Date: June 20th, 2007
Article by: Mike Carter (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Ultra
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PRODUCT PICTORAL AND WALKTHROUGH

The first thing most people will notice is the finish on the PSU. Clad in what Ultra calls their Titanium finish, the X3 is a high gloss beauty, just begging for a windowed case to shine through. The housing is on the long side, though, and may cause troubles installing in smaller cases. Just something to bear in mind. I would have to remove my Kandalf's top mounted ports to install the X3.

The next thing we'll be looking at is the business end. Unlike most modular PSU's which have a permanently connected 12v motherboard connector, Ultra has made all of the connectors modular. In another nice touch, the connectors correspond to their intended use; each type of connector is a different shape, so you can only plug the proper connector in to the proper jack.
Cables are aplenty, as listed in the specs above. Whether you have a rig with lots of SATA peripherals, or a cool-running gaming machine with tons of fans, you'll not find a shortage of connectors here. Running down the list, you'll find:
One 24 pin motherboard connector. This is something to keep in mind while shopping, if you have an older motherboard, as I am using for this test. There is no provision for 20 pin motherboards, so plan on picking up an adapter if you need one.

One 8 pin and one 4 pin 12v motherboard connector.

Four 6-pin PCI Express connectors

Two 8-pin PCI Express connectors for newer, high-powered vid cards