Overclocked CPU, 8800GTX SLI PC needs only 500w PSU

[Centurin]

IMO, it really depends on how many peripherals you have. If you only have one or two hds and an optical with not many fans, then 500w should be fine. But once you start loading the extras, power goes up quickly. Here is a PSU Calculator that I like to use. Although like the site says, the number of rails is more important. The enermax galaxy I got has 5 +12v rails. When you have all the stuff I have in my system, you need the kind of power.

e6700
8800GTX
Asus Striker with

4 Sata HDs
2 Optical
7 120mm fans
6 80mm Led Fans
4 Cathode lights
2 90mm Fans

Although, I'm obviously the extreme case.

*edit* Forgot my cpu fans

 

[my sons father]

Alright, I have to throw my 2c in.

450 watt OCZ powersuppy w/ 26 amp 12v rail
E6300 oc to 2.59
2 DVD drives (1 burner)
2 hard drives
1 floppy
3 120mm case fans
2 meg ram
case display
7950 GX2
soundblaster ZX2 platinum

getting a 8800GTX, so I bought a 700watt power supply with 4x18 amp rails - max 56 amps total.

 

[Rangoric]

Originally posted by: my sons father
Alright, I have to throw my 2c in.

450 watt OCZ powersuppy w/ 26 amp 12v rail
E6300 oc to 2.59
2 DVD drives (1 burner)
2 hard drives
1 floppy
3 120mm case fans
2 meg ram
case display
7950 GX2
soundblaster ZX2 platinum

getting a 8800GTX, so I bought a 700watt power supply with 4x18 amp rails - max 56 amps total.

You don't need a new power suppy your crappy FPS is from the 2 meg of ram you got

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: Rangoric

Originally posted by: my sons father
Alright, I have to throw my 2c in.

450 watt OCZ powersuppy w/ 26 amp 12v rail
E6300 oc to 2.59
2 DVD drives (1 burner)
2 hard drives
1 floppy
3 120mm case fans
2 meg ram
case display
7950 GX2
soundblaster ZX2 platinum

getting a 8800GTX, so I bought a 700watt power supply with 4x18 amp rails - max 56 amps total.

You don't need a new power suppy your crappy FPS is from the 2 meg of ram you got

Ball buster!:thumbsup::beer:

 

[KingofFah]

So would 2x Sparkle 550W 12V@36 be enough for 8800GTX SLI? The 1kw PC P&C SR has 72A on the 12V.

I've read several places that an 8800 GTX requires 30 amps between two rails, so would an SLI setup require 60A between 4? This does not leave a whole lot of room for the CPU, RAID, fans, etc...

Maybe 2x Silver Stone Zeus would be better with the 38A on the 12V rails. Then there's the PC P&C 610 with 49A which 2x should definitely be able to handle 8800GTX SLI.

Someone let me know what the real usage requirements are for SLI

Edit:
I didn't read the posts on the first page. The stuff there kind of answers my questions. I thought this post was about single 8800GTX's. So I assume 1 38amp PSU can power the 8800GTX SLI while the other 38 amp PSU handles other things.

 

[imported_Truenofan]

im personally gonna need at least either two 500w psu's or a 1000w with loads of molex power connectors. because that site, states im gonna need something in the region of 1000-1200w.

edit: btw, thats w/ two 1900's and a highly oc'ed cpu and loads of other stuff.

 

[ND40oz]

Originally posted by: Truenofan
im personally gonna need at least either two 500w psu's or a 1000w with loads of molex power connectors. because that site, states im gonna need something in the region of 1000-1200w.

edit: btw, thats w/ two 1900's and a highly oc'ed cpu and loads of other stuff.

Nah, you'll be fine, I run an Antec 550 with an oc'd Pentium D and dual X1950XTXs. Unless you have a ton of hard drives...

 

[LittleNemoNES]

I have a 700w Seasonic M12 (not S12) It's sweet but I was starting to regret buying it since it seemed it would barely be able to handle 8800GTX SLI.
This is good news, though I would rather wait on another ATVideo member to put this to the test.

 

[Matthias99]

Unless you're into voltmodding and trying to set OCing records, or you want to install tons of hard drives, you would be hard-pressed to actually pull much more than ~400W or so even with a very high-end single-CPU, dual-GPU setup. GPUs max out at about 125-150W, CPUs more like 100-125. And that's only for the very top models of each. Do the math.

Although almost all of that would be on the +12V rail, so you would need a PSU with at least 35A total on the 12V rail/rails. But beyond that... you don't really need 600+W PSUs unless you want to overclock/overvolt everything substantially (which does increase the power draw quite a bit).

 

[Skott]

Supposedly when DirectX10 games come out and Vista comes out and adds Direct X10 all the direct X10 cards will be using more power. As it is now supposedly the Direct X10 cards arent working that hard. So there is that to take into consideration later on. But one good thing from this article is that we consumers do need to rethink just how much psu we need for these new cards. There seems to be a big discrepency between what is actually being used (ala Inquirer and other users) and what nVidia is claiming we should use. I'm guessing the answer lies somewhere in the middle of what the two are saying. And like someone mentioned above we probably should start a thread/s about how little psu we have working fine vs number/mass of components. Its just a shame the 8800GTX is so expensive. Few will be able to do the actually testing especially in SLI setups.

 

[Shortass]

I just wanted to bump this because I was looking more into PSU requirements for 8800gtx, even SLI'd, and was wondering now that it's been out a month longer if anyone's actually attempted the challenge posted in this thread. Go go go!

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: Shortass
I just wanted to bump this because I was looking more into PSU requirements for 8800gtx, even SLI'd, and was wondering now that it's been out a month longer if anyone's actually attempted the challenge posted in this thread. Go go go!

If you look at my post above I measured a single 8800GTX with oced C2D at 394W from the wallplate which is ~300W from the components.

An oced Crossfire solution drew 587W from the wallplate and ~440W from the components. SLI'd 8800GTXs will draw approximately the same amount of power as the Crossfire system.

 

[Aberforth]

Guys, a 500 W Psu for 8800 GTX and other high-end components is more than enough. If you are using an old Intel CPU based on Netburst then you need a bigger power supply. Also PC's with Athlon X2 4000 series CPU are more power hungry beasts. Core 2 on the other hand is a completely different architecture and consumes very less power @ 100% CPU usage. So if you have a single G80 GTX and a Core 2 CPU I recommend a 500/550W Power Supply. Make sure it supports +12v 26 A or more

Power Supply Calculator (supports G80) : http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp