The subject kind of says it all ... I'm looking at an SLI-ready, 600W PSU from TigerDirect:

Ultra / X-Finity / 600-Watt / ATX / Dual 80mm Fan / SATA-Ready / SLI Ready / Titanium / Power Supply ($54.99)

All the user ratings are high on the site, who knows what that really means (call me a cynic). What do you folks think? Do these PSUs have a track record?

I had no issues with the 2 I have now. I see people on here saying to avoid them like the plague. People like them for the modular cables some dont.

a track record?

Last place on Junior varsity.

Seriously though... avoid them as much as possible

If you check the tier rating chart, Ultra/X-Finity is a tier 4 psu, in other words, it works, but its not considered a good psu. I personally don't buy any psu lower the tier 2, as I feel its not worth the hastle of the thing probably going bad, or worse, having it fry something in the machine. I did buy a lower tier psu once, and I learned my lesson. That Ultra looks like a great price at $54.99. but if it goes out in a few months and then you have to buy another psu, a better one the next time, then the $54.99 is money out the window. Worse, it might take come hardware with it, and then you'll really feel bad.

This doesn't mean that a tier 1 or tier 2 psu can't go bad, but the odds of that happening are a lot lower. Besides the tier charts, you might check out jonnyguru.com for psu recommendations of what to buy and what to avoid.

If it's a plain Ultra I wouldn't buy it.

I *love* my Ultra X3s though. I have the 600W and 1000W.

I've had an Ultra X-Finity 600 watter for 6 months now & have had no problems. That's not saying I won't have any...but I personally think Ultra gets bad rep because it is a kind of new, upstart PSU. Ultra PSU's are well made...in my opinion.

It should be kept in mind that not individual Ultra PSUs will have a problem, only as a class. Another thing to think about is that they may not be what you think they are. For example, years ago, I bought an Aspire 680wt PSU for what seemed like a good price. I didn't know about the tier charts or anything back then. It seemed to work fine, until I put in a second video card. At 680wts, it should have handled both cards just fine, but it didn't, and I pulled the second card thinking the card was bad. I later discovered that the 680wt rating was for peak power, not continuous. Its real continuous power was about 380wts, too low for the SLI. I still have the Aspire 680wt and it still works, but I only use it in a low powered computer.

I can't say anything specific about the Ultra, but I know where it places on the charts. I checked Jonnyguru,com and he tested an Ultra X-Finity 600. According to him, it wasn't a bad PSU, only a mediocre one, having no power correction factor and a poor power factor. It works, but as Jonny says, "there's others in its price range that perform better".

I have owned around 3 Ultra Powersupplies. The only problem that I have run into is when I had a high end system and at that time I didn't know much about power supplies. Here is the thing. First, the 120mm top fan makes for a smaller heatsink which means less performance regarding heat dissipation. Next we have the issue of the "operating temp". This is where PC Power and Cooling shines. Look at the operating temperature and it is probably around 20/30 C rather than the 40 continuous that, for example, the silencer 750 is rated at. This is a bit of a falsehood. My issue on my most recent system in which I replaced my X2 550 with a silencer 750 was that if it ran for 12-13 hours then it would make funny noises coming from the PSU and it would sound really bad. I was worried that it would short. It got worse as I would play 3d games on my x1900xt. Note, that like most higher end GPU's it has a 300 watt min. I figured I would be in an ok position, however, I wasn't. Now another thing is this. If you are using the new 3800 series GPU and intel proc then you should be fine because much less power draw. If you register your ultra you get a lifetime warranty and they make good on replacement too trust me!

The only decent Ultra reviews I have seen have been for the X-3 and the X-Pro. Most said the same thing, there are better PSU's to be had in the asme price range.

The most common X-finity reviews state something like, "while the PSU was rated at 500w, it failed miserably under full load. However, it did pass all testing very well at the 300w range." In other words, the Ultra 500w was actually a very good 300w PSU.

And that was my experience with the Aspire 680wt. It does well when operating at 380wt, but it didn't perform to spec when in a high power environment.

I agree with Sailer. Jonnyguru tested a number of cheap PSUs, and most of them worked at a fraction of their rating, but closer to the label caused many of them to fail dramatically. I've got a 500W Aspire PSU that I'd put in a HTPC (worked fine in my S939 for months), but not in my primary gamer. I like the Tier-T Mushkins I've bought, but would probably opt for Corsair in the future.

Actually Ultras have been out for several years. They were one of the first, if not the first to offer modular. That is how they got their bad rep. In general they were only good for half the rated wattage.

I think Tiger Direct is the only place still selling them.

The higher end Ultras are good, but the low-end ones are really crappy. Anandtech has a review on a 400watt model.

You will want to try to stay at Tier 3 and above

I had that had ultra 600w SLI PSU. Worked fine while running 7900GTs in SLI, but it was loud as hell. I have a 500w Ultra modular PSU now that has been working great for about 18months. My feeling on PSUs is how much more likely is it that an Ultra PSU will fail over a name brand? And what % of the time will a PSU failure (any tier PSU) do anything more then require a new PSU? I don't have hard numbers but my guess would be that when you factor them together the actual increase in risk (because there is risk regardless of how 'good' a PSU is) is not very large.

Well, I had an Ultra 600W installed in my PC for 10 months and worked perfectly. I had my CPU OCed as seen in my sig as well as my 8800GTS and my system was rock stable. I bought it as an "emergency PSU" looking to replace it as soon as possible, but it was just 1 month ago that I found a good deal in the Antec Neopower 650W I have now installed. I installed the Ultra in my dad's PC (Q6600, 8800GT) and works perfectly.

Maybe I was lucky, but the only experience I have with Ultra has been very good.

It seems that most people you talk to who've actually used Ultra PSUs do not have any problems with them, other then I think there pretty loud. However I have a Dynex 450w PSU that is whisper quite and has been running great for 2+ years and that system stays on a lot more then my main system. I would like somebody to link some real data/evidence as to what makes a good PSU. I don't think name brand alone is a very good indicator. One thing I know about PC components is that one month a manufacturer can be making a really solid product then the next utter crap all under the same name and vice-versa.

I had an 500W Ultra X-Connect in my system for a good 3 years and had no problems. It died about a month or 2 ago, pushed the power button on the pc and heard a pop. Turns out a cap on the PSU blew up.

The X-3's are on the "tier 2" of the PSU charts, and have gotten numerous good reviews

I will be buying the X3 800W soon

This is a good point, and one that is easily missed. some Ultra's are rated as good tier 2 PSUs, but others are only tier 4. Similar thing happens with a number of PSU companies. They may have a line of PSUs that are good, but also have some mediocre or bad ones. That's why its always important to not judge by the brand name, but by the series of PSUs that is under consideration. The Ultra X3 is good, for instance, but the Ultra Xfinity/X2 is only mediocre. Similar things happen with Thermaltake, Hiper, Antec, and a few others, with one PSU line being good and another of lessor quality.

I had a 400watt ultra actually blow up about 3 months ago. I figured it would be fine powering a low wattage system... but it went BOOM, literally. The girl I built the PC for was on a budget and the PSU cam with the case. She called me and said it scared her to death, lol.