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Ultra 600W for $40???

S

Silent Assasin

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 1, 2004
Messages
1,120
I stumbled across this while looking for new parts for a friend... It's an Ultra 600W PSU that seems pretty descent from tiger.... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=30307&Tab=0&NoMapp=0

Has anyone had any experiane from Ultra PSU's? If so, are they quite, hot, or any bad features??? If you guys like, I just might have to pick one up for myself....

And I can't find anything on the size of this? Would that fit in http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811156135 ? The case came with an ATX 12v.... But would it be possible to fit a full ATV PSU in there?

My current setup is:
A64 3700+
x800 Pro
Chaintech ZNF3-250
200GB Caviar WD SATA
80GB WD ATA-100
Lite-on CD-RW/DVD
And soon to be adding water cooling.... Which is why I'd be getting this if you guys like.

The setup I'm looking for my friend will be something along the same lines except prolly go with an Asus board with PCI-e 6800.....
 
Holy crap! $40?

That's a cool PSU because to get the 600W, Ultra essentially took two Wintech 400W PSU's and stacked them on top of each other. The one on top only has the 12V rail and the other has all of the other rails.

http://www.slcentral.com/ultra-x-finity-600w-psu/

As you can see, I had it putting along nicely at 623W and because the 12V is essentially it's own power supply, you can crossload the hell out of it with no ill effects.

Runs really cool too.

Too bad it doesn't have dual 12V rails. :(
 
The results on Ultra's is uhhh...mixed...but the result with Tiger Rebates is decidedly bad. Look at it as an 80 PSU with a chance at 40 back.
 
I'm going to stick to my guns on this one Spectre. That Wintech 600W is a massive power supply. I had no reservations giving that thing a 9 over at SLCentral. You just have to see it for yourself.

As far as rebates go, I haven't had any problems. I keep buying those "free" SD cards from them and used my Paypal account as the pay back method and they've come through every time.

Having an assload of SD cards around is great when both your MP3 player AND digital camera use them. ;)
 
jonnyGURU said:
I'm going to stick to my guns on this one Spectre. That Wintech 600W is a massive power supply. I had no reservations giving that thing a 9 over at SLCentral. You just have to see it for yourself.

As far as rebates go, I haven't had any problems. I keep buying those "free" SD cards from them and used my Paypal account as the pay back method and they've come through every time.

Having an assload of SD cards around is great when both your MP3 player AND digital camera use them. ;)
Click to expand...

I know you know what you are doing and had good results that's why I gave it a mixed. If this is one of the Wintech models I am sure it would be a better unit than soem of the others. As for TD well..........the only people who have ever been good on rebates for me is MS so see how popular of an opinion that turns out to be!
 
iv'e heard that people always have horrible luck with rebates from tiger... But really, I don't care how much shit I have to go through, I will get my rebate. It took a court threat with best buy once in order to get a 100 dollar rebate last year.... What is it that tiger does that noone ever gets their rebates back?

So you guys say the supply would be good for $40? I'll prolly pick up 2 of em then, one for friend and one for myself...
 
So I did end up placing my order last night. And what timing it was.... Not quite sure if I stated this before, but currently i'm only using the stock Raidmax 420W that came with my case, and it's extremely loud. Just last night I heard something rattleing in there too....

The rebate on this thing is a bit wierd..... You have to go to a website and fill out a form? Wierd.... I choose paypal for payment as recomended by several people... I'll repost later when I get my supply.
 
I can't beleive [H] even carries Tiger ads.... IMO they SUCK!! They dont come good for half of their rebates... AND I've even had them FALSELY ADVERTISE them.... bought a couple things... said they had X amount of dollar rebates... come to find out that it was about half of what they had said... when I called, they told me it was an internet mistake and they would fix it... they in NO WAY would come good for THEIR mistake. Idiots.

QJ
 
QwertyJuan said:
I can't beleive [H] even carries Tiger ads.... IMO they SUCK!! They dont come good for half of their rebates... AND I've even had them FALSELY ADVERTISE them.... bought a couple things... said they had X amount of dollar rebates... come to find out that it was about half of what they had said... when I called, they told me it was an internet mistake and they would fix it... they in NO WAY would come good for THEIR mistake. Idiots.

QJ
Click to expand...


they do this cuz people don't complain as much as they should.... As I mentioned, I threated Best Buy with court, they paid up.... They have had many bad reports to the state and were being sued.... Now, if people like you that don't ever get their rebates actually say something, they will get in trouble. That is false advertisement, it is illegal, remind them of that.... All expiriances i've had with it, they pay up, and if not, report them to the state,. But then again, you canadian, no offense or anything, but most of the rebates I see on there are for US resients only.... Such as this psu rebate..
 
I have a hard time imagining a good 600W can be had for only $40 or even $80. Maybe technological advances are starting to bear fruit in the PSU industry? :)
 
Silent Assasin said:
they do this cuz people don't complain as much as they should.... As I mentioned, I threated Best Buy with court, they paid up.... They have had many bad reports to the state and were being sued.... Now, if people like you that don't ever get their rebates actually say something, they will get in trouble. That is false advertisement, it is illegal, remind them of that.... All expiriances i've had with it, they pay up, and if not, report them to the state,. But then again, you canadian, no offense or anything, but most of the rebates I see on there are for US resients only.... Such as this psu rebate..
Click to expand...

I shop at www.tigerdirect.ca it is their canadian branch.... SSDD

QJ
 
Dude, so after the fuck up at tigerdirect, I emailed them yesterday morning, waited all day for a response, no response. Late last night I was finally able to find my order number has been tracked but not registered to me.... It said it was shipped, but didn't give me a valid shipping number.... Today, I got home from work and had a box on my front porch. Opened it, sure enough it was my PSU..... Checked my email, the email that they send that it was shipped was sent to me at 6:49 AM. So I have no idea wtf happened, but I'm happy with my purchase and tiger direct for getting it to me same day shipping via UPS....

BTW, haven't installed it yet, just about to shut down and do so, but this thing is soooooo sexy...... I'm almost scared to touch it and ruin the gloss. It's so shiny, clean wiring inside the psu and best part is that I can see my self in the shiny blue finish. It should go great with my computer.....
 
tonyou said:
I have a hard time imagining a good 600W can be had for only $40 or even $80. Maybe technological advances are starting to bear fruit in the PSU industry? :)
Click to expand...

It's a two year old model on close-out.

SA: I especially love the side of the PSU that faces out (if you have a window in your case.) The four 680uF caps (two up, two down) is too much. :D
 
The OEM supplier for that is Wintech likely. Most Ultras are.
Basically two mediocre 300w units crammed into one box. Wouldn't put it in my rig personally.

It amazes me that many who covet a cheap PSU are the same ones who made sure to get
the very best Mobo, CPU, video card, and RAM they could find. As if the unit which powers all that is not equally as important.

As for the Tiger. They have to be among the worse vendors I've ever dealt with.
Just one example :
Bought a new router from them that arrived defective (physically broken). It took a month to get
a replacement. Even then they tried to force a refurbed unit with incomplete packaging on
me instead. The guy on the phone had the nerve to laugh at me too. :mad:

Finally had to submit a case with the BBB. You might be surprised how many complaints
have been levied against them.
Needless to say, they will never get my business again.
 
You know, a while back a guy from Newegg posted a "hot deal" for [H]ard members. It was a great price on a Foxconn motherboard. That was the last we heard from that guy because he was flamed because the Foxconn motherboard "sucked." How does it suck? It's got a low RMA, is stable. How does it suck?

"Well, it doesn't overclock well. Few options in the BIOS, blah blah blah.... It's mediocre." Oh. It's "mediocre" therefore "it sucks." So "sucks" is a blanket statement that just means something doesn't suit YOUR needs. Sure the board costs half as much as your board and is just as good of quality, but it "sucks."

FYI (as if it really matters to anyone,) just the X-Finity's are Wintech. X-Connects are Youngyear. Furthermore, I think it's just two Wintech WIN-400 PCB's. I'm fairly positive that one alone wouldn't do a rated 400W.

And albeit, a Wintech is merely mediocre (I'm willing to admit that,) I do make sure I have the best VALUE motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc.even if they are considered "mediocre" parts, I get what I can afford, what I like and, plain and simple, what works. I happen to have this very PSU in the rig I'm using right now. It's one of the first ones I reviewed, I liked it, I kept it. I think the fact that the 12V comes from it's own PCB is fantastic for 12V heavy systems. I really think it's too bad they don't make them any more but in a dual 12V rail version.

And truth be told, theres an X-Connect in the other two PC's in the house (play dramatic music now.) So I guess I must really, really suck too. ;)

True, I do have a TurboCool 510W that I paid out of pocket for that I'm just using as a bench PSU, but it's noisy and, quite frankly, it looks ugly in my window case!

You know, I've spent the last week in kitchen remodeling hell and still don't have a usable kitchen. Countertops won't be in for another three weeks and Im $2K over buget. I think I'll take those weeks off from arguing with people on the Internet about products that they have no personal experience with and just let the PC sit in the background folding for [H]. :D Stress levels are too high in this house to have to put up with much more than that. ;)
 
thanks Johnny for the actual knoledge of this PSU. I read that exact review that you posted before my final purchase and that really reasured me of this being a quality PSU for the price. Currently I am using the stock Raidmax 420W that came with my case. I hate it on multiple occasions, 1. Looks bad with stats label pointed torawds the window 2. loud fans 3. underpowered for my new water cooling setup i'm running.

And no, you weren't right about me spending all my money on the "best" parts. To me best means something that works for my needs. Currently I run a Chaintech ZNF3-250 mobo with A64 3200+(socket 754), Mushkin enhanced ram, and x800 Pro. Built it for a little under 900 about christmas time with all the great prices at newegg.com.

Also, good luck with the kitchen remodeling Johnny. The scene sounds familiar when we finished our basement.....
 
I've personally never had a problem with TIger.

On the other hand, it's usually delivered to a government building. The one time we shipped it home it ended up in Laval (probably UPS) :rolleyes:
 
Ok, so I just hooked it up this morning. It runs great. Looks great. Sounds a hell of a lot better then my old one.

The blue LED's int he fans are pretty faint, but give it that kick ass look. It's just enough to glow up the inside of the PSU and not too bright to keep you up at night.

I've been running it for over 12 hours straight with no problems so far.... Also doesn't run nearly as hot as my old PSU.
 
This is what the new one looks like from the inside:

P1010043.jpg


It's hard to get an idea of the size of this thing regardless of what angle I shoot it at. Let me say this.. Those two caps: They're 200V 1500uF caps. Not 1000. Not 1200. Now consider how big those heatsinks are in relation to that.

They got rid of the "stacked" design for something more "normal." Apparently they couldn't get dual 12V rails to keep cool unless they went with a traditional layout. I was able to put 35A (17A and 18A) on those 12V rails though.

The also got rid of the blue LED fan. :(

So what does it offer other than 600W?

Flex Force cables, of course!

P1010047.jpg


The cables are "flat" so they're easier to route behind motherboards, drive bays, etc. Comes w/ 24-pin, two PCI-e, four SATA...

Still not active PFC, though. :(

It's not too loud, but I've got a 500W one of these too and it has one 120MM fan instead of the two 80's so it's still quieter. I'm going to use it instead.

EDIT: And make that $3000 over budget on the kitchen. My wife wants Silestone backsplashes too. Ka-ching!!! :eek:
 
The rails on the PSU arent really anything to shout about though, i'd expect a few more amps for a 600w PSU.
 
DarkBahamut said:
The rails on the PSU arent really anything to shout about though, i'd expect a few more amps for a 600w PSU.
Click to expand...

V * A = W no matter how you look at it. :D I think you're used to power supplies that tell you that a rail is capable of one thing, but then can't actually produce that amperage when other rails are also loaded. I haven't seen an Ultra yet that couldn't do what the label states.

For example; the Skyhawk's 620W looks good on paper with it's dual 20A rails, but when you look at the next line down you find that you can only put 300W on both of those 12V rails at the same time. That's only 25A! That means IF you had a 15A load on one 12V rail, you can only put 10A on the other before the PSU shuts down, blows up or whatever.

Some power supply companies just make up for extra wattage on rails that are cheaper to get parts for. For example; the Thermaltake 680W has 50A capability on the 5V rail. That's 250W of 5V alone! :eek:

Fact of the matter is; this power supply can do 600W. On the new one; I can put 20A on the 5V, 18A on the 3.3V, 17A on the 12V1 and 18A on the 12V2 and with .5A on the -5V and -12V and 2.5A on the +5VSB, I'm EASILY at 600W. :D
 
jonnyGURU said:
V * A = W no matter how you look at it. :D I think you're used to power supplies that tell you that a rail is capable of one thing, but then can't actually produce that amperage when other rails are also loaded. I haven't seen an Ultra yet that couldn't do what the label states.

For example; the Skyhawk's 620W looks good on paper with it's dual 20A rails, but when you look at the next line down you find that you can only put 300W on both of those 12V rails at the same time. That's only 25A! That means IF you had a 15A load on one 12V rail, you can only put 10A on the other before the PSU shuts down, blows up or whatever.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but thats not true of all PSUs :p. My Antec TP-II 550 here does 19A on both 12v rails, and says the total 12v output is 36A.

Its not a bad PSU for the money (*IF* you can get the rebate) but its not something i'd use in a system full of top end stuff. Too many stroies of blown Ultras for my liking :p
 
DarkBahamut said:
....Too many stroies of blown Ultras for my liking :p
Click to expand...

The stories exist, but I think if you proactively searched for them they're actually fewer and farther between than brands like Antec, PCP&C, etc. Hell, it seems like a PCP&C blows up on these boards every other day. Doesn't change my mind about them, though.

I think the stigma was created early on. Take a company relatively new to power supplies, have the power supplies built for them by a company not known to make a high end product and then sell hundreds of thousands of them over a very short period of time because they have features people had never seen before in power supplies (UV lights, modular cables, etc.) Then when a couple fail it seems like the whole world is falling apart.

See, I was an advocate a long time ago more than anything because I was naive! We only sold Antec and Topower for aftermarket power supplies and I had more Antec's blow up in my face than I care to mention and nobody believed me when I tried to tell them that Topower was a better power supply (at the time, Topower WAS the better power supply when compared to Antec. I wanted my boss to carry Enermax (I would actually order Enermax from a competitor rather than give my boss any money for an Antec) but he felt they were too expensive for something that more or less did the same job as a Topower. I was at a point where I was willing to give ANYTHING a shot (except Deer, Allied, L&C, Codegen and Skyhawk. Those all came in the cheap $35 cases we sold,) and my Ultra rep was a good friend that used to be my Antec rep. We picked up the line and only had about a 2% RMA rate. We didn't sell as many of them as we did Antecs, but it sure seemed like they were doing better. :D

There's so many stories like this. Tyan is a good example. Back in '98 or so, they came out with the Tomcat. Nobody heard of Tyan and when you wanted a server board, you would think of no-one else but Intel. But the Tomcat proved to be a good board, but it was very lackluster. So they came out with the Titan Turbo in '99 or '00 or so. Man that thing was a pain in the butt. It wasn't a bad board, but your tolerance is minimal when a company is only a few years old and you have a 5% RMA rate. I thought for sure Tyan was going to fall on their face and disappear forever. I moved jobs and at my new job we didn't sell Tyan at all (not until the dual-Opteron board came out.) When I asked my boss why, he said "the Titan Turbo." Look at Tyan now.

Hyundai is a good example too. In 1989 I knew two guys that had an Excel. We laughed so hard at them. $7000 for a car?!?! One friend even said, "I'd rather die then drive a Hyundai." I lost track of one of the guys, but the other one put 200K on his Excel before the tranny finally died and it would cost $3000 to replace it. He finally sold it to the junkyard... 15 years later! :D
 
GURU you are freakin everywhere!! I see you posted some pics of the PSU here...you shoulda posted some of the 500w.

I am still waiting for that damn thing to come out :p Hopefully this week...rush order it too probably.
 
Yeah. Just don't tell them I've been posting pics of a pre-release power supply. :D

I don't have any good pics of the 500W because I took the photos on the terazzo floor and the damn reflective surface of the PSU makes it camouflage into the pattern of the floor.

I do have this pic of the UV reactive Flex Force cables:

UV_reactive.jpg
 
wow the 20/24 pin power connector is not rounded? Thats odd.

Nah, I am not dumb enough to go tell everyone from Ultra that you posted a pic or two.
 
Steeeeve said:
wow the 20/24 pin power connector is not rounded? Thats odd.
Click to expand...

This isnt an X-Connect. It's an X-Finity. All of the cables are flat so they can be routed behind the motherboard back-plate, under the motherboard, behind the drive bays, etc.

Steeeeve said:
Nah, I am not dumb enough to go tell everyone from Ultra that you posted a pic or two.
Click to expand...

I don't really think they care, although I did sign an NDA and was asked to show them any comments, questions, pics or review material before I publish it. I think for good reason, though. For example: I told them that I felt the SATA cables were a couple inches too short for most cases and the next thing I see is an email asking the factory to make the cables longer. :D

I do think it's odd that they don't show the cable side of the PSU in any of their ads and they don't show the UV reactivity of the cables. Hope they didn't figure out they cause cancer in labratory rats. :D
 
Are the Ultra X-Finity PSU's with the Flex Force on the market? ( Not the X-connects )
 
Dunno. If you Froogle X-Finity all you see is the old one. :(
 
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