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Advice needed

Seireitei

Seireitei

Seireitei

Associate
Joined
13 Dec 2011
Posts
16
Hey folks,

I recently upgraded my pc to pretty much a completely new system. The only components I took from my old system were the gfx card (Asus GTX 470) and the power supply (OCZ Fatal1ty 750w).

I only purchased the graphics card and psu about 12 months ago so I figured they would be fine. However now I am giving some thought to how I can upgrade the graphics side of things without breaking the bank (having just spent so much on new mobo/cpu/ram/case/ssd/os)

I see 2 options. 1) I get a 2nd GFX 470 and SLI them. I reckon a 2nd hand one would cost me about £120.
2) I sell my 470 and put that money together with the money I would have spent on another 470 and get myself a single card for around £200-250. I am thinking maybe waiting till january for one of the new ATI cards.

One thing I haven't been able to find any proper answer to is if my current PSU would handle 2x 470's? I have listed my system specs below so people can have an idea of the power requirements but all of the searching I have done on the net is very divided with some saying no and others claiming it will be fine. Don't suppose there is anyone out there with the same PSU running 470's in SLI?

So what do you think peeps, can my 750w handle 470 SLI? or am I better off cutting my losses, selling my current 470 and getting something around the £250 mark in january?

System specs for those that are interested.
Intel Core i7 2700K o/c to 4.8ghz atm
Asus Maximus IV GENE-Z
8GB ram
GTX 470 - running at stock
120GB Corsair Force Series 3 SSD
1TB Samsung HDD

Thanks for reading :)
 
The framerates haven't been amazing. I had hoped I could run with everything at max graphics settings (1080p monitor) but that hasn't been the case hence why I looked at adding an additional 470.
 
Surveyor said:
It's in the first post ;)
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Can't expect me to be literate, I'm from Nottingham after all. Oddly, when I posted I was thinking to myself it's more than likely in the OP and I'm just about to make a tool of myself. :p.

With that in mind, I'd be in the camp who would say PSU's are normally massively over-specced. I'd take the plunge if you need the extra FPS.
 
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Yeah one of my fears was that with the CPU overclocked the power consumption would be significantly increased thus putting my little 750w out of contention for 470 sli. I'm wondering now if I'd get away with leaving both 470's at stock and just having cpu overclocked.
 
Seireitei said:
Yeah one of my fears was that with the CPU overclocked the power consumption would be significantly increased thus putting my little 750w out of contention for 470 sli. I'm wondering now if I'd get away with leaving both 470's at stock and just having cpu overclocked.
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It's also worth noting that your 750W PSU has a maximum combined output of 650W across the 12V rails and virtually everything runs on the 12V supply.
 
Surveyor said:
It's also worth noting that your 750W PSU has a maximum combined output of 650W across the 12V rails and virtually everything runs on the 12V supply.
Click to expand...

It's fair to say I'm bit of an idiot when it comes to power supply stuff. I am assuming that is bad and as a result I would struggle with the SLI?
 
Seireitei said:
It's fair to say I'm bit of an idiot when it comes to power supply stuff. I am assuming that is bad and as a result I would struggle with the SLI?
Click to expand...

As others have said it should be OK there's just less wiggle room than you might think especially with a heavily overclocked processor.

As EVGA_Nick said:

Keep in mind that with overclocking the CPU and the GPUs, you may end up stressing the power supply quite hard... When it comes to power, I usually recommend to overshoot to run less risk of damage/burn-out and also save on your power bill due to better efficiency at less stressfull loads.
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Well it's a good thing you got sandybridge cause that will take a lot less power than say a i7 920 at 4.2ghz. If your PSU is SLI certified for a 470 I think it's very unlikely a oc'd sandybridge is going to push it past it's limit.
 
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