SLI ceritified?

[forizzle111]

how much power do u need for SLI? my main question is do u have to have an SLI certified PSU in order to use SLI? if so then why? thanx :)

[Yuanji]

you don't necessarily have to have an SLi certified PSU but nVidia certifies those to work so i'm guessing if you use a non certified PSU, nVidia won't cover it for power failure issues. You usually need a PSU with some pretty high 12V rails dual 12V rails. Usually it should be around 500-600W. Quality is also necessary

[forizzle111]

what about 420 watt? :confused:

[Yuanji]

420W definately cannot handle SLi

[forizzle111]

dang it ok then can u just explain to me what takes so much power because to my knowledge a single video card takes around 50 watts average so wudnt a second just take another 50 watts? given thats how much a card uses.

[Alaron]

Video cards that can be used for SLI need lots of power. They are very powerful GPUs and consume a lot more juice then video cards of the past. The motherboards that have two PCI-Express slots also need extra power. Finally, all systems that are using SLI are generally going to be of high end components that require plenty of watts.

You can see power consumption here: http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=7800gtx&page=4&cookie%5Ftest=1

That is why I recommend an Nvidia certified SLI power supply. They need all the juice you can throw at them.

:)

[forizzle111]

thanx alot just one more ? the highest wattage on there for a full system load was 369 watts? then wudnt 420 be pretty much enough?

[David M]

How many watts a PSU is rated at is not necessarily the truth. You can have a low end PSU rated at 450 watts which may actually have less power than a quality PSU rated at 300 watts. Don't rely on the wattage rating.

Your PSU MUST have two separate 6 pin GPU connectors on separate rails. This is an Nvidia requirement.

The 6800 Ultra card draws up to 90 watts at times. The mother board draws more watts than usual as well. Add in a high end CPU which can draw up to 100 watts and we are already talking close to 400 watts. This does not include the power to run the RAM, cooling fans, disco lights and everything else that draws current.

You can take your chances with a non-Nvidia certified PSU and it might work. But why take a chance with a couple thousand dollars worth of computer hardware to save less than 100 bucks?

It makes no sense to go cheap on the PSU with an SLI system.

Here is a list of PSU's certified by Nvidia for SLI. I would not purchase anything else.

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

[forizzle111]

thanx a bunch P.S. your systems specs in your signature are sick :)