Ultra to Unveil 2000W ATX PSU
2:25 pm January 3rd, 2007 by Sal Cangeloso
That’s right, 2000 watts! In a press release today Ultra announced that it will be showing off this power supply unit at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.
Dubbed the Ultra X3 Modular 2000W PSU, the unit is slated to be about the same size at some companies’ kilowatt units (10.5″ long) so it will fit in most tower enclosures, but that is not a concern because the release goes on to say that “most household circuits can’t even provide the AC power this unit would require in order to put out 2000W of DC power.”
The price will be bordering on ridiculous when it reaches consumers- normally I would say “if it reaches consumers” but the announcement says it will be available in early 2007.
What do you do with a 2000W PSU, a model that is said to have 1800W available to the 12V alone? That is a good question and Ultra openly admits that today’s computer’s don’t need this much power, but it would have no problem taking on the quad-everything systems that today’s 1000W and 1100W power supplies normally are found in. Ultra’s VP, George Ali, says it will solve that nagging question of “Does my power supply have enough juice where my high end components need it?” but anyway you look at it, 2000W is overkill, at least for today’s systems. Other features include modular design, all types of power protection, and a lifetime warranty.
Want to see it for yourself? It will be at Showstoppers at the Wynn on January 8th, 6pm.
Edit: The MSRP will be $499.
Disclosure: Ultra Products is a sponsor of XYZ Computing
Although I gotta agree that this is turning into a blatant “My PSU-nis is bigger than yours neener neener”-contest, let’s refrain from the treehugging environmentalist crap for a minute. It’s not like that a 1 or 2 kW PSU is actually delivering that enormous amount of power continuously when it’s in operation. Remember that it’s just the maximum power it can deliver, and that the actual output is determined by the number of peripherals you hook up. More important is if such a unit can achieve 80+% efficiency over a broad range of power. It’s no big deal using a 2kW unit when it already hits 80% efficiency at your typical 200-500W load.
As for me, I’m more interested in the modularity and connectivity of such extreme high-power units. There aren’t many PSU’s out that provide 10+ native SATA power connectors; most of them fall into the 800+W category (e.g. the Enermax Galaxy 1kW has about 16). So if it takes one of those to hook up all the HDD’s in a storage rig I’ll gladly get one, even if the peak load of the system lies at 25% of the unit’s maximum.