Seeking to future proof my power supply for DX11 SLI

Burke888

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Apr 28, 2009
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Hey everyone,

Right now I am running an Alienware with the "newer" style case. It's an older system (circa 2007) and I have upgraded the motherboard, CPU, and most recently the graphics card.
I mistakenly bought a eVGA 780i SLI FTW, which does 3-Way SLI, but alas I purchased only a single ATI 4890 :eek:.

Anyway, with the release of the next generation of DX11 cards I want to make the move back over to the Nvidia side of things so that I can start taking advantage of this motherboard I wasted money on. But here is the catch:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16817174028
700 Watts, but it's a cheap one so it probably only really puts out 200 Watts :(
This power supply only has FOUR 6 PIN Power connectors. The new graphics cards use the 8 pin power connectors, and I can't even imagine what the DX11 cards will use. I've read elsewhere that using the molex to 6 PIN to 8 PIN power adapters are akin to committing murder, so I want to avoid the power adapters.

So my question to you guys is what type of power supply do I need to get that will both

Summary:
■Fit In My Case? (Alienware's "new" style case, circa 2007)
■Allow me to run Nvidia's DX11 cards in SLI? (Probably will need FOUR 8 Pins?)
■Will the DX11 cards work in SLI using the old eVGA 780i SLI FTW?


I sincerely appreciate the help!


HiPro
Hp-W700WC3 Revsion 02 [700 Watt] :(
AREA-51 7500-AB
FULL-TOWER BLACK CASE 2.0A
eVGA 780i SLI FTW
E8600 3.33Ghz 6MB L2 Cache, 133Mhz FSB
PDP 1GB DDR2 LOW LATENCY PC-6400 AW96 [4 GB]
SEAGATE 750GB SATA 3G 7200RPM NCQ
Sapphire ATI Radeon 4890 1GB [Goes well with the motherboard :eek:]
 

jimishtar

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May 15, 2009
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new cards runnin dirx11 will probably be 45nm technology, so they should spend less power than today's cards. sli bridges will stay the same, so will the power connectors (i guess). the link doesnt work, but i advise u to get some quality psu (corsair, antec, enermax, power&cooling, silverstone..) and make it at least 750 W if u wanna 2-way-sli. For 3 cards in sli, u will probably want something like 1000W psu or even more. usualy all 750W++ psu are the standard size and have four 8 (6+2) pin connectors.
 

Burke888

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Apr 28, 2009
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@ jimishtar
Thanks for the quick reply!
I fixed the link, it should work now. It's basically a 700 Watt OEM PSU that came with my Alienware back in 2007.

So you think the power requirements will remain the same even with the new generation of cards?
ETA:
Here is a picture of the sticker on the PSU:
17-174-028-03.jpg
 

jimishtar

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May 15, 2009
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the new cards will need less power, i think, cause of the new 45nm manufacturing process.
look at the 12v rails on the psu specs. this one is 16 Ampers on all four 12v rails. a good strong graphic card requires ~40 A on the 12v rail. also, look for 80+ certificate psu. they are more expensive, but cause of the higher electrical efficiency, it will pay off by itself in a year, simply by saving u money for the electrical bill.

look for something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009
 


I believe both ATI and nVidia are using the 40nm manufacturing process, but I could be wrong.

Remember while the size of the transistors are shrinking, there are significantly more of them so actual power consumption depends on the following:

1. electron leakage
2. operating frequency of the GPU
3. actual increase in transistor count.