Hardware Ultra X3 600W & 1,000W PSUs

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/11/10/ultra_x3_600w_1000w_psus/1

Ultra X3s are shiny, totally modular and ooze coolness factor. We take a look at the mainstream 600W and enthusiast 1,000W models to see if the insides are as good as the outsides.

 

I would rather have my fingernails pulled out with a pair of pliers than buy another Ultra product. Do yourself a favor and skip these units and buy a PSU from a solid company like Antec, Tagan, or Silverstone

 

I've had an X2 for a while now (550W, picked it up for 20$ Open-box ) and it purrs along nicely. Am sort-of tempted with the 600W or 800W X3 flavor

 

If a manufacturer wants to enter the high-end PSU-markets then the products really have to stand out from the crowd. Some brands are so well-established amongst the enthusiast it's almost scary. Corsair made it straight to the top by being superb, but these.... Hardly.

 

Alot of people dont like Ultra products, but i have had my Ultra X-Finity 500W psu for 2 years now and it has had yet a single problem. I run my computer 24/7 and do quite a bit of gaming on it and this thing has held up nicely. The best part is i picked it up for $5 from a special deal at frys. So if i needed an upgrade in the future i might look into one of these

 

Nothing better then read a fresh test/review on a monday morning @ work

 

thats what work is good for =))

anyway... i think its rather bad that their 1kw psu fails on full load..... i mean, if they have such low quality standards then i'd rather stick with products of another company even if i would never need / want that specific psu that failed....

 

The problem with the ultra high wattage power supplies is that you'll never hit their max capacity in a normal operating environment. They mentioned during the review that they had a quad core 3ghz system with 2 hd2900xt that only barely exceeded 550w at the wall. What the hell could you be doing that would require 1000w from the PSU? (which would be 1250w at the wall with 80% efficiency).

That being said however, I owned a 500w modular Ultra PSUa while back (It wasn't an X2 or X3, so it must've been an X1) that conked out on me. I liked the look of it but that didn't stop me from not buying another Ultra product after mine died. I went with a Silverstone 700w modular unit and have been quite happy.

 

Does a PSU request on the wall all the wattage it is marked for or does it request only what is needed. So if my system uses 320watt and the PSU is rated 1200watt does it suck in 1200watt or just 320watt at the wall?

 

if your computer is effectively pulling 400 W form the power supply, the power supply is rated for 1000 w and we assume a 80% efficiency at 40% load then the powersupply would draw 500W from the wall.

 

Only what's needed, minus the efficiency conversion - so if your PSU is 80% efficienct it will need 20% more power than your system requires from the wall.

Unfortunately we can't feasibly test reliability, so those of you that have had units die in the past is a bit of a shame.

 

its understandable why you cant test reliability... i mean, we dont want to wait two years till reviews show up just so you can include a long term reliability test.

 

plus, you'd have to test a batch, rather than just one and take an average

 

Running a 1000W supply in a 500W system is inefficient, power supplies have a efficiency curve.
They are most efficient at full load, at 1/2 load a 1000W supply may only be 60% while a 550W supply
is running it's advertised 85%, makes a big difference in how much hot air goes in your room.
You want some head room of course, but don't over-buy , save the extra $100 for your video card.

 

No, I'm afraid that's complete mis-information.

They are most efficient between 50-75 percent and you can see from the results page that at 50, 75 and 100 percent the efficiency of the unit is consistently 80+. In fact, check out 80plus.org where to get an independent certification to be Energy Star 4.0 compliant you need to be 80+ efficient at 20, 50 and 100 percent.