Ultra X4 1050 Watt Power Supply

Introduction:

Ultra, the company who’s claim to fame is inventing the modular power supply, brings us another one of their X4 creations. This 1050 Watt installment is very similar to the 850 Watt version that we reviewed a while ago. Their last power supply got good marks in the lab, lets see if their more powerful version can pull off the same.

At 1050 Watts this power supply is targeted towards users with power hungry systems. A look at the number and type of connectors on the rear of the power supply indicates that it is clearly meant for a computer with many components key of which are PCI-E video cards.

Features:

• Modular Design – Only Connect the Cables You Need
• Lifetime Warranty – Your Investment is in Good Hands
• 80+ Silver Certified – Save $$$ on Home Electricity Bills
• 135mm Low Noise Fan – Improved Cooling & Reduced Acoustics
• ATI CrossFire & NVIDIA SLI Certified – When One Graphics Card Just isn’t Enough
• Tons of Included Extras – The Icing on the Cake

The limited lifetime warranty is only applicable once you register your power supply with Ultra, otherwise it’s just a 3 year warranty.

Specifications:

Form factor	ATX
Wattage	1050-Watt
SLI/Crossfire	SLI and CrossFire Certified
Modular Cabling	Yes
Special Features	Modular
Energy Efficiency	80 PLUS Silver
Fan	135 mm
Input Voltage	115 ~ 230
+3.3V	24A
+5V	30A
+12V 1	76A
-12V	.05A
+5VSB	3A
Dimensions	5.8″ x 6″ x 3.5″
Motherboard Connector	24-Pin
Motherboard Power Connector	4 Pin MB 8 Pin MB
6-Pin PCI-Express Connector	6
8-Pin PCI-Express Connector	3
4-Pin Floppy Connector	2
4-Pin Peripheral Connector	9
SATA Power Connector	11

As we mentioned earlier this board is definitely for the graphics and power hungry systems. We can see 3 PCI-E 6 pin connectors and 3 PCI-E 8 pin connectors which essentially means you could power 6 video cards or three dual plug heavy hitting cards. We are suprised to see manufacturers still including floppy power connectors on PSU’s these days. Can you even buy systems with a floppy drive any more?  For motherboard power you will be happy to see that the 1050 Ultra X4 has both a 4 and 8 pin power connector for modern and server systems which require these connectors. Those with a lot of hard drives are not let down either with a grand total of 11 SATA power connectors. Good luck finding ways to cram 11 hard drives into a case, a even better luck moving the heat generated by that many drives.

Now lets take a closer look at this power supply and see what you can expect inside the box.

Packaging/Closer Look:

Upon opening the box we find it split into two separate areas, one holding the power supply, which is securely sealed in foam, and the other, a box containing the wires / connectors.

This power supply is fully modular, just like the rest of the power supplies in the X4 series. This one features a 135mm fan to cool it off. This is a bit larger of a fan than what you find in most power supplies (majority are 120mm). This means that the fan doesn’t need to spin as fast to move the same amount of air as a 120mm fan. This equates to an overall quieter power supply.

The cables come packaged inside of a nice carrying case. This will keep your cables nice and organized when you don’t need them, and make it easy to find the one you need if you’re upgrading your system.

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.

Rail	Value
+5V	5.1V
+12V1	12.4V
+3.3V	3.3V
-12V	12.0V
+12V2	12.3V
+5VSB	5.1V

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.

	Idle	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.