with UL EN60950 safety standards. Pertinent sections of these guidelines can be found below.

In past models PCP&C placed access holes in the enclosure which allowed the insertion of a screwdriver to adjust pots "on the fly". While I've been an advocate of tunable pots, ultimately the goal is to build a power supply where such adjustments aren't necessary.

If designed correctly, rails should remain indefatigable regardless of load, providing a lifetime of service without a need for end-user "fine tuning." Of course in the realm of the PC-Enthusiast this is often construed as a limitation, comparative to a lack of multiplier adjustments on Intel CPUs. Even Intel has capitulated allowing a single 14x (2.8GHz) multiplier option on recent processors. The reasoning behind this was not to appease Enthusiast's or Overclockers, but to take full advantage of DDR2 frequencies.

AC in (photo above) begins the process where AC current is rectified and stored in three large dedicated (per Rail) capacitors which aid in "smoothing out current. Where pre-FET (Field Effect Transistor) capacitance is concerned the 850 SSI has more capacitance in this stage alone then most other PSUs have in total.

As current is passed to the FETs which are mounted to the first heatsink it will then pass to the primary side of the (yellow) transformers. It becomes clear the design is proprietary as there are three identical (large) sized transformers running in parallel. Current will pass to the primary side of the transformers and then to the secondary where it is once again rectified at the final DC stage.

Once rectified current passes through the DC-chokes (wire wrapped donuts three of which reside under the final heatsink) where any residual AC is removed and once again the current stored in capacitors. While the initial pre-FET capacitors are very large these are much smaller. One reason behind this is the 'speed' at which a smaller capacitor can discharge its stored current. Simply using redundant caps at this stage ensures there?s ample amounts of current stored to meet the systems demands no matter how heavy the ?load? becomes. As I alluded to earlier, if DC is the lifeblood of your PC, then consider this stage the "Blood Bank". The "bank" on the daughter board in the close-up below is of course one third of the overall redundant circuitry.

Here we have a side view of one of three daughter boards at the AC pre-FET stage.

On the opposite side at the AC end of the unit we get a better perspective of the initial capacitance, note the size of the chokes, and capacitors.

At 23cm installing the TurboCool 850 SSI was a task which required some thinking ahead. I tried inserting the unit into the side of Thermaltake's Kandalf (reviewed out soon) which is one of the largest aluminum towers I've ever had, wasn't feasible. Luckily this case is a dream come true its front panel can stack three 120mm fans. Simply sliding out a few trays allowed an opening into which I inserted the TurboCool 850 SSI.

Once inside the PSU isn't obtrusive at all, due primarily to its sleek design. Long and Lean

Test Methodology:

Using a FLUKE-187 measurements were taken at the motherboard inserting the multi-meter probes into the opposite end of the connectors.

Software monitoring (voltages/temps/CPU speed, etc.) were measured using Asus Probe v.2.23.01 in conjunction with Ai Booster v.2.00.42.

To produce LOAD I ran the system-stress test utility S&M v.0.3.2a. I've found this utility to be the most effective for placing a "virtual" LOAD on the CPU. The screenshot below exemplifies software data recording.

The remaining screenshots are viewable by clicking on the thumbnails.

Multi-meter results

Conclusion

PC Power and Cooling hasn't simply offered us another more powerful PSU this is in fact a departure from previous designs. Over the years PSU design has become homogenized with just about every design sharing of capacitors, transformers, and other stages. The end result is a compromise dictated purely by a profit driven market which has minimized the role of the PSU.

In their attempts to cut costs, system builders used PSUs which just barely got the job done. It was in fact PC Power and Cooling whom departed from the prototypical design to give us the archetypal design back in 1986 and today on their unofficial 20th anniversary they've redefined what a PSU can be. XtremeOverclocking has published an excellent guide to PSU Truths and Misconceptions. An underlying theme repeated in the article is the influences on design-integrity cost have had. In the guide they allude to the ideal PSU being a proprietary design were it not for cost considerations.

Today PCP&C has given us such an animal and it's currently the most powerful unit on the market. At $469 it is perhaps the most costly, however; in this case you truly do get what you pay for. A 5-year warranty, unrelenting power, silent operation and a PSU able to power multiple SATA, SLI graphics cards (each with a dedicated line), and the load demands of any desk-top system thrown at it.

Be sure to visit their website which has been completely redesigned. Many will be excited to find their lists of re-furbished PSUs for sale with prices ranging from $24 to $239 and many units are the (originally) higher priced custom units built for those with unlimited fund.

The false impression their PSUs were prohibitively costly evaporates with the launch of their new site. Stay tuned for our second part where we test the TurboCool 850 SSI on our DFI motherboard with nVidia graphic cards running in SLI mode. I would like to thank the folks at PC Power and Cooling for the opportunity to test their TurboCool 850 SSI.