Not sure how to connect up psu to 6950, help needed pls.

[Abacus]

Hi, just got a new 6950 graphics card which needs/has:

''2x 6pin PCI-E power connectors required (Power Adapters included in box for older PSU's)''

I have an FSP Blue Storm AX500-A power supply, which only has 1 pci-e power cable. As stated above the card came with 2 x (2x4pin molex to one 6pin pci-e) convertor cables. However in the instructions for the card it states that they dont recommend using any convertors at all.

So what I wanted to know pls is:

1) should the 6 pin I have got go into a specific one of the two 'ports' and

2) Can i use the convertor and what risk is there in using them, and what might I lose by not having the 2 6pins?

Any help would be very much appreciated so I can tell if i can install my new card risk free.

Thanks a lot

 

[Surveyor]

1) It doesn't matter which connector you use the 6 pin in.

2) If you don't connect both 6 pin connectors the graphics card won't work so you'll have to use the adapter.

3) The PSU looks like it's a few years old and perhaps doesn't have the greatest of 12V rails. Be careful with it.

 

[Abacus]

Thanks very much Surveyor for your quick response

re not using the adaptor, i realised that the card needed the 2 6 pins, i just wasnt sure whether or not i would have to but a new PSU before i installed the card. I take it from your response that it might be a good idea to get a more modern one anyway due to the 12v rail, i just wasn't sure if it was safe to put in the card with my existing PSU until such time that I managed to get a hold of a new PSU. Apologies for all the questions, been a while since I got a new GFX and a bit paranoid about messing it up

 

[Surveyor]

I don't really know much about that PSU as it seems to be a few years old.

If it has a label on the side showing the output of the 12V rail(s) then I might have a better idea of what it's capable of.

 

[Abacus]

Apologies but the sticker you refer to seems to be on the other side of the psu and is not visible without a bit of dismantling. I found this article, would this answer your question (i am not very clued up on this sort of thing as you have prob realised)

''The cross-load characteristics of the PSU are good, but like other units without dedicated voltage regulation it cannot boast an ideal stability of the output voltages. The +12V voltage fluctuates the most, from 11.4 to 12.6V.'' (Quote from within the review)

 

[Surveyor]

The PSU only outputs 372W on the 12V rails which is where the majority of the power draw is on a modern PC.

This is quite low for a 500W PSU but may be sufficient depending on what the rest of your system is.

I wouldn't bank on much overclocking though.

 

[Abacus]

Hi, once again thanks a lot for your help mate.

At this stage I will be running everything on stock....the jump up from my old graphics card will be more than enough just now I will have a look at getting a more modern and better suited PSU before I try anything.

To be honest I just wanted to make sure i could plug the card into my system and use the power adaptors without causing any harm.

The rest of my system is a few years old as well and i dont have a great deal in it(power consumption wise) so i take it that I will be ok to go ahead and stick it in and look for a new psu in the near future?

 

[Marine-RX179]

To be honest I just wanted to make sure i could plug the card into my system and use the power adaptors without causing any harm.

The rest of my system is a few years old as well and i dont have a great deal in it(power consumption wise) so i take it that I will be ok to go ahead and stick it in and look for a new psu in the near future?

372W should be fine (if the PSU can actually deliver what it claims) considering a highly overclocked Quad-core CPU draws around 140-150W max, and the 6950 at stock draws just under 200W if memory serves me right. If you don't have a quad-core that's highly overclocked, it would most likely wouldn't even draw more than 100W max, and would be less if your CPU was only a dual-core. So your PSU "should" be ok.

But as your mentioned your PC is a few years old, there's a chance that your CPU might be bottlenecking your 6950 thus it wouldn't deliver 100% performance/capability...what CPU have you got, and any overclock?

 

[Abacus]

Hi Marine-RX179, thanks for the reply buddy.

My spec is
OS Win 7 64bit
CPU AMD PhenomII x4 955 running at stock
MOBO Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3
RAM 4Gb GSkill 12800
HD 2x500Gb
(PSU and Graphics as mentioned above.)

I posted in the general hardware section recently asking for advice on upgrades. The helpful advice i got was that the rest of my system should be ok for now, and the graphics card would make a nice upgrade from my existing 8800gt

I just got nervy when i recieved my card and my PSU didnt have the necessary connectors without using the adaptors, which the graphic card instructions said was a bad idea.

 

[Marine-RX179]

You CPU is fine for your 6950 (would only bottleneck in CPU demanding games that don't use all 4 cores, such as WOW or Total War series)
Also, its max power consumption should be 125W.

Was worried that it was some old and slow dual-core...as there had been people upgraded to a mid-high range graphic card on their old dual-core platform was wondering why they are not getting the performance increase implied from reviews

 

[Abacus]

Thanks a lot for putting my mind at ease, I figured given the advice i had previously recieved in here that it wouldn't bottleneck too much, and would allow for upgrading other parts at a later date.

Cheers again for all your help mate

 

[Jakus]

You should not run into any problems as You are obviously intelligent and sensible enough to ask first, unlike most who would take a blind guess and then post "My new xyz card is faulty "


FYI, Manufacturers have taken to adding lots of power connectors, not because they are required but to make users stop and think and use a power supply with the correct plugs (which generally is up to the job of supplying enough current)

Plenty of old quality power supplies are up to the job and if you uses a clean molex (not on the end of a daisy chain of 4 hard disks) with an adapter to pcix all should be well, but that second plug is required, although electrically all the yellow +12v feeds are joined on the card by the plugs, it is required to see an earth/return at each plug. Without this the card may not initialize or display a warning message on the monitor.

Once up and running it's simple enough to run some voltage monitoring/logging software while strenuously testing the GFX card to ensure all is well

 

[Marine-RX179]

Just thought I should point out that although I said your PSU should be fine, you should bare it mind that max power consumption for your CPU plus 6950 on stock speed is 125W+200W, which is 325W.

There's two thing you should consider:
a) the PSU might not actually capable of delivering the 372W as claimed
b) PSU performance DOES deteriorate over time, so while it might be able to deliver...say 350W instead of 372W as it claim when it was new, it might be delivering even less than 350W now with few years passed

...so if you got the money to spare, it might not be a bad idea to get a new and better PSU to put yourself more at ease.

 

[muon]

Problem is how the PSU dedicates the rails.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cases/display/bluestorm_3.html

Here they suggest

+12V1 line corresponds to the mainboard, graphics card and hard disk drive

+12V2 line to the processor

So if the molex connector are from +12V1 line, then the graphics card will possibly overload it.

----------

Secondly, here is the output of the PSU

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article212-page1.html

285W on 12v rails (i.e. when both used) is woefully inadequate.

-----------------

Thirdly,

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article212-page3.html

NOTE on PCI-E CURRENT CAPACITY: There was some question about the maximum output capacity for PCI-Express because of the recent changes in the spec by Intel and nVidia. So to avoid confusion, a quick call was placed to Fortron. They confirmed that up to 75W was available on for PCI-e. The latest spec demands as much as 150W. As far as we know, PCI-e VGA cards that demand that much power are not on the market yet, but you should be aware that 75W is the recommended maximum on this PSU.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Secondly, here is the output of the PSU

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article212-page1.html

285W on 12v rails (i.e. when both used) is woefully inadequate.

So it only output 285W instead of 372 as Surveyor have mentioned above? Then I guess it's definitely time for a PSU upgrade.

 

[Abacus]

Sorry folks, thought this topic had drifted into the abyss, I stupidly didn't check back to see the additional information you had given. Thank you very much all of you for your help.

As you predicted I did run into trouble, and am now on the lookout for a new PSU, which wasnt in my initial plans, but given all this prob should have been. Thank you once again for all the help, advice and info