8800GTX power supply question

[yamla]

Okay, time to upgrade my video card from a 6600GT. And I'm looking at the 8800s.

I know nVidia recommends a power supply that can handle 30A on the 12V line. My power supply is an Enermax Noisetaker EG701AX-VE(W) which has two PCI-e connectors and a sticker that says, "+12V1 18A, +12V2 18A, +12V total 35A". Does this mean it can handle the new cards or is it too underpowered? That is, should I be looking at the +12V total figure or the +12V1 figure? My system also runs five hard drives (though no more than two will be active at any one time in Windows), a couple of optical drives, 2 GB of RAM, and an AMD X2-4800 CPU.

(For the record, I have a 24" dell widescreen LCD and my plan is to play games like Oblivion at 1920 x 1200)

 

[almerac]

Okay, time to upgrade my video card from a 6600GT. And I'm looking at the 8800s.

I know nVidia recommends a power supply that can handle 30A on the 12V line. My power supply is an Enermax Noisetaker EG701AX-VE(W) which has two PCI-e connectors and a sticker that says, "+12V1 18A, +12V2 18A, +12V total 35A". Does this mean it can handle the new cards or is it too underpowered? That is, should I be looking at the +12V total figure or the +12V1 figure? My system also runs five hard drives (though no more than two will be active at any one time in Windows), a couple of optical drives, 2 GB of RAM, and an AMD X2-4800 CPU.

(For the record, I have a 24" dell widescreen LCD and my plan is to play games like Oblivion at 1920 x 1200)

your PSU should be more then enough. its total amperage that counts and 35 amps over 3 rails is more then enough

 

[yamla]

your PSU should be more then enough. its total amperage that counts and 35 amps over 3 rails is more then enough

Woo! That's awesome. Now I need to decide whether or not to pick up an 8800 GTX tonight.

 

[sailer]

It depends on the total load of your hardware. The Enermax you listed should take care of one 8800 GTX, but won't handle two of the beasts. I say that because you wrote "cards" in the plural, indicating two of them. Also, if you have a lot of other hardware running, the 600wt might not be enough.

I'm looking at going to either a 750wt or 850wt myself, but I run a lot of hardware.

 

[yamla]

Just one card, I'm not absolutely crazy.

I checked my power supply, both PCI-e power connectors are on the same line. Does that mean it's going to be limited to 18A? Can I use a PATA-style hard drive power connector for one of the PCI-e power connectors? My power supply is certified by nVidia for SLI (apparently), but this was long before the 8800 was released.

 

[sailer]

A split line can be a problem. Only way to know for sure is to try it and see what happens. If it fails to power up, or starts crashing in games, then you know you need more watts.

As you note, the SLI certification was before the 8800. Might be nice if the psu companies labeled them as SLI 9.0c only or SLI capable for DX10. I might be wrong, but I suspect that a lot of people will be upgrading their psu's in the next year. Forget that. I know that a lot of people will have to upgrade their psu's when they go to DX10.

 

[arjunatgv]

This link have PSU's tested with 8800 from XFX
http://xfxforce.com/pdf/tested_products.pdf

 

[yamla]

By the way, I picked up my 8800GTX on Friday. I had a hard time fitting it in my full-size tower case and the card overlaps four of my eight SATA connectors, but that's not particularly a problem. Although I have two PCI-e power connectors, I only used one of them and used a molex-to-PCI-e adaptor for the second one.

My system had absolutely no problem at all. And the performance is amazing.

 

[sailer]

I'm glad that it works. As I said, there was only one way to know for sure, and that was to try it. You did, it works, and that's good. Now we have both learned something, and that is new knowledge. Happy gaming!

 

[danny9894]

I am getting impatient but I know if I wait for a 8900 I'll be more happy (hopefully)

 

[sailer]

I'm practicing the patience thing too. I want to see the R600 come out so there are some benchmarks to compare, along with price and size. The 8800 is so long that it will barely squeeze into my case. I wish they had made it slightly taller than so long, but I'm not an engineer and maybe there were good reasons for length verses height.