Ultra X4 750 Watt Modular PSU

The Ultra X3 series PSU’s were some nice modular PSUs back in the time, however it’s low efficiency was disappointing. This time the new X4 750W PSU is certified by the 80Plus program guaranteeing a reliable and efficient PSU.

Introduction

It has been a very long time since Ultra has came out with their X3 series power supplies. While these power supplies came with large power outputs like 1600W, their efficiency and noise, however, was just not up to par with other manufacturers. With the release of the new Ultra X4 series power supplies, these problems were taken into consideration and were fixed to give the best experience to the users. The new X4 series power supplies are certified with the 80Plus certification and they come in wide variety forms. Some of the X4 power supplies have a bronze certification while others have a Silver certification. In todays review, we will be taking a look at the Ultra X4 750W Modular Power Supply, that comes with a 135mm silent fan, and is 80Plus Bronze certified. We are going to compare it to the older X3 brother and some other power supplies provided by other manufacturers. Lets take a look at whether the X4 power supplies are up to par with the other high end power supplies.

features

Protecting Your Investment

• Integrated short circuit protection and thermal overload sensors automatically protects the PC when surges or overheating become an issue.
• 135mm fan improves airflow throughout the chassis while keeping noise at a minimum

Hassle-Free Installation

• With Ultra’s patented Modular Design, you only connect the cables which you need increasing airflow and giving your chasis that nice clean-look

Solid Support

• With 3 year standard and lifetime warranty availabhle upon registration, Ultra’s customer service meets teh highest industry standards.

You can see here that Ultra has included many key features includeing a 135mm fan. This large fan will ensure the PSU runs cool, and thus keep your components running with clean power. The modular design insures that you wont have a bunch of random unneeded cables clogging up the airflow in your case.

• Modular Design – Only Connect the Cables You Need
• Lifetime Warranty – Your Investment is in Good Hands
• 80+ Bronze Certified – Save $$$ on Home Electricity Bills
• 135mm Low Noise Fan – Improved Cooling & Reduced Acoustics
• Tons of Included Extras – The Icing on the Cake

• Power Supply
• Cables
• Cable Carrying Case
• Manual
• Regular Screws
• Registration Card
• Silicone Vibration Dampener
• Thumb Screws
• Velcro Straps
• Zip Tie

The velcro straps the zip ties and the silicone vibration dampeners are a nice addition to the X4 series power supplies.

specifications

Main specifications:

Over Voltage Protection

While there are some over voltage protections set on the power supply, they seem a bit loose to me. Just thinking about 15.0V ± 10% is a bit scary. If for instance it happens to be +10% more that would be a total of 16.5V before the overvoltage protection kicks in. That could easily damage some hardware in the PC.

These are the connectors that come with the Ultra X4 750W Power Suppy:

24 pin	P8 MB	P4 MB	Peripheral	FDD	SATA	6-pin PCI-E	8-pin PCI-E
x 1	x 1	x 1	x 9	x 2	x 11	x 6	x 3

It is important to not that the X4 also comes with a dual fan adapter which connects to a single molex connector.

Here is the cable and lenght specifications for the power supply:

Here is the output table for the Ultra X4 750W Modular Power Supply:

Efficiency graph from the X4 Manual:

Dimension specifications for those that need exact measurements for their new system:

Here is a picture labeling all the modular cables that can be plugged into the X4 750W power supply:

The MTBF for this power supply is 100,000 hours at 25C. And finally some of the savety and agency approvals are the: UL 1950, IEC 60950, FCC Class B, CE, and CB.

WHAT ABOUT THEM RAILS?

We have all, no doubt, been told that when purchasing a power supply that the number to look for is the amps on the 12V rail. What are each of the different rails for though, and why is the 12V rail typically the most important? Why the heck are they called rails? Let’s take at look at each and see.

-12V – This rail is pretty much obsolete now and is only kept on to provide backward compatibility with older hardware. Some older types of serial port circuits required both -12V and +12V voltages, but since almost no one except industrial users use serial ports anymore you as a typical home user can pretty much disregard this rail.

-5V – Again this is another obsolete rail, the -5V was used for old school floppy controllers and some ISA bus cards. Again, no need for the typical home user to worry about this rail.

0V – Though not listed on any manufacturer spec sheet, every power supply has a 0V ground line. The ground signal is used to complete circuits with other voltages and provide a plane of reference against which other voltages are measured.

+3.3V – Finally we are starting to get into something useful! The +3.3V rail was introduced with the ATX form factor in order to power second generation Pentium chips. Previously the CPU was powered by the +5V rail (along with the system memory and everything else on the motherboard), but a reduced voltage was needed in order to reduce power consumption as the chips got faster. Until just recently, the +3.3V was used to exclusively power the CPU as well as some types of system memory, AGP video cards and other circuits.

+ 5V – As mentioned above, the +5V used to run the motherboard, CPU and the majority of other system components on older pre ATX based systems. On newer systems, many of the components have migrated to either the +3.3V or +12V rails, but the motherboard and many of its onboard components still use the +5V rail so it is of importance to the typical home user.

+5V SB – The +5V Standby or “Soft Power” signal carries the same output level as the +5V rail but is independent and is always on, even when the computer is turned off. This rail allows for two things. First, it allows the motherboard to control the power supply when it is off by enabling features such as wake up from sleep mode, or wake on LAN technology to function. It also is what allows Windows to turn your computer off automatically on shutdown as opposed to previous AT supplies where you had to bend over and push the button. Every standard ATX power supply on the market will include this rail.

+ 12V – The +12V, also known as the mother of all rails, is now used to power the most demanding components in your system including the CPU, hard drives, cooling fans, and graphics cards. Historically the +12V rail was used only to power drives and cooling fans. With the introduction of the 4-pin CPU plug on P4 motherboards and then eventually AMD based motherboards, in order to supply newer power hungry CPUs, the +12V rail suddenly started to grow in importance. Today, dual core based motherboard require an 8-pin +12V connector to supply their power needs. High end GPU cards have also jumped on the +12V rail, which has required PSU makers to adapt. Where previously there was only a single +12V rail, there are now two or more, each designated to power specific devices in order to ensure that nothing is underpowered.

Now as to why they are called rails, the best explanation that I can find is that the term comes from the wacky world of electronics and it refers to a long metal bar or strip that is used to provide a particular voltage level. Perhaps someone with a deeper understanding of all things electrical could let me know whether or not that is true.

A closer look

 Click Image For a Larger One

Finally, here are the cables included with the power supply. The specifications about cable lenght are provided on the second page, so if you are interested in how long each of these cables are please go ahead and skip back to the second page.

Testing Methodology

When it comes to power supplies, any power supply, what you’re really looking for is good clean voltage and plenty of it. Current standards are 5% variance on any rail maximum, which is a little more lax than my personal standard of 3% max everywhere but the +5vSB (+5v stand by) which is always on even when the power supply and computer are off. On the +5vSB it’s not unusual to see 5% and since it’s only for wake on Lan or by device feature it’s not a big deal.

Like a lot of you enthusiasts out there, our PC’s are an ongoing work of art that we have a lot of cash invested in. If a PSU won’t hold to 2 or 3% load/idle no matter what we do to it, we won’t use it or recommend it.

Testing Equipment

To test the Voltages on each rail and then measure the overall Wattage used by the whole computer system, we have used two different equipment. We used the RadioShack Digital Multimeter to measure the voltages on each rail (5V,12V,3.3V). To measure the overall wattage used by the computer system we used a Craftsman 400A AC/DC Clamp Meter. We attached the clamp straight to the wall outlet with a special divider to measure the overall Wattage being used accurately. The results were precisely recorded in a word document. And finally to finish testing the power supply’s ripple, we have used a Hitachi V-212 Oscilloscope. To measure the ripple we have measured the 12V, 5V, and 3.3V rails with the oscilloscope and measured the AC current. To test for ripple the AC current needs to be measured instead of the DC. The results are below.

Test Rig

Two different tests will be done with this testing system. One test will be conducted under stock settings, while the second test will be conducted under overclocked settings on the CPU and Video Card. To put the system under load condition, we used Cinebench R10 to stress the CPU and 3DMark Vantage to stress the video card. Let’s take a look at the results.

results

Stock System Results

We can see that the new Ultra X4 has enough potential to keep up with some of the other new power supplies on the market. We were quite skeptical to see how it will perform due to it’s older X3 brother which has misserably failed in the efficiency tests. Seeing that the new X4 is only 257W under load while the X3 was 322W under load shows that the X4 is a lot more efficient than the X3.

Overclocked System Results

The ripple test shows that the current is not clean, however the ripples are not high either. We would have liked to see a cleaner source though like the Sapphire Pure PSUs which only had about 0.7% ripple on the 12V rail while the other rails did not show any ripple or very little ripple not seen on the oscilloscope.

Fan Noise Results

Even if we do not have the testing equipment to measure the exact dBA of the fan on the power supply, we have used our ears to personally measure the noise and explain what we heard. The X3 was known to false advertise their PSUs because they were not quiet at all during normal operation. We have pushed the X4 as much as we could for over an hour with the same load amount but the fan noise has not changed. The X4 stayed silent to our ears even when we got close to it!

conclusion

While overall the Ultra X4 750W Modular Power Supply is a great power supply to have for your next built, it is not one I would consider for a killer gaming system or where stability is the key. All of its features and accessories are exceptional which makes this power supply stand out from the crowd, but the voltage fluctuation and small ripple should be taken a look at in the next revisions of the power supply. Seeing the power supply have a big fluctuation in the voltage was one of the parts that brough up attention. Going from 12.28V to 12.05V is a big drop considering the overall wattage being used was only 150W-200W different. What can we suspect if we put full load at this power supply? These are some questions that need to be taken into consideration when picking the next power supply for your system.

Also during the shutdown process, I have found another voltage fluctuation. The motherboard would keep turning on and off. When I measured the voltage on the 12V rail I saw the voltage jumping from 7V to 12.5V up and down a few times.