Ultra X3 600W & 1,000W PSUs

Value

While I'm not as generally well adept in the knowledge of US pricing, the X3 600W seems a touch on the expensive side, dropping in at just over $100. However, it is worth remembering that this is Ultra's premium product line and if you look around at some of the other premium 600W units, it doesn't seem that bad in comparison.

The X3 1,000W is $250 and from the looks this is again quite expensive but is around the same price as the CoolerMaster RealPower Pro. It's still cheaper than the Thermaltake ToughPower and also our previous favourite, the Enermax Galaxy 1,000W. On the other hand, the Antec 1kW Quattro is just $191, saving you some $60 - but is it too cheap? How can Antec undercut so many other brands by so much? I guess we'll have to find out in the future...

Conclusions

Out the box the X3s look fantastic: there's a consistent style to everything and the cables are truly modular in their variety of length. It is missing a few bits like quick-release molex plugs and varying lengths of ATX cable, perhaps, as well as somewhere to keep the extra cables.

However, I can't really fault Ultra - the people behind it have gone to the effort of making something actually unique rather than the usual "black cable braid" then just making a half dozen plug sockets on the PSU. The 600W might be a bit more expensive than the competition, but it's an awesome bit of kit, even if you are (quite appropriately) limited to just using a single high end graphics card or a couple of mid-rangers (if you'd class the 8800 GT as decidedly mid-range).

That said, there are those of us who have no intention of ever investing in SLI or CrossFire, those who simply can't afford a couple of GTXs or run such small cases that it's impossible to set up a multi-GPU configuration. What I'm saying is that there should still be plenty of appeal for a 600W unit.


If you want the extra space, because you might want the option of going multi-GPU in the future, then even though we didn't test the 800W it should perform somewhere between the 600W and 1,000W - i.e. extremely well. However, as we've not tested it, we can't really make a solid recommendation based on the performance of other units. The 1,000W did fail at 3.3V/5V, but only at full load - so it comes down to whether you care about whether it does exactly what it says on the tin, or are buying something with a fair bit of overhead to make sure it runs quieter and cooler. Both models had a continually massive PFC rating and were a fair few percent over the magic 80 percent efficiency range throughout.

So what about the 1,000W then? Well, yes and no. The reason for our indecision is that there are other excellent 1,000W models we've previously reviewed from Enermax and Tagan. Both of these units performed exceptionally throughout our testing and still continue to be our recommendations at this kind of capacity. The fact the Ultra X3 1,000W's 3.3V and 5V rails failed at full load marred an otherwise solid showing from the unit.

Final Thoughts

The Ultra X3 600W and 1,000W units overall are fantastic bits of kit - they look as good as you can get and have an awesome set of cables to complement the shiny gunmetal box. If you need a 1,000W model then the Tagan or Enermax might still be slightly better options in terms of absolute performance though. The Ultra X3 600W is an excellent choice for those wanting a mainstream unit and although it may cost a bit more, it's certainly a worthwhile investment. Many will still love the highly recommended Corsair HX620, and quite rightly so, but the 600W X3 should be considered quite a serious contender to it because it does just about everything right.

Ultra X3 600W

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

Ultra X3 1,000W

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

What do these scores mean?