psu / pci express system

[tterris]

besides the 480 watt antec neopower, what should i be looking for to fully support all the components on a pci e system? note: i don't want to spend more than $100.

would buying a normal 20 pin connector psu and then getting a 20/24 pin adaptor cover all of the bases? i hear that the pcie video cards have like 2 things that are plugged into them directly from the psu. would a standard 20 pin connector psu have these required plugs or would i have to buy these extra too?

 

[flexy]

jeez...there are MANY of those kind of posts recently....almost like we need a new forum just for the PSU related questions.

Pleas read my reply in
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...y=y&keyword1=pci-e

I do NOT recommend an adapter, for reasons i dont have the time to explain in detail ow, lol. But short: an adapter would split ONE rail into two..therefore putting more thermal strain/load on the (original) ONE wire than the specs.

Say..the specs for ONE pin say max power drawn 6A, and you get the 20p -> 24p adpter...then all of a sudden you draw (2x6A)==12A from the same pin and increase the thermal load by factor 4.

*) you might be better off with a 24pin PSU

*) you might even NOT need to worry about 20/24 pins since the new motherboards with pci-e will MOSTLY support both standards. The pci-e cards will ALL have additinal connectors anyway .....eg. if you have two free molex connectors you use an (pci-e power supply) adapter and feed the power to the pci-e card this way . (And dont have to worry about the 4 extra PSU connecctor pins on youir motherboard which are empty if you dont cover with a 20p PSU)

There should be enough flexibility to "somehow" feed the pci-e card enough juice, no matter what PSU you have. Just make sure that either the motherboard (or the card) comes with the "2 molex ---> 1 pci-e" power adapter, which they should.

If not, eg.. newegg has em..or ebay..etc..

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=12-154-001&depa=0

 

[tterris]

i've been reading though that if you plug a 20 pin psu into a 24 pin socket on a pcie mobo, the 4 empty sockets are the ones dedicated to the pcie gfx card so you don't get power to the extra bandwidth... .. lol i don't really know what i'm talking about but this is what i've heard.