Ultra Limited Edition 550W Power Supply- $13 AR

Not.
Ultra is the Tiger Direct house brand. Only the top end are acceptable.
This one I suspect the internal design is 6 to 8 years old, TD rebates are difficult to non existent (or were, no recent experience), power rating is very doubtful.
Having only 2 SATA plugs means "ulra" low end, as does 110-220 volt switch. As does "claimed" 72% efficiency. Expect a 300-350 watt psu about 60% efficent, likely low end chinese capacitors.
Not worth it.

Anything reasonable should be 80+ if not 80+ Bronze psu.

N** has the Antec VP 450 for sale, newegg does periodic sales of dependable/warrantied power supplies. newegg had a "shellshocker" for the ANTEC Neo Eco 400 for $30. The Corsair CX430 is often $25 after rebates.
 
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You couldn't get me to put an Ultra supply in my PC for free. I have had 2 bad experiences with exploding Ultra PSU's back in my early days.
 
Some ultras were decent, and reviewed to be too as well. I used a well reviewed FAR unit for 5 years before some other component in the system gave out. It wasn't worth it to put that in a new system, sadly.
 
People never seem to realize that your power supply is one of, if not THE, most important components in your build! Don't take the cheapo route!
 
Always buy a quality power supply... the few times I purchased one which was less expensive it would die within less than a year and kill *at least* the motherboard too.
 
got one in my htpc and its been running for 2 years. no problems.....yet, lol. but i wouldn't use them anymore because of reviews.
 
Derangel said:
Low end Ultra PSU's are garbage. Their higher end ones are actually pretty good.
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LIES! I had an Ultra X4(X3?) 750w that went pop, pop, sizzle on me about 5 years ago.
 
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Had an Ultra X2 that died in under a year, lol. The replacement died right after the warranty was up. Haha.
 
Build quality is questionable, and even at USA energy prices this is not a bargain.
$23 - .03 before MIR.

Power rating and 2 SATA plugs does not compute.
 
NickJames said:
LIES! I had an Ultra X4(X3?) 750w that went pop, pop, sizzle on me about 5 years ago.
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One unit. Five years ago. Reviews on their high end units are usually really good. They switched OEMs on their high end units a few years back I believe.
 
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page2713.htm

Ultra power supplies are one of the brands that are hit-or-miss. The higher end ones seem to have technical merit and get good ratings. You can use the web site I linked to read reviews on the ones you're considering. Personally I'd steer clear of this one. There's no reviews on it AFAIK. You have to realize that at some point they cut corners if they are giving you "550 watts" for $13 at the end of it all.

If you want a budget PSU get something like the Corsair CX430. At least with Corsair you know they have a minimum standard of quality, and they won't fry your computer.
 
I find it hard to buy anything other than an Antec VP450 if you're on a budget. Quality FSP based power supply. There's a couple reviews out there on it, one had it loaded at 550watts and it still kept everything in spec, hard to beat when it's only $35 without any sales going on.
 
The last ultra psu i had was a modular 550w x-connect and i never had any issues with it. That being said this is definitely a low end psu, but if someone is making a pc out of some old hardware for granny to go on ebay this would be the thing to use. I doubt its really any worse then the average stock psu in most pre-built pc's, probably a bit better. If you check out the 23 reviews on td nearly all of them are favorable. Also keep in mind that people are more likely to review a product if they have problems with it. If these things were blowing up people would be bitching.
 
Tbird's recommendation is compelling. And then Spike? XD. Really you started this thread? Most people are worried about a power spike. Do we call this a thread spike? I think irony is conductive. :)
 
I wouldn't put a low quality PSU in my system for free... the last thing you want is for your shit to be going up in smoke. I had a dying (shitty) PSU nuke a x1900 years ago along with my Audigy 2, strangely enough. Not worth the potential heartbreak.
 
Geez. If I wanted to get a couple more years out of a low end system for $11. This would seem to fit the bill. I would actually buy this right now for that reason if I wasn't sick and tired of mail in rebates at the moment.
 
m33pm33p said:
People never seem to realize that your power supply is one of, if not THE, most important components in your build! Don't take the cheapo route!
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+1

There are some things that not a bargain at any price.
 
jpm100 said:
Geez. If I wanted to get a couple more years out of a low end system for $11. This would seem to fit the bill. I would actually buy this right now for that reason if I wasn't sick and tired of mail in rebates at the moment.
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I think for $11 in a "low end" system it would be worth a try. I've used some Ultra blow outs that worked for low end to replace a failed piece of junk PSU.
 
prime2515102 said:
This is not true at all. Do a price search and you'll find at least 100 stores that sell Ultra products.
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They do distribute Ultra to many stores but it is a subsidiary of Systemax which also owns CompUSA, TigerDirect, Circuit City and a shit ton of other places. The brand their mostly associated with though is Power Up! which takes products from other manufacturers and rebrands them to Power Up!
 
NickJames said:
They do distribute Ultra to many stores but it is a subsidiary of Systemax which also owns CompUSA, TigerDirect, Circuit City and a shit ton of other places. The brand their mostly associated with though is Power Up! which takes products from other manufacturers and rebrands them to Power Up!
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I didn't realize that. I would've never bought my PSU tester and laptop cooler from them if I'd known (I still have a grudge against tiger direct from like 10 years ago lol).
 
The 450W variant is $8.


I wouldn't use one for a primary rig, but I would consider it for a replacement for an aging system, a power source to experiment with, or a test/emergency PSU. It's so cheap that there are certainly uses for it, even if the quality is questionable.
 
More proof Ultra SUCKS. My brother bought a non-modular 750w Ultra PSU awhile back without asking me because "OMG BIG NUMBERS SMALL COST" and so it ran fine on his i5 rig with an HIS 6850 for awhile but his HIS card crapped out. So he wanted me to buy him a new card and I got him the 7950 for $300 from newegg and put it in his PC. Of course almost every few boot ups his PC gives him a no GPU found POST code. The 7950 works fine after 10 boots on my 500w corsair control bench PC until I swapped it with the 750w Ultra PSU, lo and behold it fails with the same problem every 5 boots or so.
 
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