600w enough for sli?

[nusyo]

I have a ultra X4 600W modular power supply and I am trying to run sli 2 bfg gtx 260 (which require 2 pcie connectors per card).

Anyway, I am having problems with it, and wanted to see if anybody has the same setup / or what psu you guys have for 2 bfg gtx260

 

[OCGuy]

I ran 2X 280s on a 750w and never hit more than 580w from the wall.....you should be fine. What type of trouble are you having?


Edit: Is that a cheap PSU?

 

[nusyo]

no it wasn't cheap at all, that's a $100 modular psu

The problem i am having is it freezes when windows logo suppose to come up ( i can only see a red dot from the windows logo ) and that happens only when i connect power to the 2nd card.

The thing is, my motherboard is Asus P5q pro turbo which has crossfire but not sli (however there is a way to enables sli). I don't think that's causing the freeze because even with or without the patch, the system hangs at the same point.

So at this point the blame lays on the psu

 

[Bman123]

I'd just sell both cards and run a single better card, probably will be less of a headache

 

[bbs lm-r]

I'd almost bet it was your PSU. Ultra is not particularly known for making great PSUs.

And i think you misunderstood OCGuy's question if it was cheap, I think he meant cheap as in quality not in price. I'm pretty sure it's just a cheap PSU (quality wise).

 

[BoomerD]

Ultra has never been known for selling quality PSUs. They're not the worst on the market...but far from being the best. (that particular one looks to be Andyson built)

FWIW, $100 isn't expensive for a 600 watt PSU, in fact, it's about the normal price for one in that size.

 

[nusyo]

when my old 400W cooler master psu died on me, I read some good reviews about the ultra X4 series of psu ... in fact the Ultra X4 750W model is the top seller on tigerdirect ... and the 600W model makes the top 10 list

anyway ... it looks like my problem took another turn ... after adding extra cables to get power juice.... after it hanged at the windows startup, i got a blue screen with the error Bios is not fully ACPI compliant etc even though ACPI is enabled in bios.

anyway, thanks for the info ... i know what psu not to get next time :>

 

[TemjinGold]

Top seller =! great product. A lot of people buy things because they are cheap.

 

[fffblackmage]

Top seller =! great product. A lot of people buy things because they are cheap.

QFT

@OP
If you read a few PSU reviews at jonnyguru.com or hardwaresecrets.com, you'll have a better idea of what to look for in a PSU.

Be wary of reviews that aren't as in-depth as those found at jonnyguru.com. I've seen reviews where they pretty much just test if it powers on a computer without crashing or not.

Seasonic, Antec and Corsair are a few excellent brands you really can't go wrong with.

Ultra, Coolmax, Raidmax, Diablotek... and the list goes on, I would avoid all of them, or at least check for reviews.

 

[HOOfan 1]

when my old 400W cooler master psu died on me, I read some good reviews about the ultra X4 series of psu ... in fact the Ultra X4 750W model is the top seller on tigerdirect ... and the 600W model makes the top 10 list

anyway ... it looks like my problem took another turn ... after adding extra cables to get power juice.... after it hanged at the windows startup, i got a blue screen with the error Bios is not fully ACPI compliant etc even though ACPI is enabled in bios.

anyway, thanks for the info ... i know what psu not to get next time :>

Ultra is owned by the same company as TigerDirect. Thus they can sell the PSUs cheaper and also market them harder than anything else on their site.

 

[pugh]

Nusyo,
You really should educate yourself on the in and outs of computers and the parts. In the day of information we live in it readily available to get most of any information you need by doing a quick search.

As I look back to when I got into it compared to now is light years ahead. Many resources for you.

Then in the future you will not necessarily purchase parts based on "model is the top seller on tigerdirect" .

Might be able to save some heartache in the future.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Nvidia drivers got a nice function that tells with their mini port driver that has a nice event logging system which can be activated by setting RmLogonRC registry entry to 1. After you reboot the driver will always add throttling related events to the system log so you can just use event viewer and see what causes exactly causes the problem. It tells hardware errors recovered by Robust Channels technique, thermal conditions, stress test failures and lack of auxiliary power.

 

[nusyo]

Nusyo,
You really should educate yourself on the in and outs of computers and the parts. In the day of information we live in it readily available to get most of any information you need by doing a quick search.

As I look back to when I got into it compared to now is light years ahead. Many resources for you.

Then in the future you will not necessarily purchase parts based on "model is the top seller on tigerdirect" .

Might be able to save some heartache in the future.

I never bought/buy a product before I research it. I also replaced my motherboard at the same time with the psu .... because ssd was next on my list, I knew i would never "invest" in a 2nd video card for SLI ... that's why I went with the Asus P5Q pro turbo (instead of a SLI board) and because I never intended to go sli route, i figured 600W would be enough for my needs ... I also wanted a modular psu (to cut down on cables) .... so those reasons + some good reviews i read led me to ultra products which fit into my budget.

Anyway I can tell you for sure I did not make the same mistake when i ordered my ssd

LiuKangBakinPie thanks, I will look into that, hopefully before I'll format windows.