I think Ultra made a very good decision with this PSU. They decided to go with an almost completely different look to the regular X-Finity PSUs and the X/X2-Connects. Whilst there is definitely a huge and rapidly growing market for modding products, there are still a lot of people who just want their PSU to work properly with no issues, and for whom aesthetics are really just an afterthought. This product will appeal to the latter group as it is simply matt black in colour, has no lights or windows or anything modding related besides the cables yet does indeed perform very well. By providing these two different types of PSUs (modding/plain) Ultra are appealing to both sides of the market, which can only be a good thing.

So then, looks wise, this PSU is aimed at a particular type of user. The X2-Connect was aimed at the modding freaks, this is aimed at the folks who want something more simple looking and not so garish or gaudy.

The cables are FlexForce, and you should all be familiar with that term now. Whilst I feel these cables do not benefit you over traditional cables in terms of allowing air to flow more freely, and are just to differentiate between Ultra and competing manufacturers, they are more flexible and therefore easier to snake about in your case to power your components as tidily as possible. The cables are of a silver colour, which, given the colour and style of the PSU itself may seem a bit out of place. Silver and black do work well together, but some may prefer plain black sleeved cables if we're going down the completely unmodded route. Ultra do seem to want to keep a bit of the modding spirit in there though, what with the cables and the interior of the PSU being particularly colourful.

With regards to noise levels, it's not loud but it's silent. It's somewhere in between. I don't have any dBA figures, but in comparison to other comparable PSUs I have here it's a little louder than an Antec TruePower and a little quieter than a PC Power and Cooling 510.

Finally performance and this PSU runs very well. It had no trouble powering the test system which consisted of a number of high end components, namely the 2.7GHz Dual Core Opteron and the X1900XT video card. Thus it's suffice to say this PSU can easily handle any high-end single card solution out there. I don't have a dual card setup to try, but the SLI ready certification should definitely inspire some confidence in that department.

The Ultra X-Finity 2nd Generation 500w PSU w/ Active PFC comes highly recommended by Guru3D.com.

Thanks to Ultra for allowing us to review their product. Keep up the good work!

Written by Dave 'WildStyle' Crewe.