Verify what video card I can upgrade to

[imported_wired247]

First of all, yes I have read a million threads where the corsair 520/620 power supplies have been recommended. I know that OCZ, antec also rate highly. I'm not coming in here for opinions on what PSU anyone thinks is better, I'm asking solely about video card upgrades I can get on my PSU.

I have also done my research by plugging my equipment into PSU calculators, and I think I am good.

However, I want to be absolutely sure before I decide to change my video card setup.


Given my setup,

E8400 @ 1.3V with stock HSF
X38 chipset @ stock voltage
2x2GB DDR2-800
!!! 4x 250GB SATA II HD's (this must make an impact vs. a single HD)
PCIe 8x RAID card
Creative X-Fi
3x 120MM Case Fans (stock/no controller)
1x DVD-RW
no case lights or watercooling or anything of the sort

and of course the PSU, 600W Thermaltake
http://www.newegg.com/product/...x?Item=N82E16817153049

I believe that with this PSU I could get basically any single video card at all, including 2x GPU cards such as the 3870x2. However I am likely going to wait for the 9800gx2.

Like I said I have done my research but I'm not sure how much faith to put into these calculators. I believe I have plenty of overhead (I have even calculated the power for this setup and 2x SLI'd 8800Ultra's and it still falls short of 600W)

If anyone disagrees with the assessment that I can indeed get just about any single-slot video card out there, I need to know, and I need to know what you're basing your opinion on. I will not be going with crossfire or SLi as I already have 1 PCIe2.0 slot used by the raid card. so single slot cards only

In fact, the only thing really concerning me is the fact that I have 4 hard drives, and I don't know what impact that will have on the PSU during high load situations such as gaming and folding@home.

 

[tynopik]

your newegg link is broken
i see 2 different 600w modular thermaltake power supplies on newegg, one should be fine, the other looks questionable

the last i heard about the 9800x2's power requirements was a minimum power supply of 580watts with 40A on the 12V line

now they always overspec this, so you can get by with less, but
TT1: only 36A on the 12V line - really borderline
TT2: 48A on the 12 line - plenty

the only thing is that neither have the 8 pin PCIe connector, just the 6 pin

but my understanding is that it doesn't really matter

the 4 hard drives aren't going to matter

besides, their most power-intensive moment is during spinup, during which time the video card's power draw will be minimal

 

[mpilchfamily]

Weather you go with an ATI x2 or an Nvidia X2 the cards will need 1 6pin PCI-e and one 8 pin PCI-e to run. So if your PSU doesn't offer at least 4 PCI-e connectors you won't be able to power the cards. With video cards like that i wouldn't try using any Molex to PCI-e adapters to make up for the missing connectors.

Now I'm going to assume this is the PSU you have since your link is bad.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817153049

If that's the case then the unit only has 3 PCI-e connectors. Now it does offer a max of 48A on the combined 12V rails. This would be borderline for a pair of the card your looking to get. Now granted I'm assuming the 9800's will have about the same power requirements as there 3870x2 Arch-Nemesis. So a single card would need, on its own, about 12A to 18A. This is based off the max amount of amperage the PCI-e spec has each connector rated for. The 6 pin PCI-e is rated at 75W or 6.25A and the 8 pin PCI-e is rated at 150W or 12.5A. So if a single 9800 is projected to need 40A for a total system you need to add another 12A to 18A to that when you add a second card. But 40A seams quite high to me but then we are talking 2 GPUs on each card.

So overall i think a new larger PSU would be recommended.

 

[imported_wired247]

Not sure what happened with the link the first time, but it's fixed now. My mistake.

Yes this is the one with 48A on 12V line

mpilch, I'm not sure what you're getting at. I'm only going to get one card, with 2 GPUS on the card. So given 3 PCIe connectors, and the SLI/crossfire certification on this PSU I'm thinking it will be fine even if the card wants 2 power connectors.

The 580W recommendation sounds reasonable, that's about what I would've expected. So thanks for that tynopik

 

[TC91]

just a comment, but i dont think grabbing 9800gx2 will be a very good idea if you have the 8800gt already; in games that sli wont work well in, the gx2 will be as fast or slower than your current 8800gt, and dual cards (so far) have not had great driver support, especially after their time has passed ala 7950gx2 (especially with vista, the 7950gx2 i believe didnt work in the dual gpu config for quite some time).