Ultra Goes All In for PSUs

Ultra, a company that has been regarded as a less than serious supplier of technology in this house [not the least of which is because of the association with TigerDirect] has finally decided to get serious with power supply offerings.

The new offerings are fully modular, which seems logical, because when using the main power to a motherboard, the ability to buy a shorter cable, instead of trying to shorten the cable yourself, makes a lot of sense. Is that what modular is all about? Custom cables, with nothing having to be shoved away, because it is too long.

The story from Bright Side of News is apparently written by someone in Europe as he talks about a 220V version, and makes the mistake that we, in America, have refrigerators that run on 220V as a matter of course.

When it comes to discussing Ultra power supplies, opinions are split into two: from one side, people consider them to provide good value, from another, we heard opinions such as “Ultra is the joke of PSU industry”. In all honesty, we know several other vendors that deserve that title, but this is not the point of this story.
The point is what to do when you realize your mistakes, what are you going to do about it. A while ago, Ultra released its X2 series, offering quite sub-standard products. Following less-than-enthusiastic results, the company went back to the drawing board.

The result of that work is completely revamped X4 series. For the first time, X4 is expanding to capture the whole market, from 500W model to the 1600W one - do note that 1600W model will only be available in 220V countries, due to limitations of 100V and 110V power plugs [110V current x 15A circuit breaker = 1650W]. Read, if you want this puppy in the US, you should connect it using the same 220V rail for the fridge, washing machine etc.

All of the models from the new X4 line are completely modular. The term “completely modular” is not just some sort of marketing brouhaha but rather - a fact of the matter. X4 power supplies come without a single cable attached to it - even 24V and 12V motherboard rails are modular, which you can see from picture on the right.

Even though complete modularity reduces the power efficiency due to number of connectors [hence the reason why some PSU manufacturers openly stated that they will never offer a modular power supply], the inconvenient truth is that modular power supplies, especially powerful ones - are actually reducing the power consumption of the power supply and increase efficiency. Even though this theory might sound crazy, the reason is quite simple - with modular PSUs, you only use the rails you need. With conventional power supplies, there is a jungle of cables you have to store somewhere, resulting in obstructed airflow… obstructed airflow equals higher thermals inside the case - reducing the efficiency of power supplies. The debate can go on, but both approaches have effects on PSU efficiency.
The models and pricing are as follows:

Ultra X4 500W - MSRP $99.99

Ultra X4 600W - MSRP $119.99

Ultra X4 750W - MSRP $149.99

Ultra X4 850W - MSRP $249.99

Ultra X4 1050W - MSRP $279.99

Ultra X4 1200W - MSRP $299.99

Ultra X4 1600W - MSRP $399.99
The reviews of these power supplies are already out as we received word from two publications - OverClockersClub reviewed the 1050W, while BCCHardware reviewed the 1200W version. We wonder could this power supply survive our real-world testing after the last power supply, Topower’s 1200W unit failed miserably in our 3x GTX280 SLI test.

As much as I love my PC Power and Cooling PSUs, I do wish they offered a modular approach, for the works-with-any-case solutions they offer means that lots of cable is there to deal with, no matter what case you use.

Another thing I’d think would have been developed by now, for the ‘younger brother of Doc Frankenstein’ crowd, is the case design that can use two smaller PSUs, which makes more sense than one huge one. This could include directed cabling, and cascaded startup, so that no circuit breakers in the house are popped due to current inrush.

The arc welder crowd will no doubt have their own preferences, but most that I have seen from this group have several video cards, but only a couple of hard drives, or possibly three at most. They don’t need 8 SATA cables, nor do they need 12 standard Molex connectors for optical drives. This is the real reason for modular PSUs – let the customer decide how many and what length of each cable they need. It makes the most sense, and saves money in the end.

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