2x gx2 in GA-8N-SLI - what to power it?

[neiroatopelcc]

Hello. My best friend considered investing in a gx2 instead of his 7800gtx - and perhaps later another one. Now what I could read is, that the gx2 requires 2x 6 pin power connectors each. Where do you get the power? The thermaltake external graphics psu provides only two I believe? and my own thermaltake 680w doesn't have more either, so I doubt his psu has more than two also (some 600w from a danish company). Is there an external for four? or do you need two of the thermaltake ones? and are there cheaper alternatives, cause let's face it - while thermaltake is beyond doubt quality, it surely has a quality price tag as well.

 

[Guest]

I suggest you make your friend read that xbitlabs article Cleeves just posted, he most likely wont want 2X 7950GX2.

One should be plenty powerfull!

On a side note, only one PCIe connector on the 7950GX2
Only one 6 pin PCIe on the GX2...

 

[cleeve]

I don't usually advocate waiting to buy, but Quad SLI is not a great idea when the new, more powerful Dx10 cards are right around the corner.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

I don't usually advocate waiting to buy, but Quad SLI is not a great idea when the new, more powerful Dx10 cards are right around the corner.

Thanks for the replies, informative as usual ... but tell me one thing.
Why wait for a dx10 card, if dx10 is only available in vista? I doubt any sane person would run vista the next six months! I've tried the betas and both rcs... and of all the releases beyond doubt the last one (5744) is the worst I've tried. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone if the retail version is anything like this.
In short, I'd recommend anyone to stay away from .net 3 or dx10 based software in near future, cause the only supported platform is about as stable as reactos 0.3 (which isn't very stable)

That's just my subjective opinion ofcourse, but my point is - why wait for something, that you can't make use of anyway?

 

[cleeve]

Why wait for a dx10 card, if dx10 is only available in vista?

Because the new Dx10 cards will have amazing Dx9 performance.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

okay, but do we know that the performance will increase substancially? I haven't seen any article here yet regarding any actual specs, only a hint in another article, that they're big and power hungry ....which could mean more muscle, or more features, or poor design.

 

[cleeve]

Because every generation of card increses rendering power substantially.

The new cards will require all of that power for a reason...

And if you're worried about power and heat, the GX2 isn't the card for you in the first place...

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Well first of all it's not for me. I've got another solution. It's for a friend of mine. Anyway, I'm not naive enough to always assume more powerhungry means more performance. I remember when intel added mmx to the pentium, and altho it did add more heat and more transistors, it didn't provide any power boost to stuff that didn't use mmx ... and I'm kinda afraid of the dx10 situation being a repetition of that ...
Anyway, I've recommended him to wait with upgrading for the time being.

 

[cleeve]

Well, usually before a card comes out the rumors are somewhat representative of performance. All the rumors I've heard about the G80 and especially the R600 are that they are performance juggernauts.

I suppose they could be duds, but it doesn't seem likely, given the track record of the previous generations of videocards compared tot heir predecessors...

 

[yas]

I doubt it that we'll need directx 10 graphics cards for at least a year after the release of d10. And most of the games will be compatible with d9 anyway. Why not get the 7900 GTX?

 

[cleeve]

Answer in my first post, above.