Installation:
 

Ready to Install

The removable drive bays were taken out with great success this time around after removing the screws from behind the front bezel. As with any hard drive, four screws secure the drive in the removable bay, or bays. If you've installed one in this regard, you've installed them all. This goes for any optical drives. You'll definitely need to remove the other side panel to get to the drive bay holes to tighten the screws. Once the system was installed, the front panel ports were used just to confirm they work properly. As long as you install your front panel jumpers to your motherboard in the correct manner, everything will work just fine.

Removed the screws

Easy as pie

The motherboard tray can be pulled out once you remove the thumbscrews and two small black screws above and below the Power Strip. The supplied screw kits have everything and more needed to attach the motherboard and install the hard drives. You'll also find the black screws quite handy for dressing up your components. The hard drive bays, while not tooless, do at least have black screws to keep it clean. If you've installed one hard drive and optical drive, you've installed them all.

Motherboard Installed

Tray Installed

Installing the Power Supply requires a different approach than the typical mount. The inside chassis is reinforced with two larger, wider arms that add a great deal of rigidity to the chassis. They keep it from flexing no matter how much weight you put in your case. The PSU to be used is the Tagan 1000 Watt GuardianX which is quite large. It won't fit from underneath as typical installations go since you have to attach the PSU mounting plate first. The top panel slides off easily after removing the thumb screws. Since this power supply is bigger, it easily fits from the top down in and sits on the wider chassis rails. Thumbscrews are provided to mount the PSU that has the pre-attached mounting plate.

Remove Thumbscrews	Slide off top panel
Attached PSU Plate	Thumbscrews attached

Just to test the Power Rail, both the PCI Express and two 4 pin Molex cables were connected. The Power Strip cables were connected to the motherboard and 7900 GT graphics card. If your motherboard requires a 4 pin Molex for auxiliary power to the graphics cards slots, it might be too far for the jumpers to reach. Each port on the Power Strip worked to spec and didn't register any voltage drop on the trusty Meter. If there is any, it was somewhere in the .001 spectrum which won't effect the system.

Connecting incoming power

Connecting outgoing power

The Power Strip is a pretty cool feature that can come in quite handy. It really serves as a power HUB spreading out power to more peripherals efficiently. The users that will purchase this case will most likely want to install some form of light such as LEDs, Cold Cathode Tubing, or Neons. All of those extras will need power and that Power Strip will work great for quick connections. You won't have to go digging through your power supply wires to find power. This feature will hopefully show up in future revisions.

System Connected

Normally, I don't often go in to details about a company's reputation and customer service, but this one is worth mentioning. Ultra has had lifetime warranties on many of their power supplies at times just as many other companies do with their products like memory and top of the line graphics cards. While it's an inconvenience when something stops working in your main system, it does happen even to the best of the best. Recently, a colleague had to RMA an Ultra 500 Watt power supply that carried the lifetime warranty. He had registered it just over a 30 day deadline which in all fairness should have negated the warranty benefit. However, Ultra's Customer Service Department went the extra mile and still replaced his much needed power supply.

It might not be a big deal to some people. But these days, consumers are fighting back by choosing products that are backed by the manufacturer. If you don't think so, just look at the disastrous issues that plagued products coming from China. Passionate manufacturers believe in their products, thus customer service tends to be greater. Anything less will only ensure that their products stay below the consumer radar which no one wants. A big "Excellent" stamp goes out to Ultra for going the extra distance by reinvesting in the consumers.

Summary and Conclusion:

Other than the one time issue of getting the drive bay loose, everything from then on went completely perfect. The drive bay works properly now and can be removed with little effort. It's really not a big deal, since just about every case tested to date has had its own very minor issue. And since the side panel 80mm fan duct is removable if you use a really tall CPU cooler, it really isn't an issue either. I personally think the case looks better without it anyways. The only other issue that can be addressed easily by Ultra and their fine techs, is the Power Strip Cables.

Very sharp looking chassis!

The Power Strip cables could use a little revising in regards to length. Not all of them need to be lengthened, but perhaps, just a couple of them for those motherboards with the auxiliary 4 pin power port for the graphics cards. Some boards have them near the back of the board's real estate which the PR cables can't reach. Otherwise, the Power Strip was actually a handy little feature and kept the power supply's "speghetti" cables from crowding the internal chassis. If it had a couple SATA ports, it would be perfect.

Overall, the case looks pretty nice with an installed system. And the chrome motherboard tray is really a nice touch. It offers a definite modified feeling to your system with some excellent features like the Power Strip. And while the actual internal frame may not be the most original, the black chassis is a rare feature that other enclosure companies have yet to offer. A black chassis offers a large number of possibilities if you like to show off your elite gaming machine. Originally, the price of the case made its entry at around $200, but has since come down in price. Tigerdirect  has the Ultra m998 Mid Tower Case for $169.99 which is better. If the next revision offers a new style bezel, Ultra could have a huge winner on their hands, especially in the mid-tower market. We'd very much like to thank Ultra for the enclosure and look forward to more great things.

Got News? Send 'em in!