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- Date:
- Tuesday , November 24, 2009
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Ultra X4 850W and 1050W Power Supplies Review
Ultra Products is a marketer of a wide variety of PC products ranging from media readers to computer chassis to power supplies to cables to memory and on through a seemingly unending list of product categories.
Overview
The first thing we are going to look at with the Ultra X4 850W and the X4 1050W are their packaging, accessories, and documentation. While normally none of these items is a make or break item for a power supply the packaging quite often contains a lot of information about the product we are purchasing. The inclusion of an owner’s manual that provides actual information about our product is also of great help. Accessories are almost unnecessary with a power supply as the unit is self contained, unless it is modular, but there are cases where a manufacturer can include useful accessories to make installation, routing, and use more efficient.
X4 850W
X4 1050W
The packaging for both the X4 850W and X4 1050W is large and contains a lot of information. Barring the differences related to their relative DC output capacities, the packaging for both units is identical. We find printed on each box the power label (reproduced below), basic electrical specifications, cable count (though the 6 pin PCI-Express count is wrong), 80Plus logo, and advertisements for the low noise nature of this unit along with its full modularity. A quick check of the 80Plus website finds both the X4 850W and 1050W certified for 80 Plus Silver which is 85%-88%-85% (at 20%-50%-100% load). This is really excellent and something we will look at later. Next up we see that while not SLI certified, the X4 1050W is certified for HD 5970 CrossFire. Lastly, the X4 series, like Ultra's other power supplies, is advertised as carrying a Lifetime warranty. However, users must register their product with Ultra otherwise it defaults to just a 3 year warranty. The Lifetime warranty would technically be the longest warranty a product could carry so it is going to be rather hard to ding Ultra on that front today.
As we see from the information above both of these units are very similar. The X4 850W has 60A or ~84% of its total possible output capacity available on the 12v rail while the X4 1050W has 72A or ~87% of its total output available on its 12v rail. These used to be very much standard kinds of capacities for 850W and 1050W units, but with the wide spread usage of newer topologies we are seeing the 12v capacity on a lot of units shift even higher than what the X4 units are sporting. As such, while not bad per se the X4's may be starting to fall a bit behind the power curve in this regard. Paired with these outputs we find that both units are enjoying 3 modiifed 8 pin PCI-Express and 3 6 pin PCI-Express connectors along with a total of 22 peripheral connectors (11 SATA, 9 Molex, 2 FDD). This arrangement is certianly enough for a 1050W unit let alone an 850W unit.
X4 850W
X4 1050W
Once we open the Ultra X4 850W and 1050W we are left with the same basic assortment of items including the power supply, the power cable, mounting screws, modular cables in a bag, the user manual, warranty card, and a rubber mounting gasket. The user manual that comes with the X4's are both identical and are 11 pages long. Included in the manuals are the power table, some basic installation instructions, a map of the modular interface, pinouts, and some marketing points. We see among those marketing points that the unit is advertised as having an operating temperature of up to 40C. Included on the warranty card is the standard 3 year warranty terms and the information neccesary for registering your power supply for Ultra's upgraded Lifetime Warranty. Overall, the manual is decent, though the electrical specifications could be more detailed, and the most important basic information is all here.