Testing:

To test the Ultra Products X3 1000W Modular Power Supply, it was installed in a system with the following components:

» AMD X2 6000 AM2 processor
» Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard
» 4GB (4x1024) Patriot PC2-6400 Low Latency DDR2 memory
» 2x eVGA 8800GTS 640MB in SLI
» 2x eVGA 7900GTO in SLI (running in a second system)
» 2x 80GB Hitachi Deskstar SATA-II hard drives
» 1x 120GB Seagate 7200.9 SATA 3Gbps hard drive
» 1x 400GB Western Digital 7200 SATA 3Gbps hard drive
» 2x 250GB Western Digital 7200 SATA 3Gbps hard drives in Raid 0 (running in a second system)
» Memorex DVD/CDRW
» Cooler Master CoolDrive IV
» Fans: 6x120mm LED; 10x80mm LED; 6x92mm; 3x80mm


Testing the Ultra Products X3 1000W Modular Power Supply will focus on determining how much the main voltage rails (+5V, +12V, and +3.3V) fluctuate from idle conditions to full load conditions using a Craftsman Auto-Ranging Multimeter (Model 82139) to monitor all voltage readings.

The idle condition was established by powering the system at default speeds and voltages with no applications running for a period of at least 30 minutes. The load condition was established by running Folding@Home and Sisoft Sandra's Burn-In Wizard for a period of at least 60 minutes. In addition to these stressful applications running, the system was overclocked and overvolted to add more demand to the power supply.

The chart below shows both the idle and the load voltages recorded on the Ultra Products X3 1000W unit. As you can see, during the idle and load conditions, the 12V rail was putting out a little more than the official rating (approximately 1.0% more). The 3.3V (-1.2%) and 5V (-3.2% to -3.8%) rails were putting out slightly less than the official rating, however they were well within the generally accepted tolerance of +/- 5%.


To provide a comparison, the load voltage readings from the Ultra Products X3 1000W Modular Power Supply were compared with those from an OCZ Technology ProXStream 1000W, Xclio Stable Power 1000W, and an Enermax Galaxy EGA1000EWL 1000W unit while powering the same test system. As the chart below shows, the X3 provided the weakest 3.3V and 5V rails of these power supplies.