Date: September 3rd, 2007
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Ultra
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PRODUCT PICTORIAL AND WALKTHROUGH (cont'd)
The FlexForce cables that Ultra supplies with the X3 600W are numerous and have ample length and connectors. I like the design of the cables. They are all very sleek and flexible, making cable routing much easier. Ultra can call the finish “titanium like” if they want; I call it black.
The main ATX cable is clearly marked, and has no 20- to 24-pin feature. At this stage of the game, I can't fault Ultra for lack of 20-pin support and this plug would likely work with most 20-pin boards anyway.
The cable set gives the user lots of options. Getting a system wired in a clean and efficient manner will be quite easy with the X3 600W. By the way, the above photo illustrates just a sampling of the fifteen included FlexForce cables.
The wall cord uses 16 AWG wire, heavier than the more common 18 AWG (or smaller) found in most other cords. Ultra also includes a cable for fans. This handy item allows three 3-pin fans to be powered directly from the PSU. This is a nice feature that I wish more modular PSU providers would include.
PRODUCT INSTALLATION AND TESTING
For this review, I've chosen a DFI Infinity P965-S motherboard coupled with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor (at 3.2Ghz.) The other components are listed below.
- eVGA 7800 GS CO graphics card with Gigabyte V-Power cooler
- Buffalo Firestix PC2-6400 (1024mb X 2) memory
- Ultra Products X3 600W modular PSU
- Western Digital Raptor 360 SATA hard drive
- LG DVD-RW drive
Testing consisted of monitoring voltages from the +3.3V, +5V, and +12V rails while the system was at idle, and during multiple passes of Prime95 on both cores while running loops of 3Dmark05. Voltages were monitored with a digital multimeter. Over several days of testing, including overclocks exceeding 30%, rails were rock stable and not one power issue reared its ugly head. Here are the results.
The results were excellent and unsurprising, given the specifications. The measured voltages were very close to their respective targets and varied little during load testing. The fan was essentially silent throughout the several days of testing and the PSU put out very little heat, a testament to its efficiency.
