PSU for 2 x GTX 295 (Quad SLI)

[mike2801.lee]

I purchased a Corsair TX850W PSU from overclockers a few weeks back for a new gaming / design rig that I'm building.

I asked a member of staff in the shop and they told me that an 850W PSU would be sufficient to run 2 GTX 295 cards in Quad SLI.

I was surprised by this but decided to take their word for it, however upon doing some further research a lot of people seem to think that you would need at least 1000W to do this.

Is there anyone who can confirm for me whether the 850W Corsair would do the job or not, and if not would overclockers be able to swap it for one that can? (I will be running an Intel i7 920 and overclocking it using a Noctua Cooler, 6GB DDR3 RAM, 1 DVD-RW Drive, and 2 SATA HDD's).

I am buying and installing the parts as I can afford them, so I have installed the PSU into my Antec 900-2 case already, along with the Motherbaord, CPU and CPU Cooler. Would this pose a problem with regards to returning the item?


Many Thanks,

Michael Lee.

 

[mike2801.lee]

Yeah I went in looking to buy a 1000W PSU but was talked into buying an 850W Corsair as it would "apparently" be all that I would require. I'll take it back and see what they say.

 

[mike2801.lee]

Your current 850w PSU will be absolutely fine, it's well capable of powering what you want.

Although I think you're crazy for wanting GTX295 SLI, I'd personally get a 4870X2 and or wait for the new cards coming in a few months, save you a lot of money for no noticable difference in performance.

Here's some tests by bit-tech that measure the power draw at the wall for an i7 setup with various graphics setups.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/01/08/nvidia-geforce-gtx-295-quad-sli-review/16

So remember, assuming your PSU is AT LEAST 80% efficient, which all new ones have to be, you'll be safe to assume that your PSU will suck 1060+w from the wall at peak.

So you'd have over 300w overhead with your current PC for an SLI GTX295 set up, but I wouldn't recommend going for that anyway.

Thanks for the post mate. It's nice to get a reply from someone who's genuinly in the know, as there are a lot of contrasting opinions on this thread..

Regarding the GTX 295 SLI advice: I only plan on purchasing and installing a single GTX 295 card with my new build. I wanted to know if the PSU would be suitable for SLI so I could add a second card in the future, if it proved worthwhile.

I totally agree that nearly all today's games bar maybe crysis, will not see any true benefit from running SLI on the GTX 295 (and that's only because I plan to run it on enthusiast settings and at 1920 x 1200 resolution on my DELL 2407 24" Monitor).

I'm quite happy to spend money on a top end rig, but with the price of the card atm combined with my current needs, buying two of them at £400+ is a monumental waste of money and electricity lol!