550w PSU enough for 2x8800gt in SLI?

I'm running 6 hdds internally (PATA + SATA), an Athlon X2 4800+ (s939), 4gb RAM, creative Audigy 2 zs sound blaster, 2x optical drives. I've got a good ANTEC 550w NeoPower/TruePower power supply.

Will I be able to run 2x8800gts in SLI mode for Crysis (so under high load)? Will the system hold up? I borrowed an 8800gtx last year and it ran just fine, but I don't know how the power consumption will be between 1x8800gtx and 2x8800gt cards... think I can pull it off?

I wouldn't. You probably want 650 at least just to be safe. The only reason I say that is because of the massive amount of HDs plus the extra optical.

Your Antec may fire it up but could cause freezes, bsod's and all sorts of problems. I would get a 700w+.

thanks guys. OK SO... I used that calculator thing, but everything I had and even added a PCI card and 2 USB devices that I don't have for some "leeway" plus put all system load at 100%... which came to 638 watts...

BUT, when I dropped it down to only 2 HDDs and left everything at 100% load and had more components then I had, it says 538watts... and if I drop it to 1 HDD and get rid of my optical drives and have only 1 USB device, say a gamepad, it drops it to 447watts!

So here's my question:

No way I am getting a new PSU right now, BUT, I really want to get 2x8800gts in SLI. Do you think if when I play games (which really isn't all that often, but I will be having a marathon with all these new games coming out) if I just UNPLUG ALL MY *EXTRA* optical & HDD drives while I play (I use all that for video editing, no need for them to be plugged in while gaming) that I should be safe then? Could that be a workable solution?

NO way man. I would go at least with a 700w PSU, 550.. not a chance.

Here's a power consumption chart for the 8800 GT
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3140&p=13

the amount of HDD's are going to kill the thing on bootup, get something more powerful, 620-50+ wattage range.

OK - so no go with everything plugged in. But what about how I mentioned unplugging what I am not using?

If I...

- unplug all HDDs (5x), except my main boot drive / game install drive
- unplug all optical drives (2x)

Should that be ok? I thought I read somewhere that in SLI, the 8800gt needed only 450watts... and that power chart shows if I unplug those components that at 100% load I'll be drawing less than 500watts.

BUT - am I missing something? Will that still not work? If not, why not?

Thanks so much for the input.

I already gave him a psu calc link, he's used it. http://www.extreme.outervision.com [...] orlite.jsp
Looks much the same as yours. Wonder if results will be?

Hammer!!!

Good to go, run the 2x8800gts in SLIs.

And love every minute of it!

Buy a cheap device (about $15) called a Kill-A-Watt and see how much your computer pulls at load. It can measure the wattage. Now, this is the wattage pulled from the wall, not the wattage the power supply is giving to the computer (which is always less than the power that the power supply draws from the wall). See how much power you pull. I currently have a e6600 overclocked to 375*9=3.375GHz, 8800GTX, 3 SATA HDD, 2 Optical drives, the nautilus 500 watercooler (runs off the power supply power), X-Fi fata1ity, 2GB of ram, and only pull about 330watts from the wall when loaded during gameplay. So if you consider (for calculations only) my power supply to be 90% efficient (which is way high), the power supply is (at max) only providing ~300 watts of power. I think it's a little over 80% efficient, so it's providing about 270 watts. So my 500watt is perfectly fine.

From our two scenarios, you'd probably be ok. And I don't think you're overclocking, so that'll help lower your power requirements. I can't imagine another 220+ watts just on another video card (to your benefit, 8800GT uses less power than a GTX) and a few more HDDs (~5-7 watts a piece).

The setup above (from link provided above) shows only 327 watts used with 8800GT SLI, Core 2 Extreme X6800, NVIDIA 680i SLI, 4x1GB Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400 4-4-4-12, and one HDD. I think power supply wattage if over-hyped.

*updated picture to show load*

Ok I've asked this a few times so...

*** WHAT IF I UNPLUG ALL MY EXTRA HDDS AND OPTICAL DRIVES ***

(I explained this in my above posts, see those for details)

I updated the picture above to show load. I don't think you have to unplug stuff, you should be ok. If you start running into problems, then unplug stuff, but I personally don't think you have to.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817703005

I think you'll be fine, you have a good quality 550 watt power supply that you're going to draw around 360 watts from.

At least let us know if it fries.

Oh, and also look in to a dedicated PSU for graphics only. Most of the time it is cheaper and works better.

gwolfman - my psu specs are here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817103941

I don't switch between gameplaying and video editing too much... I really only play games one main time a year, Holidays. I think I'll just unplug all my extra video HDDs/opticals and use the 8800gt. When I get back to video work in Jan, I'll unplug the 8800gt and replug in my HDDs.

Those PSU charts say if I do that, I'll have PLENTY of headroom, even at 100% load. If I were to play games more or leave everything plugged in, I'd just get a new PSU but I'm not going to use that setup enough to justify spending even more.

Looks like you're all set then. Enjoy the setup!

Good to hear a follow up..

Try to add one hard drive at a time