RETRO UNBOXING Ultra X-Connect 500W Modular Power Supply Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2010-05-08
·
1,151 words · ~5 min read
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so I found another retro unboxing candidate in our warehouse I guess
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nobody wanted it but this is the
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original ultra xconnect power supply with customizable cabling technology so
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what is now known as a modular power supply this is I guess for one way or
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another it is the original one so it includes nine xconnect cables and dual
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80mm fan cooling this is an old old
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product so why don't we come around so this was back when a 500 wat power
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supply was like a premium premium power supply these days like most OEM power
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supplies are kind of getting up there 400 500 watts so supports Intel Pentium
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4 and AMD CPUs meets ATX version
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2.03 and to 1.2 specifications short
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circuit protection in Rush current protection thermal overload cutoff
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protection and what else do we have here FCC and UL approved oh ooh ooh UV ready
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cables that's pretty cool you know what that's a feature we still haven't seen
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since then so what do we have on the side so this tells us all the cables
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that are included but that's okay we'll have a look at that when we get inside
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the box you can see it has a single
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12volt rail which was typical back in those days now we see Power Supplies
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with as many as 6 12vt rails and that single 12volt rail is capable of
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providing only 48 watts so these days
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because most systems are so 12vt dependent you see that that most power
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supplies are actually rated for at or near their entire wattage rating on the
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12volt rail so You' typically see somewhere between 490 to 500 watts
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available on the 12vt rail now get this this is a this is a marketing call out
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70% typical efficiency wow these days
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like I said it's going to be a lot I didn't say that yet but I'm going to say
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it's a lot better than that 80 plus gold power supplies are now available on the
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market which is basically 90 plus it's
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like 88 or 89% um minimum efficiency so yeah it's
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um things have changed a lot since this
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power supply hit the market this is a brand new unit so uh we're getting the
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dust off it here and opening this baby up all right so the first thing we find
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inside is the what is this so it's a box
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and it's full of the xconnect cable technology cables so we will see what we
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have here here all right so we've got a little users manual which oh we better
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register for our warranty register to win you think if I send this in I'll
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actually still be able to win what do you win doesn't even say what you win oh
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that's stupid on online with two eyes
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nice okay um what do we got use only the
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cables you need no one wanted cabl so basically everything that we already
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know about uh modular cables so it shows you how to plug in cables okay that's
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fine that's cool next we have a power connector so that's your standard
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connector that we still use to this day all right next we've got five screws
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just in case you lose one or it strips or whatever else so this is a fully
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modular power supply which means everything including the 20 pin power
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connector because it does not have a 24 pin connector is fully modular it's
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fairly flexible it's got like a a UV Blue translucent uh rubberized finish on
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it so so if you're plugging in an ancient motherboard you could use this
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cable all right next we have um oh wow
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do we even have that yeah yeah there we go so it's P4 ready which means that
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you've got a Pentium 4 four pin connector okay so that means uh what
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else do we have does it have like SATA oh it does okay so let me see exactly
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how this works so it has only two SATA
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oh oh it has this ancient auxiliary connector as well so that I haven't seen
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in quite a few years so so it's actually got only Molex connectors on it but you
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can adapt one of those Molex connectors
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to two SATA connectors if you're running
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like a premium SATA hard drive yeah all
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right so why don't we get the power supply itself and you know I didn't realize just how old this product was
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until I looked at the outside of the box and I saw that the NC Q number is one
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two something something we're up to 5
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something something something so this is actually like I mean how do you even quantify
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that it's yeah it's it's one of the first I
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guess 12,000 SKS ever created on nc.com okay so um here we go so you've
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got little rubberized connectors that cover up the modular interface you know
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keep dust out of there when you're not using your 24 pin connector or whatever
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else it is that you're would or wouldn't be using there's your four pin so that's
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pretty nice it's actually got a beautiful glossy black or glossy blue
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finish on it so I'll do my obligatory finger shot here where you can see the
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shininess that's going on you can see that the QC was passed the high pot was
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passed and we've got another little spec sticker here that shows us the same
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things that we saw on the side of the Box up on the top of the unit we've got
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again a nice glossy blue finish that is actually reasonably scratch resistant
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compared to what we see these days so it looks like paint technology hasn't uh
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hasn't really improved for the most part okay then here we've got yet another
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gloss blue finish here we've got an 80 mm fan you don't see too many Premium
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Power Supplies with 80 mil fans and all of them have uh can accept both 115 and
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230 volt inputs these days almost so that's an adjustable feature there you
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got a big power switch and then your power in and then you've got an ultra
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fan Grill over a what appears to be a 92mm fan or it might be another 80 mm
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fan can't tell off the top of my head but there you have it that was my
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unboxing of the ultra X connect modular
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power supply