The ASRock TC-1300T is a high-end power supply designed for demanding builds. With Titanium efficiency, dual 12V-2×6 connectors, and features like TempGuard and hybrid fan control, it’s made for performance-focused setups, including AI and next-gen GPUs. Build quality is excellent, using premium Japanese capacitors and a quiet HDB fan. Just keep in mind that it’s expensive and quite large, so it’s best suited for enthusiast-level PCs with the space and budget to match.
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For the past 2 years, we have been seeing many new names joining the new ATX PSU Master Race, thanks to the new Intel ATX 3.0/3.1 specifications that have finally made the PSUs interesting and fun again.
ASRock recently decided to unleash its power with its rock-solid PSU offerings, ranging from extremely high-end, mid-range and budget-oriented PSUs – one of which was the ASRock SL1000GW that I recently reviewed, which performed really well throughout our different test suits.
ASRock TC-1300T PSU which I will be looking at today is from ASRock’s Taichi series, which is just like their motherboards, and is the highest-ranked lineup. This PSU lineup comes in two variants: TC-1650T and TC-1300T, both of which are rated at 80 Plus Titanium efficiency, the highest available efficiency in the ATX PSU.
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As with every other PSU brand, ASRock is also trying hard to compete in this segment by marketing their PSUs with some innovative (at least to them) features, more notably the 5V Boost Mode & Dual Color 12V-2×6 connector with TempGuard.
Packaging & Unboxing
Box Front
Box Back
The box feels nice to touch and has all the important info both at the front and the back.
Unboxing
The PSU is packaged nicely inside, with styrofoam protecting it. There are separate sections for the power cord, accessories/cables, and the PSU itself.
Design
PSU Design
If you’ve seen the ASRock Taichi motherboards, this power supply will look very familiar. The PSU is coated in a matte-black type finish, with Titanium-colored accents. Overall, the design is nice and looks unique.
PSU Side Design
The side has similar gears as we saw at the top. There is Taichi branding.
As for the power side, everything looks standard. There is an iCOOL button which we will discuss in the next section.
Cable & Connectors
Cables & Accessories
The PCIe 5.1 and ATX cables are nylon-sleeved, while the rest are standard, individually sleeved. The quantity and length of cables is more than enough, so you will not face any difficulties in installing the PSU in an ATX build.
Here are the included cables along with their quantity and length:
Connector Type
Quantity
Motherboard cable (24-pin)
1x
EPS 12V CPU connectors (4+4-pin)
2x
PCIe 5.1 connectors (12+4-pin) Dual Color
2x
PCIe connectors (6+2-pin)
8x
4-pin Peripheral connectors
3x
SATA 5-pin connectors
9x
PSU Modular Side
Here is the modular bay. As you can see, the PSU supports two 12V-2×6 connectors, allowing it to power two latest-gen GPUs.
5V Boost Button
Dual Native 12V-2×6 Connector with TempGuard
It’s hard to wrap my head around why ASRock in 2024 is boasting about 5V Boost mode. Gone are the days when 5V & 3.3V rails were extensively being used to power many internal PC components. It’s mainly HDDs that eat up a large chunk of 5V rail and even this use-case is getting faded away as Solid State storage devices such as NVME SSDs are rapidly replacing old and noisy mechanical HDDs.
Moreover, I have never seen a PSU (of recent times) dropping down its 5V/3.3V rail even on max-rated load on the primary 12V rail, so this mode is only a gimmick in my opinion.
As for the ASRock’s dual color with TempGuard 12V-2×6 connector, this is indeed a feature that should be praised!
We have already seen this dual-color 12V-2×6 connector implementation from MSI which makes sure that a user has fully inserted the 12V-2×6 connector into the GPU. ASRock though, with its high-end Taichi series, also added a temperature sensor close to the 12V-2×6 connector’s housing to provide a safer and ease of mind operation to the user. In theory, if the in-built temperature sensor senses the temperature hitting close to alarming/concerning levels, the PSU will immediately shut itself down.
Though it’s surely an innovative feature, I think its implementation could have been done better. Imagine a scenario when you’re playing a game and suddenly your PC shuts down without any warning! There had to be at least some kind of an alert LED on the back of the PSU so the user would have the utmost surety as to exactly why his/her PC is having a sudden shutdown issue.
Dual Native 12V-2×6 Connector with TempGuard
iCool Fan Mode
ASRock TC-1300T gives an option for dual native 12V-2×6 power connectors which may not be a very impressive feature to have for gamers, but those who are familiar with ML and AI, really dig this option in modern PSUs as it allows them to power multiple AI accelerated GPUs from Nvidia.
The PSU also has a hybrid fan mode which ASRock calls iCool. When this mode is turned on, it only allows the fan to spin up after the PSU has been loaded to a decent enough load.
Teardown & Component Analysis
ASRock in their Steel Legend series (as we have seen in my previous review) was using HEC as its OEM. This time with their Taichi series, ASRock needed an even more powerful and capable platform especially if it wanted to achieve Titanium level efficiency.
I was expecting ASRock to have just simply opted in for CWT for its OEM, as almost every big brand seems to be doing, but they surprisingly went with FSP, which is also a very reputable PSU manufacturer and PSU OEM for well over a decade. FSP PSUs were the first ones I had seen using vertical daughter boards to better utilize the PCB spacing and then later many other OEMs started doing the same.
PSU Teardown Top
As expected, the platform’s layout is filled with vertically mounted PCBs for every major section making everything well spread out and there’s more than adequate room for the air to cool down the components effectively, hence why FSP didn’t feel the need to use big and chunky aluminum heatsinks for this design. FSP seems to have gone an extra mile with their design and maybe that’s why ASRock specifically chose them for their Taichi PSU lineup.
MOSFETs Side A
MOSFETs Side B
The platform utilises a Bridge-less design in which instead of using the traditional way of converting mains AC to DC via a Bridge Rectifier, it uses 4 MOSFETs acting as a Bridge Rectifier for enhanced efficiency.
Teardown
1 of 6
APFC Section
APFC MOSFETs & Boost Diodes
Two Vertical PCBs for Full-Bridge MOSFETs
DC-DC Converters for 5V & 3.3V Rail
5VSB Module
5VSB Back Side
The rest of the PSU topology follows APFC (comprised of 4 MOSFETs & 2 Boost Diodes), Full-Bridge LLC and DC-DC converters for minor voltage rails such as 5V and 3.3V. There’s a separate and quite a beefed up daughter board for 5V stand-by rail with an INN3166C Flyback Switcher IC with integrated high voltage MOSFET, this will surely help Taichi TC-1300T to achieve much higher efficiency in stand-by mode.
It’s not only refreshing to see a completely new and highly engineered platform but it will also be interesting how everything is going to turn out during intensive tests.
Main Transformer
We get to see two distinctive-looking Transformers that generate the main 12V rail which also further gets chopped off into 5V & 3.3V rails via their respective DC-DC converters. As the PSUs have been beefing up their power ratings, I have been seeing OEMs re-engineering their transformer design to make it more compact, efficient and with as little parasitic capacitance as possible to reduce the generation of voltage ripple and noise which becomes increasingly difficult to handle in high switching frequency which all the switch mode PSUs operate at.
There are two adjacent small heatsinks to help reduce the heat build-up on the transformer. 12V rail MOSFETs are soldered on the back of the PCB, and two mini heatsinks on top provide a decent enough heat-soaking effect for them.
Teardown
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Electrolytic Bulk Capacitors from Rubycon
Electrolytic Capacitors
Polymer Filtering Capacitors
ASRock’s component selection for TC-1300T is top-notch throughout, and the same goes for the electrolytic and polymer capacitors, where ASRock is using top-of-the-line Japanese capacitors from brands like Nippon Chemi-Con and Rubycon.
135mm HDB Fan
Unlike the mainstream industry practice of using Fan from Hong Hua (which almost every manufacturer these days seems to be using), ASRock went with an even better quality HDB (Hydro Dynamic Bearing) fan from Power Logic.
PSU Load Testing
PSU Testing
Here are the test results.
Voltage Regulation
Load in %
12V Rail
5V
3.3V
20%
12.02
5.05
3.33
50%
11.98
5.04
3.32
70%
11.98
5.04
3.32
90%
11.97
5.04
3.32
100%
11.95
5.03
3.32
Voltage regulation is exceptional and well-controlled for a massive 1300W output power. I have seen this level of performance mainly on either full or semi-digital PSUs, where the voltage regulation is monitored and controlled using a super-responsive microcontroller.
PSU Efficiency
Load in %
Efficiency
Power Factor
20%
93.89%
0.952
50%
95.81%
0.975
70%
95.34%
0.982
90%
94.81%
0.982
100%
94.40%
0.982
Using the traditional APFC design for the Primary side instead of more modern and efficient ones, i.e. Interleaved PFC or Totem-Pol,e and still showing these massive and magnificent efficiency performance numbers is completely unheard of! A very impressive job by ASRock and FSP.
Voltage Ripple Performance
Load in %
12V Ripple
20%
24
50%
22.4
70%
24.8
90%
26.4
100%
28
Though I have been seeing quite remarkable voltage ripple performance in many CWT-designed PSUs, ASRock TC-1300T’s performance in this regard doesn’t come on top, but still is really impressive and will surely give many OCing enthusiasts a chance to dial in extreme OC settings for their builds.
Temperature
Thermal Test Results
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Max Temp @ Back
Max Temp @ Exhaust
Max Temp @ Connector's Side
Thanks to ASRock TC-1300T’s titanium-rated efficiency, the PSU remained pretty cool throughout different load variations and only reached a maximum 66.2°C temperature on its back. It’s important to note that the secondary side 12V rail MOSFETs reside on the back of the PCB where they transfer the heat to the main chassis using thermal pads.
When the iCool (hybrid fan mode) was turned on, the PSU’s fan only kicked in when the load exceeded a mere 300W. This is a way lower threshold than what’s offered in even 850W-rated PSUS! Though the Power Logic’s fan is pretty quiet (it only started spinning loudly when we overloaded the PSU to 1600W) still, ASRock should have tuned in their hybrid fan mode more intelligently to better suit their “iCool” naming in my opinion.
Should You Buy it?
Buy It If
✅You want good future-proofing: 1200W-1300W rated PSUs these days are well suited for not only extreme OCing PCs but also for the upcoming generation of GPUs.
✅You need efficiency: ASRock Taichi TC-1300T comes with the highest available ATX spec Titanium efficiency and it came out to be the most efficient and highest-rated PSU in our efficiency test to date.
✅You want the newer and safer 12V-2×6 connector: ASRock’s TempGuard 12V-2×6 connector design offers a much safer operation when powering insanely power-hungry GPUs such as the RTX 5090.
Don’t Buy It If
❌You’re concerned about pricing and availability: With a price tag close to $400, this is only for those who dare to use it with their extreme high-end builds with the main interest of having the highest efficiency. Even most of the high-end Gaming enthusiasts will be better off with Platinum-rated PSUs with much lower price tags than the TC-1300T.
❌You have a small PCcase: Not that you see people complaining about having a bigger size that often, but a massive size of 180mm makes the ASRock TC-1300T a challenging PSU to fit in many PC cases.
My Final Thoughts
ASRock has decided to fully engage in the PSU market, offering some of the impressive quality and feature-rich PSUs for extreme enthusiasts. ASRock is trying to capture this market with unique and innovative features and also with the brave decision of going with a very different but remarkably capable OEM, FSP. Together, they have the potential to challenge some of the big names in the PSU industry as long as the pricing and, more importantly, the availability are managed properly.
Arsalan Shakil (aka GuyThatDoesEverything on YouTube) is a PC Tech Enthusiast and Electronic Geek. With over 10+ years of experience in Electronics, he then decided to explore Software Engineering to design embedded products and automate existing hardware solutions.
When he started tearing down old cameras to understand how they worked, he was shocked (literally, when he got zapped by a flash discharge capacitor), giving him the power (debatable) to fall in love with videography/photography. He also started making some fun videos that later became YouTube tech reviews.
Skills:
10+ years of experience in Electronics design, embedded solutions, and prototyping
Majored in Software Engineering
Research paper publication in IEEE for Embedded Military Uniform & LoRa WAN wireless technology
Specialized in IoT Solutions
PC Enthusiast & PC Modder
In his local region, he’s known to expose cheap PSU brands, often claiming fake certification or false claims on the box. He’s a true nerd and needed some friends in his life. Then he met some guys who work at Tech4Gamers, and they also came out to be equal nerds who suggested he join Tech4Gamers as a Hardware Expert.
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