Not another 5.25" bay PSU! (Spy photo)

[jonnyGURU]

Got a sneak peak at this Ultra 5.25" bay PSU today....

Oh man! Not another 5.25" bay PSU.

And to boot, this one has an MSRP of $59.99!!

So why?

Well, first... it has FlexForce cables. Oh.. no big deal...

Second, it's 300W (350W peak) and not a 250W. Ok.... 50 more Watts. Who cares?

Ok... how about this, it's 25A on the 12V rail.. and 6A on the five volt rail!

That's right, this PSU has 5V and 12V rails, has two PCI-e connectors AND two drive Molexes. So it can not only be used for high end video cards, but also hard drives, optical drives, etc!

Unfortunately, it won't be available until Q1 2007.

[madmat]

I have an idea...make a dual bay version and use the extra space to run a 120mm squirrel-cage fan and pump the wattage to the point it'll run dual 8800GTX's with the required four molexes.

[jonnyGURU]

Actually, I had thought of that, but taking up two 5.25" bays with a PSU... MSRP would probably be about $100.... well.... might as well just get a bigger main PSU, right?

[madmat]

With 800W up quad SLI PSUs running $300+ I'd rather just go the bay PSU route. I've known guys that modded ATX PSU's into 5.25" bays for years. This would just be a more polished version. Hell, use the 3.3V rail for SATA so it'll work with drives that support it.

With a large number of cases with 5-5.25" bays now I'm sure I'm not the only person out there that would gladly give up a pair of bays to save $200 plus the cost of the PSU I'm ditching.

[GilmourD]

Hey, JG, have you ever tested one of these drive bay PSUs? If you have, I must have glossed over it. LOL

[jonnyGURU]

I'm planning on getting a production model and one of the FSP units and doing a three way shootout.

[GilmourD]

Originally Posted by jonnyGURU

I'm planning on getting a production model and one of the FSP units and doing a three way shootout.

Sweet. One question, though... If you've ever put the one you have (the Tt, I assume), what's the ripple look like? And does it hold up well? How's the ventilation?

[jonnyGURU]

Originally Posted by GilmourD

Sweet. One question, though... If you've ever put the one you have (the Tt, I assume),

Why would you assume that? I said it was an Ultra. I have the Thermaltake as well.

Originally Posted by GilmourD

what's the ripple look like? And does it hold up well? How's the ventilation?

Haven't done it yet. Going to wait until I have all three and hook them all up.

[GilmourD]

Originally Posted by jonnyGURU

Why would you assume that? I said it was an Ultra. I have the Thermaltake as well.

Well, process of elimination... Plus a post of yours on the [H].

Haven't done it yet. Going to wait until I have all three and hook them all up.

Cool. I've been thinking that I might get one of these at some point. My system upgrade plans have been put off by my needing to fix my car, so by the time I get to upgrade, the mainstream G80 cards should be out, so I might as well SLI a pair of those. The second card will come later, but I'm getting a Silverstone ST50EF for now (to fix some oddities that are definitely PSU related).