Date:
Monday , April 23, 2007
Author:
Paul Johnson
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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Ultra X3 1000W

A FlexForce modular power supply with a black chrome finish that boasts to deliver 1000 watts of power to your personal computer. It states it does this while being Energy Efficient, up to 85% efficiency, and carries a CrossFire Certified rating.

Introduction

Today we have the opportunity to review the flagship power supply from a new power supply line at Ultra Products, the Ultra X3 1000W. The X3 1000W marks Ultra's entrance into the 1000W power supply market, a market which already contains a number of high powered offerings from various companies. So how does Ultra's entrant fair in the high end that already contains the likes of Enermax, PC Power and Cooling, Topower, Silverstone, etc?

Ultra Products is a marketer of a wide variety of PC products ranging from media readers to cases to power supplies to cables to memory and on through a seemingly unending list of product categories. By now the name Ultra is fairly well known in both power supply and regular PC peripheral circles due in large part to the striking looks of many of their products. This characteristic coupled with the mass market use of modular cables is what drove much of Ultra’s early success in the power supply market. These days though, we find Ultra working very hard to consolidate their position and improve their power supply offerings by changing up their OEM partners with today’s power supply, the X3 1000W (Part# ULT40064), being from Andyson.

Andyson is a company that end users may or may not be familiar with as they have provided the basis for a number of Hiper power supplies, Sunbeamtech power supplies, and others. Ultra has also used Andyson for some of their other units including members of their X-Pro line of branded power supplies (X-Pro 600w EE).

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The Ultra X3 1000w is the largest capacity power supply from Ultra to date and comes dressed to the nines to top it off. With this package Ultra is attempting to take on the very difficult high-end computer user, modding community, and quiet cooling crowd all in a 1000w package and their product description is not shy in declaring so:

Ultra pulls out all of the stops for their latest power supply. By combining our "EE" (Energy Efficient) platform, which converts as much as 85% of AC power into DC power during typical loads, with a quiet 135MM ball bearing fan, our patented modular interface and our Limited Lifetime Warranty, Ultra clearly dominates the market with the new X3 power supply! The X3 is super efficient, using less electricity than other power supplies when providing power to your computer and it generates less heat. Cooling is substantial yet silent by utilizing a thermostatically controlled 135MM ball bearing fan and a honeycomb cut exhaust grill. The X3 also has full range active PFC, which improves apparent power used by the computer. The modular interface allows you to only plug in the cables you actually require for your particular PC. The X3 is ready for even the most high end gaming rigs by providing up to four 6-pin PCI-e connectors, and the 800W and 1000W models provide the newest 8-pin PCI-e connector for the latest 300W graphics cards. If the you're looking for an efficient, quiet, powerful, modular power supply with a Lifetime Warranty, there's no reason to look any farther than the Ultra X3!

Now that we know what Ultra expects from this power supply lets see what we have to look forward to when we purchase the X3 1000w in terms of documentation, accessories, cable count, rail layout, output characteristics, and general build quality