Ultra X4 1050 Watt Power Supply

Testing:

For our testing, we used a standard volt meter to read the voltage of the various rails while the power supply was idle and while under load.

Test Rig

• NZXT Whisper Case
• Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Motherboard
• Intel Core i7-920
• 6GB Crucial Ballistx Tracer RAM
• Patriot 256GB Torqx SSD
• Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB Drive
• Palit Radeon 4870 X2
  
• Ultra X4 1050 Watt Power Supply
• Windows 7 x64

We also used a standard power supply tester to confirm voltages when the power supply was not hooked into the system.

In case you can’t read the picture, here’s the information in nice table format.

As we can see, the power supply has pretty tight voltages with nothing plugged in. The real question is how well it holds up under load.

The load on the system was generated by running the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat benchmark tool. I then measured the voltage across the 12V rail. While idle, the power supply had a voltage of 12.28V and while under load 12.26V. This is a difference of .02V and is a 0.1% difference in voltage, which is quite good. The rest of the rails checked in with similar performance.

What is Active PFC and why do you want it?

Power Factor Correction (PFC), is a means of correcting the actual input voltage to be closer to the ideal input voltage. This in turn boosts the overall efficiency of the system. Because Active PFC uses a circuit to correct power factor, Active PFC is able to generate a theoretical power factor of over 95%. Active Power Factor Correction also markedly diminishes total harmonics, automatically corrects for AC input voltage, and is capable of a full range of input voltage. Since Active PFC is the more complex method of Power Factor Correction, it is more expensive to produce an Active PFC power supply.

Conclusion:

The 1050 watt flavor of the X4 line functioned about as we expected. It’s good to see Ultra is consistent in quality control across their whole line. The fully modular design is a refreshing experience for someone used to dealing will the jungle of wires that other power supplies have. Gone are the days of having to tuck the spare wires on top of the power supply or on top of the optical drive. Don’t need a wire? Don’t attach it, plain and simple. The Active PFC is a nice touch and what I would consider a necessity on a high performance power supply like this. When you have this much invested into a power supply, the last thing you want is for it to be fried due to crappy input voltage. The price is the only thing that’s somewhat offsetting about this product. However, if you’re budgeting for a system that actually needs a kilowatt power supply, then odds are, money won’t be too much of an issue. Overall this is a good power supply and should be able to handle near anything you throw at it.

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