|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
  The first contestant in today's Power Supply Edition of our little version of "The Lottery" is the plain-Jane X-Finity 500W PSU. This little brother of the more powerful (and generally longer) 600W X-Finity we reviewed is wrapped in a very similar finish, that being one of a smooth black chrome. Blasting air downward into the beefy orange-gold heatsink is a clear Ultra Branded fan, which, though it might not look like much, ran absolutely silently throughout testing. Mounted to the fan's base is a small plastic cover that helps route airflow toward the components that actually need it, rather than just carrying it away and out the perforated rear of the enclosure. This perforated rear, composed entirely of a hexagonal mesh is kept in the identical finish of the rest of the unit, with one added boon due to it's smaller size - it simply doesn't display fingerprints as well as the rest of the unit does. If there's one thing to take note of about the standard X-Finity is that rather than rely on extra length to get the goods in, Ultra has made the effort to pack everything into your standard 140x140x89mm frame, so that users of cases big and small can get going with this unit.    Gliding around the populated side of our X-Finity 500W unit, we can find a large sticker detailing this supply's ratings, as well as a trio of stickers detailing its safety certifications. For those unfortunate few with fussy monitors, we've given the specs below in plain text for you to view
 With the contents of the sticker safely stashed aside, we turned our attention to the barren waste which is the back of this power supply - tucked away here is a single hole through which the tangle of Flexforce cabling exits, as well as where the voltage selection switch is located. In reality, this is the ideal location for such a switch, as it prevents the local monkeys found at your next LAN party from flipping the switch, and getting a brief larf, before of course, the paramedics thank them for the patronage. The only unfortunate part to this is that if you do happen to travel abroad, the lack of a switch visible to the outside world might prompt you to fire up the machine with the PSU still expecting half the voltage… something which should be covered by the "Inrush Current Protection" feature, granted, this still isn't one we have enough confidence in to try out. Moving ourselves to the tussle of cabling that hangs from the chromed rump of this supply, we can see that there are a wide number of connectors here, enough so that we'd be hard pressed to try and figure out how to use them all up. Attached to the 500W X-Finity, you'll find
Each of said connectors comes dressed in jet black, and fed by a properly crimped Flexforce cable of course. Perhaps our only gripe (still, and we don't exactly think that this will change) is the use of a separate 4 and 8 pin connector, a move which can only contribute to cable clutter, after all, Enermax has demonstrated with their Liberty line of supplies that a break apart 4+4 connector can work so much more efficiently. As to the power delivery on this supply, it also features Ultra's Dual Rail Technology, which provides a single rail for the motherboard, processor and video cards, as well as another for the system's drives. Take note that the X-Finity 500W PSU is rated for a Power Factor of 70%, as demonstrated at 25oc with 110V input at 60Hz. This claim will, of course be tested, then verified or refuted in the Performance Section.     Contents: 
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
