Ultra Products unveils 2000-watt X3 ATX power supply

We're all about watching new "world's (insert adjective here)" gizmos become a reality, and we certainly don't mind the occasional dash of overkill, but Ultra Products' forthcoming power supply takes "insane" to another level. In what's presumably the world's largest, most powerful PSU to call an ATX case home, the 2000-watt Modular X3 comes in at 10.25-inches in length and will reportedly fit "wherever a PC Power & Cooling 1000-watt version will". The +12V rail alone is rated at 1800-watts, which means that it can purportedly handle a 150A load, and just might cause some sort of small disaster if actually achieved. Nevertheless, the smorgasbord of connectors allow for more power connections that most could even fathom needing, but Ultra believes that this PSU should remove all worry over whether or not your rig "has enough juice." While it's easy to brush this off as completely absurd, the latest AMD scorchers combined with a few NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX or ATI R600 cards could easily eat up a good bit of the supplied power, so if a ginormous power supply was the only thing missing from finishing up your energy-sucking rig, Ultra's X3 should be available sometime this quarter for "less than $499."

[Via Digg]

[ups767300 @ Jan 5th 2007 4:49AM]

holy crap that would trip the breakers in my house.

[skmetal7 @ Jan 5th 2007 5:13AM]

OH EM GEE

that is all

[netdroid9 @ Jan 5th 2007 5:28AM]

Quad-SLIed GeForce 8800, anyone?

[skmetal7 @ Jan 5th 2007 5:39AM]

space heater, anyone?

[Monkey @ Jan 5th 2007 5:54AM]

Psht, the breaker will blow before you hit anywhere near 2000W. Even Quad SLI 8800 GTX won't take that much.

[Chrisboff @ Jun 13th 2007 2:38PM]

2000 watts is actually not that much. An electric oven uses more.

[eX @ Mar 1st 2008 6:27PM]

Maybe so, but have you seen the friggin plug that oven is using? Just like a dryer, it has a special line going to it and has its own breaker. Guess you'll need to run a special power line to your computer now. While this is great, manufacturers need to work efficiency more. The amount of power these video cards eat is enormous.

[dextro @ Jan 5th 2007 5:55AM]

Next up: power-plant-to-go! Setup you're very own gas powered power plant to power your computer!

(warning: firefighters not included)

[_man1c_ @ Jan 5th 2007 7:52AM]

never heard of the company before. although with the amount of power the newer dx10 cards are rumored to need it doesnt surprise me these are coming out. already have a 550watt psu and am not sure if thats enough power to run one 8800GTX card. :(

[Rich @ Jan 5th 2007 8:04AM]

Isn't this the power supply the x-Box 360 uses?

[icepop4who @ Jan 5th 2007 9:22AM]

awesome. finally a power supply capable of Qual-SLI GeForce 8800GTX (or maybe 8900GTX or 8950 GX2, lol)with 5 HDD, 5 optical drives (DVD-burner, DVDrom, bluray,hd dvd, and ait-5) two quad-core xeons, 1000 fans, and a coffee maker.

[Doug @ Jan 5th 2007 9:36AM]

So if a standard US home wall outlet is only rated to 1200 watts and this only has one c14 connector on it, how will it even work without rewiring your house?

[... @ Jan 6th 2007 2:38PM]

Umm, a standard outlet is rated for 15a/120v which is 1.8kw, but it probably has a 20a breaker on it, so as long as you don't plug anything other than your computer into the circuit you should be fine...

[JJ @ Jan 5th 2007 11:23AM]

A wee bit overkill if I say so myself. I have a 480W PSU with an Athlon XP 2600+ CPU and ATI 9700 Pro. I'm waiting for the R600 and Quad Core CPU from AMD to be released before I decide on any "major" PC upgrade. If the R600 and AMD Quad Core requires something this ridiculous, or even R600 in CrossFire or hell! dual Quad Core AMD (if AMD considers it), I don't want to know what my power bill will look like at the end of the month. I'm surprised the EPA or some other environmental legislation or lobbying group hasn't gotten a temper tantrum over nVidia, Intel and AMD. It seems as processing power rises, power consumption rises with it-- and probably with little to no regards to environmental issues or consumer's power bills. Next thing you know, we'll probably see PC PSUs with gas turbines or fuel cells to power our computers.

[John B @ Jan 5th 2007 11:24AM]

Hey, look at it this way! Only a few minutes after turning your PC on, the top of the PC case can be used as a hibachi!

"Hold on, I need to flip the chicken while the next Battlefield 2 level loads up."

[snowglyder @ Jan 5th 2007 11:32AM]

I can't wait to get this and watch the whole neighborhood's lights dim when I turn on my computer!! muuuhahahahahhha!

[bloody crackdown @ Jan 5th 2007 2:58PM]

Seriously, wouldn't you need a 220volt line running to this? You'd have to rewire your house!

I could just imagine plugging this thing into an outlet made for an electric oven.

[A @ Jan 5th 2007 5:00PM]

Definately one psu only the dumbest or highly trained modders will crack open.

[CM @ Jan 5th 2007 5:24PM]

A typical house circuit in the US is rated for 15A, which at 125V results in a maximum draw of 1875 Watts. Some houses may have 20A circuits, which are good for 2500 Watts. Of course, the breaker is probably not supposed to be operated at the maximum current all the time anyway.

Note that these figures apply to the Input side of the power supply. Since power supplies are generally not 100% efficient, a supply that delivers 2000W at the Output must necessarily draw more than that for the input.

It remains to be seen whether this Ultra supply can provide 2000W continuously, or if that is just a peak rating for a short period of time (through the magic of capacitors).

[Lonnie McClure @ Jan 6th 2007 1:02AM]

I expect this is a typical overrated power supply that would quickly fail at 95 percent load while operating at normal temperatures.

I suspect exceeding a 1200 watt sustained load on one of these would be asking for trouble, but darn few buyers of this item would actually put such a load on the supply. Most buyers shelling out for this will primarily be looking for bragging rights.

When Antec, Fortron, or another company that puts a more "real world operation" rating on their power supplies puts out a 2KW power supply, then I'll believe it. You can also bet it will require something other than a standard 15A outlet for power.

[FunkyDrunkBunny @ Jan 10th 2007 5:36AM]

Car amplifiers running at 1000 rms use 80 amp fuses at 12 volts. So i would think this wouldn't cause any problems with household current.

[wolfpaw @ Jan 15th 2007 8:48AM]

Key word in that carp amp is 12 volts. This psu is rated at up to 150A at 12 volts on the +12V rail alone...

[mrF1xIT @ Feb 16th 2007 4:55AM]

Ultra has to be one of the worst companies out there making PSUs. If this one performs as well as the model I owned, at a 40% load it should melt down completely.

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[rgsgww @ Dec 18th 2007 9:51PM]

wow! this thing pulls near to 16 amps! if i get one ill need to run a 20 amp circut to my computer...which wont be fun

[jk @ Feb 21st 2008 11:19AM]

this is definitely needed. I just added up the power my system I'm building needs and its about 1675W.
3x 8800ultra, 8gb ram, 2x WD Raptor 150gb, Seagate 750gb barracuda, 780i mobo, dvd drive, and qx7770 cpu. thats without the airforce worth of fans and liquid cooling system going in this beast, added in to the total.

And home theather amps easyily exceed 2000w sometimes even 5000w on normal home outlets so why can't this.