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Recommended PSU for dual cards.

shawsy109

shawsy109

shawsy109

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Joined
11 Feb 2012
Posts
1,086
Location
Up north.
Im thinking of dual cards, not sure if its gonna be 7950's,7970's, or 680's. Im like the wind, i change direction daily, it will defo be one of those 3 choices.

Im running an i5 2500k @ 4.4
8 gb ram
120gb agility3 ssd
500gb seagate cuda hdd

Add 2 of the cards above, what psu you think would suffice? 850 plus id guess?

Modular is a must, cannot be bothered with cables all over that i dont need.
 
Well apparently there were tests done on a i7 930 system with 8GB DDR3 and SLI GTX 680 and the power consumption only peaked at 570 or so using furmark. I would say a 850W would be a good choice.
 
I plan on getting 2 7970s or 680s, however if i get the lightning 7970 my AX850W may not handle 2 of these (1 now 1 later)

Stock/mildly overclocked 680s and 7970s should be fine with a 850W PSU.
 
Barry1987 said:
Well apparently there were tests done on a i7 930 system with 8GB DDR3 and SLI GTX 680 and the power consumption only peaked at 570 or so using furmark. I would say a 850W would be a good choice.
Click to expand...

+1

Also, your sig is 2 lines too big, max is 4 lines :)

OP:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-052-OC
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-019-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-000-XF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1497

Just some of the many good PSU's
 
Yea, 850 or 750 should do. If you want modular, Silverstone Strider Plus power supplies are a good shout. I use the 600W model; it's fully modular and quiet under load.
 
Barry1987 said:
Well apparently there were tests done on a i7 930 system with 8GB DDR3 and SLI GTX 680 and the power consumption only peaked at 570 or so using furmark. I would say a 850W would be a good choice.
Click to expand...

It would only peak at that because it has a TDP throttle that stops Furmark power virus showing ridiculous power consumption levels.

All 5 series and 6 series AMD cards came fitted with the same TDP throttle, see my sig.
 
I ran 570 sli with 2500k on a 550w psu for a few days. Never exceeded 500w from the wall in heaven benchmark. I don't think you would need more than 750w for a dual card setup with any of those. As for modular, here's my pc with a non modular power supply, if you have a spacious case with options for cable management save some money and just get a non modular :)

http://i40.tinypic.com/20aauj5.jpg
 
XFX 1000w Platinum Edition is one of the BEST, Fan stays off untill its atually required and there is ZERO buzz from PSU or GPU's.

a 1250w ZX OCZ will cause massive buzzing noise from psu and GPUs so stay away from OCZ
 
ALXAndy said:
It would only peak at that because it has a TDP throttle that stops Furmark power virus showing ridiculous power consumption levels.

All 5 series and 6 series AMD cards came fitted with the same TDP throttle, see my sig.
Click to expand...

I never knew that. Though I don't think other benchmarking tests are far off those figures, so...

spixelspixel said:
I ran 570 sli with 2500k on a 550w psu for a few days. Never exceeded 500w from the wall in heaven benchmark. I don't think you would need more than 750w for a dual card setup with any of those. As for modular, here's my pc with a non modular power supply, if you have a spacious case with options for cable management save some money and just get a non modular :)

http://i40.tinypic.com/20aauj5.jpg
Click to expand...

That is easily the tidiest non modular power supply set up I have ever seen in my life. I may have to rearrange mine now. :D
 
Barry1987 said:
I never knew that. Though I don't think other benchmarking tests are far off those figures, so...



That is easily the tidiest non modular power supply set up I have ever seen in my life. I may have to rearrange mine now. :D
Click to expand...

Thanks :D I've improved it a bit since I took that picture. Hid away the wires visible at the back of the case on the right and used some cable ties on the pci-e cables.
 
spixelspixel said:
I ran 570 sli with 2500k on a 550w psu for a few days. Never exceeded 500w from the wall in heaven benchmark. I don't think you would need more than 750w for a dual card setup with any of those. As for modular, here's my pc with a non modular power supply, if you have a spacious case with options for cable management save some money and just get a non modular :)

http://i40.tinypic.com/20aauj5.jpg
Click to expand...

That looks mint mate, whats the performance like with the dual 570's?

and what mobo is that? are the pci-e slots x16? or do they lower to x8 with 2 cards? I have been pondering another of these for xfire

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-042-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

just not sure my current OCZ 650w psu will do it.
 
It's the asrock z77 extreme 4.

They lower to 2 x8 with two cards. Performance is pretty good, here's heaven benchmark with a decent overclock and 2500k at 3.3ghz

http://i46.tinypic.com/1zfn7eh.jpg

Scores 38000+ gpu score on vantage at stock

Best thing to do is if you have a meter to read power usage, run something like heaven and if it's using under 350 from the wall ( real wattage would be around 300 with 85 percent efficiency ) then I'd say the psu would be fine for another.
 
Last edited:
Rule of thumb with psus.

They hardly ever change, so simply buy the biggest and baddest you can afford to buy and then keep it.

I used the same psu for about three years up until recently. And I only switched it out because it had a 92mm fan (Delta) and it was loud. It also ran hot, as it wasn't rated 80+ so it was rather wasteful converting my money in power into heat.

Other than that though? yes, just get the biggest one you can afford and stick with it.
 
spixelspixel said:
It's the asrock z77 extreme 4.

They lower to 2 x8 with two cards. Performance is pretty good, here's heaven benchmark with a decent overclock and 2500k at 3.3ghz

http://i46.tinypic.com/1zfn7eh.jpg

Scores 38000+ gpu score on vantage at stock
Click to expand...

Problem is with my current mobo, 1 slot is x16, the other is x4, not a very good combo, from what i have read it will be about 10%-15% less performance if i put 2 cards in this mobo rather than a x16/x16, x16/x8 or a x8/x8.

Plus my ocz psu would need molex adapters added for the 2nd card, sigh... why cant upgrading be easier and less costly.
 
shawsy109 said:
Problem is with my current mobo, 1 slot is x16, the other is x4, not a very good combo, from what i have read it will be about 10%-15% less performance if i put 2 cards in this mobo rather than a x16/x16, x16/x8 or a x8/x8.

Plus my ocz psu would need molex adapters added for the 2nd card, sigh... why cant upgrading be easier and less costly.
Click to expand...


It's usually best to do it right the first time and then be set. Sure, it's more expensive, but then it works out cheaper in the long run.
 
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