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The Free After Rebate Ultra 500W Power Supply

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:58 am
by Apoptosis
The Free After Rebate Ultra 500W Power Supply

Ever see products that are free after rebate and wonder how good they really are? We found the Ultra Products V Series 500W power supply and couldn't pass up the deal, so we bought and put it on the test bench. How will this FREE 500W power supply handle a dual-core system running some high end graphics cards? Read on to find out how it did on graphics cards like the 7900 GS, 7900 GTX and 8800 GTX!

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Article Title: The Free After Rebate Ultra 500W Power Supply
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/465/1/

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 10:14 am
by Dragon_Cooler
damn i missed it, i thought about it, but thats what i get for thinking bout it right!!!!

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 10:40 am
by cyberneticimplant
Wow, very nice to see some videos.

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 10:40 am
by HONkUS
wow! im impressed!

Still though it barely handling an 8800GTX is kinda a mute point considering I doubt anyone who can afford a GTX will be kicking around on a free 500w PSU.

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:43 am
by dicecca112
HONkUS wrote:wow! im impressed!

Still though it barely handling an 8800GTX is kinda a mute point considering I doubt anyone who can afford a GTX will be kicking around on a free 500w PSU.
You'd be surprised. The one component that people skimp the most on is the PSU. People will spend 200+ on case but only willing to spend 50 on a PSU. To me that's ludicrous

I gotta say I'm rather surprised that the Ultra fared as well as it did

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 1:20 pm
by SAMSAMHA
hehehe, if it's good quality, it should work fine:). A lot of time, the free product maybe free because the company want to clear up the inventory and warehouse.

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 3:11 pm
by Apoptosis
SAMSAMHA wrote:hehehe, if it's good quality, it should work fine:). A lot of time, the free product maybe free because the company want to clear up the inventory and warehouse.
I think they wanted to clear out the non-Active PFC power supplies since they can't sell them in Europe any longer.

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 5:08 pm
by ikjadoon
I paid $5 more after MIR for their 500W X-Finity, which works great...

I love their deals.

~Ibrahim~

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:09 pm
by Gamble
Looks like a sweet deal, unfortunately I already bought my OCZ GameXStream 850w for dual high-end graphics..... but that is awesome nonetheless!!

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 8:31 am
by pcrobot
I can't believe I missed that... I had my credit card out as soon as I was half-way through the article. :cry: :cry: :cry:

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 5:46 pm
by holden_m
Too bad we can't find a 1KW Power Supply for $10 now. Wouldn't that be fun

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 6:15 pm
by ziddey
It's definitely not a bad powersupply. I had to go through two units before getting a good one though. First one couldn't handle my system at all it seemed. Second one gave off a burning smell and also exhausted a lot of hot air. I have the back of my pc facing the door to my room and when I walked in on it at full load, I'd get a heat wave that I can feel all the way from the door.

I have a 7900gs voltmodded to 1.55v, and cpu at 1.45v running 8x450=3600 (c2d). If I ran it at 1.32v and 8x400=3200, there weren't any problems though. The third one seemed to be working great, but I got an enhance 500w 80plus psu and have the ultra as a spare one for now.

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 6:25 pm
by dicecca112
RMA the Ultra. If its giving off a burning smell then something is wrong, and I wouldn't go anywere near any hardware with it. Good choice on the enhance though. They seem to be an up and coming manufacturer

Agreed

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 6:53 pm
by road
Agreed, love the review. Clear and concise and I'm guilty of watching the youtube multimeter action. :P

Hey what is the material that the mobo is resting on made from?

Re: Agreed

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:22 am
by Apoptosis
road wrote:Hey what is the material that the mobo is resting on made from?
Top secret.. If I told you I'd have to kill you :)

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 12:08 pm
by werty316
Isn't it just styrofoam?

That is quite risky using a PSU that meets the bare minimum of a 8800GTX as you still have to account everything else connected to it.

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 2:03 pm
by Bio-Hazard
Ultra are a good PSU IMHO, I used to run the Ultra X-Connect for a long time before I got into water coolng and all those fans and pumps and the like. Never had a problem with them at all............ 8)

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 2:04 pm
by dicecca112
I assume you mean Ultra.

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 2:48 pm
by Apoptosis
werty316 wrote:Isn't it just styrofoam?

That is quite risky using a PSU that meets the bare minimum of a 8800GTX as you still have to account everything else connected to it.
That is a misconception about power usage... the nvidia rating is for the total system and not just the GPU ;) If just the video card was pulling in 26/28 Amps that power supply would have been toast!

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:44 pm
by pitumbo
Wow, looks like I was a little late joining this website...that rebate would have been sweet.

I actually already have a spare, never been opened power supply sitting here. I thought I had a problem with my old PS but it turned out my rig was shorting out b/c it was in contact with my metal case. I am a computer genius :)