Why do these mad "upgrading for no apparent reason" things always start with friends? When my buddy VA_Killer announced loudly that he was getting a new, very sexy power supply and sent me to the Ultra website to inspect their new modular 500 watt.... well, lets just say that I need less friends, as they're quite expensive. I know that my Thermal Take 420 watt was perfectly adequate for what I do with my system. In fact it's more than what 99% of people need, and It worked great. But it just wasn't as pretty as the Ultra PSU. I fought the temptation with all my might, but the chance to FINALLY use only the cables I needed for my devices was too strong and out came the visa. Damn you Killer. Damn you to hell.

Two days later my new power supply arrived with my regular UPS shipment, and then sat on my desk for two weeks until I actually had time to install it. When I finally got around to opening the box, after getting asked many many times by everyone around here, AND every nerd who entered the shop when I was going to be installing it, oh my. It's a dead sexy unit.

It's so lonely here on the desk. Install me.... Installllll meeeee.......

So so very shiny.

I've been looking at the pretty windowed side of my case for a while (well, since I built this machine a few months ago) cursing at the spaghetti factory explosion-like tangle of power cables inside it. I always use a high end power supply when I build a system, and it's really nice that they always have tons of power adapters for all your little toys, but on the other hand you always end up hunting for a place to hide all the extra wires, or playing with wire loom and ties to try and tidy it up and make it a little more presentable. It's long overdue for someone to come up with a modular power supply where you only have to use the exact number of cables that you need, to keep the clutter to a minimum and the airflow to a maximum. Ultra has managed to do just that with this power supply. Not only is it neater, but all of the cables are slim and wrapped and shielded, rather than being an ugly mess of multicoloured single strand cables. They're also UV reactive, and glow quite nicely if you happen to have UV lights in your case. (I don't.)

Everything bundled with the unit. Lots and lots of cables. We like cables.

Close up on the modular plugs. Note the reflection of my camera. So shiny.

As you can see from my hastily taken photos, the Ultra 500 is a sharp looker. I have blue lights in my Tsunami Dreamer case, so a blue PSU was ordered, but it's also available in black, silver and green, along with window kits if you're so inclined. The finish is a very high gloss which, while looking amazingly good also tends to pick up finger prints like you wouldn't believe. A little polishing quickly took them off, but then we discovered that the finish also scratches very easily. Make sure you put down something soft (ex. a towel) if you're going to have it sitting around for a bit before you install it. From being slid across our workbench while picking it up, the PSU sustained a series of deep scratches across the top. (Gah!)

Protocal's head, not so shiny. Provided only to give sense of scale.

Upon installation, we snapped in all the required cables into their slots on the PSU, attached them into our drives and motherboards and then found the disadvantage to having the rounded nicely wrapped cables. They're no where near as flexible as the normal ugly cables, and are more difficult to bend around things and hide in little cracks. With some pushing and shoving however, we managed. After all the cables were snapped into place, we hit the power button and away we went. Voltages were perfectly stable, no problems whatsoever. The system we tested it on is running an Athlon64 3200+, 1 gig DDR3200, a Radeon 9800 Pro, 2 optical drives and 3 7200 rpm hard drives, and it's been running flawlessly for two weeks since we've installed the Ultra PSU. I've talked to a few other people who've installed them as well, no problems reported.

Old cabling. So messy.

Anndddd... With modular power supply technology! (woohoo!)

Overall, if you're looking for a sexy, quiet, stable power supply for a high end gaming rig, (Hopefully one with a window kit so you can see the unit!) and would like less cable clutter you should think seriously about the Ultra XConnect. It's an awesome product, and it's about time someone developed something like it. A job well done Ultra!