Background: My GF 8800gts broke down a few weeks ago. The guarantee was still up, and today i finally got a replacement. It turned out to be a GF 9800gx2, and my issue now is that my PSU is an Antec neo hw 430, which is atleast supposedly too weak to run this gfx.
After some background research however, it turns out that the 9800gx2 requires 40A from the 12V rails, while the psu has 3x16A available, aswell as 384W split over the 12V rails, with the gfx supposedly using only around 180W under load.
So my question is, would it be possible to run a 9800gx2 with my psu? I have a minimum amount of components in the pc; 1 cd station, 1 hdd, my mobo is an Abit ab9 pro (Is the mobo compatible with the card? Assumed it is as the supplier was made aware of what mobo i have.) and the cpu is an intel dual core 2,4ghz (not at home at the moment, so sorry about the lack of details). In other words the system shouldn't be very power hungry, so im thinking i might get away with not buying a new PSU. What do you think?
While you do indeed have a decent PSU, it is almost certainly not up to the task; definitely not reliably nor for an extended gaming session. I would suggest a quality unit in the 550W-600W range. Antec, Corsair, OCZ, PC Power & Cooling, would all be good choices.
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Reply to jtt283
Thanks for the replies. It was expected that my psu isn't efficient enough i guess, even though i was hoping otherwise (my psu is only a month old, i have been plagued by pc parts breaking lately )
Going on jtt's recommendations and what PSU:s i'd be able to get quickly, i found the Corsair VX550 as a seemingly good candidate. ( http://www.corsairmemory.com/products/vx.aspx ) Is it good enough? The review i read on it gave it very high ratings, but as most psu reviews i'we read, they discuss fairly old gfx cards etc, so i figured i might aswell ask
The amount of PSU:s that i can get without waiting for weeks seems to be very low here in Finland, and the best options to the Corsair one that i'we found so far are Zalmans; either the Zalman ZM600-HP which is a bit more expensive and would require me to get a pci-e 6->8pin adapter, or the Zalman ZM850-HP (which is also the only psu iwe found available quickly in finland that is on the list of NVidia recommended psu:s for the gfx), which almost twice the price of the Corsair VX550 and quite a bit over the top for my current system. Which would you recommend?
I would recommend an upgrade and brand change. I had the Neo 430 and it died in less than 9 months of use. A quick web search revealed significant anecdotal evidence of problems with recent Antec offerings (which may just be a function of the volume sold) but that and my experience led me to replace it with an Enermax PSU.
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