The Power?

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b_boy69sa

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hey guys i'm currently planning a major (Read brand-new) pc upgrade. What I'd like to know from those of you more wise than I is what kinda of PSU will I need to run 2 x GeForce 8800 GTS' in SLI with a E6550 CPU? Anyone recommed a cheap but decent PSU and where to get it from?

Thank chaps!

EDIT: I'll only be running one GeForce 8800 GTS at the moment, just want the potential for the upgrade without having to go buy a new PSU again.
 
You'll need a 700Watt PSU ideally. You could actually get away with a good high quality 600Watt unit, but rather be safe and go for a 700Watt that will last you years to come. The Aopen would be great, but I don't know if they make those anymore.
 
700W is overkill (avoid the Aopen)

I'm running a Quad Core, 8800 GTS 7 hard drives overclocked on a 480W Antec Truepower2

I have even been able to run it for a few months unoverclock on my Smartpower 350W PSU

I would get a Enermax 500W with 8-pin PCI-E v2 power connector on it. The 8 pin connector wil replace the 6 pin, requiring all the guy's who bought there "massive" 700W Aopens to buy new ones ;)

With PSU's Quality always wins over Quantity

if you are looking for something cheaper a Antec Earthwatts 500W, Neo HE 500W or a Truepower Trio 550W should do fine. The latter 2 has 5 year warranties now.
 
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Gnome said:
Why should he avoid the AOpen 700W PSU?
Click to expand...

It's cheap for good reason ;)

are you gonna trust an inferior PSU for power your PC?

Its like trusting a drug dealer neighbour to feed your dog/cat/baby/goldfish.
 
Sapphiron said:
It's cheap for good reason ;)

are you gonna trust an inferior PSU for power your PC?

Its like trusting a drug dealer neighbour to feed your dog/cat/baby/goldfish.
Click to expand...

Funny you should say that, most reviews say the opposite...

Do you have a reason other than perceived inferior quality?

I'm not attacking you or anything, I just thought of getting one and like to make an informed decision.

Anyway back to the topic:
Far as I remember (but my memory could be failing me), Nvidia rated the GF8800GTS for around 150W power draw. If you want 2xGF8800GTS that's 300W already, C2D's rated TDP is 65W just for the CPU. You'd be cutting it quite close...
 
Get a Cooler Master iGreen 600W (continuous)...it has 3 x 12V rails with a combined 456W (38A) over the 12V rails. That should be enough for a nice SLi rig. Amperage on the 12V rails are important :)
I got mine from The Prophecy Shop
It also has the 8pin power plug for newer motherboards and it's >80% efficient at all loads so it'll run nice and cool.

Mine is overkill for my current system though (E6550 + 8800GTS 640MB) but it'll work nicely for SLi (which I might consider one day).

@Sapphiron: some Antec TPII PSUs have bad capacitors. I hope you have a good one :p PS: that PSU probably isn't going to last very long...it might work fine now but within 1,5 years it'll start giving you probs when the caps age.

Do keep in mind that power supplies age with usage, especially under high loads which will decrease the amount of power output (decrease wattage) so one needs to take that into account when buying a PSU.
 
My TP2 is 2.5 years old now. Bought one when it came out. of all the Antec PSU I sold only one came back (a TP2 funnily enough), but the client got a TP3 in return since it was under warranty

All the Aopens I ever had, or sold to clients, broke. (bad luck maybe)

8800GTS "can" draw 150W of power electrically (75W though slot and 75W though connector), but it doen't, reports are inconsistent, but they point between 110W and 130W

The Coolermaster ones are great too!
 
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Sapphiron said:
My TP2 is 2.5 years old now. Bought one when it came out. of all the Antec PSU I sold only one came back (a TP2 funnily enough), but the client got a TP3 in return since it was under warranty

All the Aopens I ever had, or sold to clients, broke. (bad luck maybe)

8800GTS "can" draw 150W of power electrically (75W though slot and 75W though connector), but it doen't, reports are inconsistent, but they point between 110W and 130W

The Coolermaster ones are great too!
Click to expand...

That's quite amazing :p
Some AOpens are good, some bad. Depends on which parts it's based on. Check here. That list is most probably far from complete (since AOpen base their PSUs on many manufacturers' parts) My bro has one based on FSP Group Inc. 530W, ~5 years old, ran a FX5900Ultra and currently a 7900GTX without any problems :)
 
For those of you who own AOpen PSU's stop trying to protect the brand just 'cause you use them. I've come across tons of instances where I found the AOpen's to be overated. In other words, a 700w AOpen IMO is equivalent to 500w of say Thermaltake or Antec etc. ;) maybe even less, thats prob. why they so cheap...
 
xeo57 said:
For those of you who own AOpen PSU's stop trying to protect the brand just 'cause you use them. I've come across tons of instances where I found the AOpen's to be overated. In other words, a 700w AOpen IMO is equivalent to 500w of say Thermaltake or Antec etc. ;) maybe even less, thats prob. why they so cheap...
Click to expand...

Funny thing is that two 500W PSU's would set you back a lot less than even one decent 750W PSU plus the 750W struggles to run my measly system at full advantage......
 
xeo57 said:
For those of you who own AOpen PSU's stop trying to protect the brand just 'cause you use them. I've come across tons of instances where I found the AOpen's to be overated. In other words, a 700w AOpen IMO is equivalent to 500w of say Thermaltake or Antec etc. ;) maybe even less, thats prob. why they so cheap...
Click to expand...

Thermaltake is the worst PSU's on the market. I have personally seen one that blew(In my old system I had a 480W butterfly, worst piece of crap I ever owned, and it owned my GPU along with it, can even post the a shot from my camera that'll show you how a piece of crap thermaltake looks that went BOOM) and decent PSU review sites come to the same conclusion, namely that Thermaltake is overrated. Same goes for Antec, brother had one, a year later it starting making high pitched whining noises (not from the fan), then gave out.

Just a warning don't buy into the Antec, Thermaltake hype. Rather go for a OCZ if you're willing to hand out that much cash.

My friend has had pretty good results with his AOpen which is why I'm looking to get one but since Cyberdyne started selling Seasonic, I think I'll get one of those.
 
Thanks guys I really appreciate the feedback. Going to see which PSU's the supplier of my pc carries. Has anyone used PCINT, their prices are amazingly low, much lower even than computersonly and such?
 
Seasonic are probably the best around

They make Antec's top end PSU's (TRIO, NEO HE and Quaddro's)
 
There's nothing wrong with the Aopen 700 watt. A lot of the local overclockers have used this psu with lots of success.

I have one and had no problems with it.
 
Hey guys, just wondering if its possible to run 2 PSU's on 1 PC, ie 1 for the Mobo and CPU, and other for GPU's etc? Its an Idea thats been knocking around for awhile, and I think would work out cheaper since a 1000W PSU costs about R2300, and two high quality 500W PSU's would work out to about R1400.
 
lol did some online research, it isn't looking good. Come on, prove me wrong lol.
 
JUGGY said:
I have the Coolermaster Extreme Power 650Watt. Very nice. R750-00 from Cafe Java.

http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?act=detail&tbcate=22&id=50
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to diss you or anything but that's not really a good PSU. It lacks Active PFC, has 70%+ efficiency and it's possibly based on a lower wattage PSU (I can't find the article, bleh) and it can't really achieve 650W. (this applied to the 600W, so I'm assuming the 650W is the same)
I'd rather save R250 more and get a coolermaster iGreen 600W. That's 600W *continuous* and 700W *peak* with an 80%+ efficiency, 3 12V rails and coolermaster actually states the wattage over the 12V rails, unlike the extreme power.

My 2c
 
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