InsaneTek

The "Ultra" brand is not a wildly popular name in the enthusiast's community.  Ultra Products is a fairly new company that started out making accessories and value desktop RAM.  I remember seeing their modules at Sam's Club.  They expanded bit by bit and started making quality products.  I've heard that some of their PC3200 DDR modules use Winbond BH5 chips, and those overclock to at least 250FSB.  Mighty impressive, I must say. 

Ultra Products is finally catching people's attentions.  Their new power supply is a computer enthusiast's dream come true.  The unit itself is fully modular, meaning that you only use the connectors you need.  It's always hard to tuck away cables and find good hiding spots, thus Ultra has taken away that messy work.  Not only is the power supply fully modular, it has its aesthetics as well.  It is extremely shiny and has a customized Ultra fan grill.  Many companies have tried and "tricked" consumers into buying a cheap power supply simply because it has a window or some lighting.  The comment I react with is:  So what?  Just because it looks good doesn't mean it won't fry my hardware.  Hopefully this Ultra X-Connect won't be one of those cheapo power supplies.

Ultra X-Connect 500W

The box was rather decorative, yet informative.  You can find all the information you need simply by looking at the box.  There are pictures everywhere to show you how to install it, the length of the power connectors and where they install, the UV reactive cables, as well as the specifications of each power rail. 

The complete package was pretty heavy, which gave me a good first impression.  I opened up the box to find another box of cables and a user's manual.  Unlike the traditional use of bubble wrap, the power supply came protected by two foam padding.

The sample unit I received was the mirror blue version.  There are three different colors available--mirror silver, mirror black, and mirror blue.  The PSU is extremely clean.  My small stuffed dog reflects very well, and so do my hands when taking pictures.  The PSU uses two 80MM fans for heat exhaustion, one underneath to suck in system heat, and one in the end to blow it out.  The fan underneath the power supply has a customized fan grill with the company's name written out.  There are protective covers for each of the cable connectors.  When a slot is not in use, the cover can prevent any flying wires from damaging your system.  Having the protective covers is a nice touch, but they weren't fitted right.  They fell out loosely when I picked up the power supply.

Ultra X-Connect 500W Continued

Externally, the X-Connect does not disappoint, so I proceeded to take a look at the internals.  Much like regular power supplies, the cover is held on by 4 screws, one at each corner.  There was no warranty sticker over a screw to prevent users from opening up the unit.  I guess Ultra Products doesn't really mind.  I looked around to see if there were any adjustable potentiometers, but found none.  It would've been an extra plus if the unit was adjustable.  The power supply was decently filled with large capacitors.  The only gripe I have is the size of the heatsinks.  Typically, it is ideal to have large heatsinks because they can help dissipate heat more efficiently, leaving the power supply cooler.  The cooler the power supply, the more efficient it is at giving steady power.  When power supplies get too hot, power rails start fluctuating.  That is why large heatsinks would have been preferred.  The heatsinks used in the X-Connect were rather thin and small.  To make up for the use of small heatsinks, a second fan is placed directly above the heatsinks.  When the power supply is installed, the fan would draw the rising hot air in your case, blow it across the small heatsinks and capacitors, and exit through the exhaust fan.  Although this does help cool down the internals of the power supply, I'd much prefer the use of larger heatsinks and a fan at the rear, instead of at the bottom.  An example of this would be the Raidmax RX-520XP.

The number of power connectors are designed with a typical gaming system in mind.  For example, there is one cable for 2 Molex connectors to suit the two optical drives.  There is one power cable with 2 Molex connectors and 1 floppy connector for the floppy and possible 2 hard drive RAID array.  There is a cable with one single Molex connector to power your video card.  This really helps in reducing the unwanted dangling power connectors in your system.  There is an AUX connector, a 4 pin 12v connector, and the ATX connector.  But what about SATA power?  Ultra Products realized this problem and will reimburse the missing power connector when you contact them.  I received mine in the mail quickly.  They shipped it through USPS Priority Mail, which at most takes 3 days.

One other cool factor of the braided shield cables is that they're UV reactive.  They give off a nice glow when you shine some UV light at them.  I didn't have a UV light available, so here is a picture of how it would look like.

The power cables were easy to connect and disconnect.  The only problem I found was that the ends were a little larger than the typical size.  It gave some capacitors a bit of a squeeze on my Abit AI7 motherboard.  The great advantage of a modular power supply is the clean outcome after installation.  Although my computer rests as a test bed on my desk, you can see that it gives a much cleaner look.

Specifications

The power supply comes with great rails to feed your system.  The 12v rail, which is now considered the most important rail of all, is rated at an amazingly high 34 amps.  It's not very common to see 34 amps on the 12v.  There are only a few power supplies that give off more than 25 amps.  Ultra Products sacrificed the 5v rail in order to raise the 12v rail.  To calculate the total wattage of the power supply, you take the 3.3v and the 5v rails and multiply it to their respective amps.  That gives one part of the wattage.  The other part lies within the 12v.  Multiply the 12v rail to its amps and you'll get the other part of the wattage.  Simply add these two totals and you'll get the total wattage.  To keep a power supply at a rated 500W and in order to raise the amps on one rail, one part of the wattage has to be sacrificed.  With the 12v rail being more important than the 5v, Ultra Products dropped the amps on the 5v rail.  It is still rated at a good 30 amps, though.  Of course it would be great to have all the amps pumped up, resulting in an extremely high wattage power supply.  But it wouldn't be beneficial to consumers as they'll end up paying a hefty price for it. 

Test Setup and Results

Test Setup and Method:

Testing will include voltages at both idle and load stages.  Running the system at load will include Folding, running Prime95's Blend torture test, and looping 3DMark2001SE's Nature benchmark all at once.  Because the ATX connector has no space for me to squeeze in the pins for my multimeter, I will be forced to use the AUX connector for reading 3.3v and 5v rails, and the Molex connector to read the 12v rail.  This doesn't exactly give the best voltage readings, but since I couldn't read it off the ATX connector, this will have to suffice. 

The results were very impressive.  The voltages were high even when on full load.  The 12v rail did drop due to the power hungry 6800GT video card and the pumped up Pentium 4 CPU, but it was still able to run higher than the standard 12v.  The 5v and 3.3v rails were stable throughout the entire testing process.  I guess the second fan does help cool down the internals of the power supply to keep it running efficiently. 

Conclusion and Thoughts