Quick question about bottlenecking

[Roscoe1724]

With an i7 950 (stock speeds).

would x2 GTX 480's in Sli (stock speeds) bottleneck it?

Should I stick with my original 2x GTX 460 idea?

What kinda PSU wattage are we talking about for both scenarios?


Thanks again guys...

 

[redshadows]

No bottleneck there.

A Corsair 650w would power it all nicley

 

[95thrifles]

Id be looking at 850 personally for SLi'd 480s

 

[cainer]

No bottleneck there.

A Corsair 650w would power it all nicley

gonna need more than that for 480sli, i'd go at least 1k to cover any overclocking at a later date

 

[Marine-RX179]

I'll say go for 1000W, if planning on overclocking the CPU, AND the GTX480s in the future.

 

[rounddodger]

I would go for a 1200w to be on the safe side, especially if you overclock those 480's.

 

[Thumpsta]

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

Nvidia's PSU recommendations

 

[arc@css]

May be an idea to overclock the cpu to get more out of those beasts?

 

[mjones1]

I would go for a 1200w to be on the safe side, especially if you overclock those 480's.

Your able to run a i7 and 3 480's on a 1000w.
1000w would be fine.

 

[deusexlumina]

pfft, corsair cx400W should be up to the job.

 

[HazardO]

I don't think an 850W supply would be enough for a pair of GTX480s, and I would look for a top quality 1K supply.

 

[RedStarRiot]

I don't think an 850W supply would be enough for a pair of GTX480s, and I would look for a top quality 1K supply.

this site seems to state otherwise

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/26/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/7

 

[HazardO]

this site seems to state otherwise

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/26/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/7

Taken from the same article:

We did see this, and it very much worth mentioning. With a nicely overclocked Core i7 920 processor (3.6GHz) and GTX 480 SLI, we saw at the wall wattages exceed 900 watts at the wall in some very stressful GPU system situation.

Now I know the OP said his i950 wasn't overclocked, but he might want to at some point.

Anandtech has 851W draw on his GTX480s..

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/159

 

[RedStarRiot]

hmmm looks like i wont have 480 sli in future then!

only have corsair 850w

 

[HazardO]

hmmm looks like i wont have 480 sli in future then!

only have corsair 850w

I'm in the same boat, but I'm looking at a pair of GTX470s.

 

[RedStarRiot]

I'm in the same boat, but I'm looking at a pair of GTX470s.

yeah could do. think ill just defo wait now and see what ati offer. hopefully an improvement with still prety low power consumption

 

[hlennie]

once you overclock those 470's you wil get around the same power draw as 480 sli

had my 470's on a 750 watt corsair power supply but you could hear the power supply ramping all the way up under the load when benching.

so swapped it out for a sapphire 1050w (1250w total) which is just a rebranded enermax supply no problems whole system now runs sweet as a nut and still some room to stretch its legs in the future

 

[HazardO]

once you overclock those 470's you wil get around the same power draw as 480 sli

had my 470's on a 750 watt corsair power supply but you could hear the power supply ramping all the way up under the load when benching.

so swapped it out for a sapphire 1050w (1250w total) which is just a rebranded enermax supply no problems whole system now runs sweet as a nut and still some room to stretch its legs in the future

I wasn't planning on overclocking them, I was planning on getting a pair of the Gigabyte GTX470 SOCs, they are already overclocked, but cherry picked to require lower voltage, which gives them a power consumption at or below a stock GTX470.

Anyway the HX850 has another 100W of headroom over your 750.