Ultra X3 1600w Power Supply @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Ultra X3 1600w Power Supply - Ultra makes a huge statement with their 1600 watt rated power supply. This is so much power that we had difficulty fully load testing the PSU, but we did finally realize the 1600w rating. Yep, all 1600w without burning down the house and your household wiring is something you will want to take into very serious consideration.

The X3 1600w runs circles around its competitors in almost every category tested bar none. The amazing DC output capacity that immediately draws a user to this power supply comes with one big caveat. While almost no desktop computer would actually push this unit to its limit, once one does only a select few individuals with the correct infrastructure will be able to use all 1600 watts of its DC capacity due to the AC power draw.
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God DAMN. :eek:

(Read through the whole thing. Don't know what else needs to be said.)

I'm suddenly tempted to buy one of these, a whole bunch of PicoPSU 120W's, and run every computer in my house off this one PSU. :p
 
Holy frag-a-moly! :eek:

Indeed, in order to even power this unit to full capacity a user is going to require a dedicated 20A circuit (and 20A receptacle) and then if at full load there is almost literally no capacity on that circuit to spare as we were drawing 2042w at 100% at 45c which is ~17A. For users not familiar with the typical 20A circuit found in a home it is not rated for 100% continuous load (though there can be exceptions) but rather is limited to ~80% of that capacity for continuous loads. The point of this is, while the unit is certainly capable of delivering on its promised DC output the reality is that DC output is unfeasible for 99% of household users, even if they could find a way to load a PC with enough gear to draw 1600w DC.
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I can see it know:

"Honey, I need to call an electrician."
"What for?"
"Well, we need a new electrical circuit in the house."
"Really? Why?"
"Well this new PSU I bought needs a dedicated 30A circuit to make it run properly."
 
mavalpha said:
I'm suddenly tempted to buy one of these.....
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That is exactly what I told Paul after giving the article full edit today. I want one too and I have no dman need for one at all!
 
When you're reaching for this much power, does it make sense to go to 220V supply?
Then we could just co-opt the dryer / range circuit in the house...
 
Wow, this really looks like overkill for a power supply. I would love to see a second review where you actually hook up hardware to the power supply to see how many components it takes to max the unit out. :D
 
Having just installed the Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W, I have to say: Booooo!

Nah, just kidding. That TP 1200 should hold me until its connectors become obsolete! But the all-modular design and flat cables of the Ultra are just too nice.

Great review.
 
grampaPropTop said:
When you're reaching for this much power, does it make sense to go to 220V supply?
Then we could just co-opt the dryer / range circuit in the house...
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Honestly, I would have to say yes. Or guess we will have to set up office in the laundry room. :)
 
A couple years ago people joked about needing dedicated circuits for their computers. Well now we need a dedicated just for the powersupply and another for monitor, printer, speakers, and everything else :D. All I have to say is WOW.
 
It would be interesting to test such dual-fan approach with one of the fans disabled, to see what would happen if one of the fans would fail in "real life". I had an old dual-fan Enermax PSU and one of its fans failed at some time and it continued to work perfectly with only a single fan running until I accidentally (was cleaning the case from all the dust that tends to stick to all of the holes on it due to a "negative pressure" inside) noticed it and replaced it.
 
I wonder when 2kw, and maybe 3kw supplies come out? JK. But seriously, that is one badass psu.
 
Dynafrom said:
I wonder when 2kw, and maybe 3kw supplies come out? JK. But seriously, that is one badass psu.
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At 120v AC input? Not anytime soon for the reasons mentioned in the article. OCZ had a showpiece 2KW external that may work at some point. It was basically 2 1KW Topower units in a housing with 2 power plugs.
 
So 1600w is probably the peak we will see with a single PSU in the home... cool beans!


I'm curious as to how many drives this sucker can run given on a basic system :D The price is cheap too.

I'm also curious about the noise it would produce
 
It seems to have been missed by a few folks a couple times too. :D
 
I think this may be perfect for my next build. :)
 
Holy hell that's a lot of power supply :eek:

I actually clicked this article wanting to see how this PSU did, kinda expecting it to be like watching a car accident. I know that in the past Ultra didn't always have the best reputation for making power supplies, so I was wondering if that had changed any. Well it looks like they've got it figured out, with the power that beast is outputting. I know there's very little need for something this powerful, but I hadn't even thought about having to upgrade your home's electrical infrastructure in order to use it :p

The article was very informative and very thorough. Before I read it, I didn't except Ultra to score a Gold award, but it seems fitting based on that thing's performance.
 
I wonder if this sucker can power 50 hard drives and a system? :D
 
I fall in the 1% of households that actually has a dedicated 20a 12ga copper power line from my electrical panel to my computer.

Time for a new PS! Now I can actually install the seven other Seagate 15k.4s I have. :)
 
Just like to say thanks for providing the individual lengths of all the different power cables. This is important to me and I hope you include it in all your future reviews.
 
After I read the review on the X3 1600 I decided to go with a Thermaltake 1200. I'm running 8800 GTX's in SLI with 3 hard drives and 2 optical drives with 8GB DDR2 under Win XP-Pro64. For me even the Toughpower 1200 is over kill. I can't imagine what it would take to need more juice than that.
 
There was a time when making this more efficient seemed like a good idea. Pointless overkill.
 
I would LOVE to see [H] show us EXACTLY how many computer components it takes to draw this much power! Show us just how many dozens of hard drives it takes to exceed 1000w of power, 1200w, 1400, 1600!!!

I would love it! Since trade shows have shown high performance SLI systems with like 8 hard drives runnign off of good 650w PSU's!!
 
Might be worth pointing out that we had to go to Ultra for this, they did not come to us wanting press on it. They are in no way "pushing" this unit. Still it is a feather in their cap if nothing else and proves that they can make an awesome PSU when some people have said they just can't do it.
 
I want one of these.

Except, my house is wired for multiple sockets per 15a breaker, and in my case, if I ever loaded it up to even half the rated wattage, it would trip.

That, and my pc draws 117w.
 
It seems to make sense to me to have these things using two power plugs. That way, if the room has two circuits, the load could be separated.

You'd need two surge protectors/UPSs though. And suddenly we're talking about a really ghetto'd setup :)
 
I've been a long time fan of HardOCP, but I'm getting really sick of there reviews, and I think they need to raise their standards. Take this PS for example, they determined that it runs great, but 99% of home users won't be able to use it. That should be an immediate disqualification for any award.

The number of awards being given out has been steadily increasing. This is probably because hardware is getting better and more reliable. When you start giving silver and gold awards to everything you review, they loose their meaning. I think it's time [H]OCP upped it's standards to include usability, price , efficiency and customer satisfaction. If a PS runs great but will trip the breaker in your house, it's useless and should be stated as such. If a spankin new video card can run your favorite new game at 60+ FPS with all the highest settings, but costs close to $1,000 and needs 2 power plugs to run, it's not practical for most users (sure there is some kid out there whose parents will get him one just to shut him up for a few days) and deserves at most a silver award.

I've gotten to the point that when I see a new review for something I immediately skip to the end to see what award they give it. If it gets one, I almost never read the article. The awards used to mean that the product was well built and practical for users, no more.

Side note:
The number of times I've wondered if [H]OCP took a payoff for a review has been steadily increasing as well
 
daragon said:
I've been a long time fan of HardOCP, but I'm getting really sick of there reviews, and I think they need to raise their standards. Take this PS for example, they determined that it runs great, but 99% of home users won't be able to use it. That should be an immediate disqualification for any award.
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Actually that was not what was determined and had you read the article you would have seen as much. At 1200w-1300w which it would cap at formost users it is an amazingly good power supply. Beyond that it can do exactly what it is labeled to do, and do it exceedingly well. That makes it worthy of an award. The fact that most users could never draw 1600w from it is not the pwoer supplies fault as it only produces what is demanded of it. The fact that this could exceed a 15A breaker is not the power supplies fault either as it is capable of doing what it is labeled to do when used in accordance with its instructions.....and it does it very well.

Quite simply if you want reviews of ghetto power supplies everyday go to any number of websites that get the newest Deer product in and give it a triple platinum editors choice award. We aren't going to spend every moment of every day blowing up crap when most users won't buy crap. Every once in a while it makes for interesting reading (and warning which is why we do roundups every now and again) but users want reviews about products they are likely to buy.....not things that they throw out.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
Actually that was not what was determined and had you read the article you would have seen as much. At 1200w-1300w which it would cap at formost users it is an amazingly good power supply. Beyond that it can do exactly what it is labeled to do, and do it exceedingly well. That makes it worthy of an award. The fact that most users could never draw 1600w from it is not the pwoer supplies fault as it only produces what is demanded of it. The fact that this could exceed a 15A breaker is not the power supplies fault either as it is capable of doing what it is labeled to do when used in accordance with its instructions.....and it does it very well.

Quite simply if you want reviews of ghetto power supplies everyday go to any number of websites that get the newest Deer product in and give it a triple platinum editors choice award. We aren't going to spend every moment of every day blowing up crap when most users won't buy crap. Every once in a while it makes for interesting reading (and warning which is why we do roundups every now and again) but users want reviews about products they are likely to buy.....not things that they throw out.
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You are absolutely right, the PS performs as labeled and caps it's performance below spec so it doesn't blow users circuit breakers. That makes it worthy of an award. Awards are for excellence, not for "meets expectations."

Products users will buy, yeah right, this unit is $400. That's way above the budget I put on PS when I build a computer. Not to mention, as you stated, users will never use the full capacity of this device, making it a big, bulky, power consuming, waste of money.
 
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