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Crossfire & SLi Certified PSUs

Brutus04

Brutus04

Senior member
Understand multiple video card SLi systems work with nVidia chipsets and Crossfire with Intel chipsets. Will a Crossfire certified PSU work with an SLi system? Are the plugs different?
This is getting to be like golf...too much to think about... FORE!
 
The plugs are generally the same (6 pin PCIE power) but there are now also 8pin connectors which are need for I think some of the ATI cards. There are adapters for all of the pins though.

The main thing to worry about is the actual wattage of the different units.
 
Yes if a Crossfire certified PSU is rated to power a certain range of ATI cards it will power Nvidia cards with similar power needs. The PSU manufactures some times have 2 different model numbers for the same PSU. That way one model number gets sent to ATI for certification and the other goes to Nvidia for certification. This way they can market the same PSU towards 2 different markets.

Weather the PSu has the 6 pin or the 8pin PCI-e power connectors has nothing to do with its CF/SLI certification. Thats a matter of weather or not the PSU was designed to meat the original PCI-e spec or the new PCI-e 2.0 spec. The PCI-e 2.0 spec as far as PSUs are concerned means they use an 8 pin PCI-e power connector that can offer a max of 150W vs. the 75W max of the 6 pin connector.

While wattage of the units is good to know whats more important is the total available amperage on the +12v rail(s). You can find some 500+W units that don't offer quit enough power to run some CF/SLI configurations and other better quality PSUs that are able to offer more then enough amperage on the +12v rails. Some manufactures focus more of that 500W worth of power to the +12v rail(s) then others. Best thing to do is check Nvidia's and ATI's web page for a list of certified PSUs and the range of configurations they can handle. Check to see how many amps are available on the +12v rails of the PSUs rated to power the SLI configuration you want to use then see if the PSU your looking at is able to provide that much power.

Here is the link to Nvidia's PSU listings.

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

Hope that helps.
 
"Crossfire certified" or "SLI certified" is just a sticker they slap on it. There are no physical differences whatsoever. They take a perfectly ordinary power supply, run it through some tests, and charge you a little extra money. There is no magic involved.

You can run an SLI system from an SLI certified supply, a Crossfire certified supply, or a supply with no such certifications. You just need to buy a quality supply capable of supporting the hardware that you intend to use.
 
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