Ultra X-Connect 500w Power Supply

Manufacturer: Ultra Products
Supplied by: Ultra Products
Street Price: $70

by Dean Barker (1/19/2005)

Introduction          

Ultra Products is a North American based company who produce many more products than you would imagine.  Initially, I thought they only manufactured power supplies but quickly discovered they also put out cases, coolers, memory, drive enclosures and more.  Today, we will focus on their X-Connect Power Supplies.  Like many other folks, I hate cable clutter.  Sheathed lines have been a nice feature of late but you still have extra cable that gets in the way, whether its sheathed or not.  Ultra's X-Connect power supply takes this problem on by thinking outside the box.  'Plug in what you need.'  Power lines plug into the X-Connect unit so you can have as many or as few cables as you want.  The idea is so simple and straight forward I can't believe it never was thought of before.  The good people at Ultra Products have sent over their 500w X-Connect power supply for us to put on the bench and look over.  Without further delay, let's do just that.

Specifications

• Observed Dimensions: 156 x 150 x 86mm

• Power output: 500 watts

• Observed weight: 2.3kg

• Color: Black, Blue, Green and Titanium

• Windows: Optional Blue, Green or Orange UV reactive windows on three sides

• Cooling: Dual 80mm fans (One with a ring CCFL light)

• (2) SATA connectors

• (8) Molex connectors 

• (1) FDD connectors

• All lines wrapped with green UV reactive braiding

What you get

On opening the X-Connect package we found the power supply, a box of cables and a small instruction manual.  I have to have to admit it is very strange to look at a PSU without any wires coming off of it for the first time.  The power lines included offer lots of versatility with different sizes.  These include: one ATX main power connector, one 17.75" single Molex cable, one 21" single Molex cable, two 29' two Molex connector cables, one 38" three Molex connector cable, one 12v power cable, one AUX 6-pin power cable and one 6" two connection SATA line.

  

UPDATE 1/20/2005: I was just informed that Ultra now offers PCI-Express lines for the X-Connect.  Here is a direct link.

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