Rampage III Extreme Power Supply Question

[sentry1]

I'm going to be getting a system built on the RIIIE, and I was wondering about the 2x8pin EATX12V connectors on this board.

Do I need to get a power supply that has 2 x 8pin connectors for this? I was going to get a 850W power supply for this build (i970, 2 EVGA Superclocked GTX460s and a 1TB SATAIII drive).

I went with the Thermaltake TR2 RX 850W
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1266&ID=1830]
but it seems to have only 1 8pin connector, whereas the Coolermaster Silent Pro M850
http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6627] has 2x8pin connectors.

By the way, since I'm being lazy nowadays, and having the system pre-built by Cyberpower, I don't have a lot of options for different power supplies in the 850W range, those two seemed the best ones out of the 850W offerings.

Do I need to have both 8pin connectors on the RIIIE plugged?

 

[tecmo34]

No, you don't need both plugged in. It is an added feature to help provide more stability to the board in overclocking at high levels. Your PSU's aren't the best choices (IMO), so I would look at a Corsair unit, which is typically there at Cyberpower. With dual GTX 460's, a Corsair 750 is more than enough power for your system.

Also if you would find the need for the 2nd 8pin ATX, you could just look for an adapter for a free molex cable to do the job

 

[sentry1]

I dunno about the PSUs. After a bit of hunting online, it seems the Thermaltake and CoolerMaster PSUs, as well as the Corsair 850 that they offer at Cyberpower, are all from the budget line that each brand offers. None of them seem to have much in the way to set them apart from the others. Not that this is a final judgement, it's not exactly easy for me to compare and rank these PSUs side by side without getting into some electrical engineering.

Now, moving on to another question about powering the mobo, when 2 cards are running in SLI mode, am I fine with each card being powered by 2x6pin PCIE power connectors, or do I also need to plug the 4 pin molex into the RIIIE board for additional power to the PCIE slot?

P.S. Why is the legacy PCI port always blocked on motherboards nowadays?!? To run my SLI in x16/x16 mode, I have to use slots 1 and 3... so the PCI slot that could take a WiFi card is now blocked! Is a USB wifi adapter comparable to a PCI wifi adapter?

 

[tecmo34]

1) As for your PSU question / concerns, I would review this thread ( http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/278567-28-ranked-list-guide ) and checkout reviews from this site ( http://www.jonnyguru.com/ ). It will give you some good insight. As an FYI, Corsair PSU are considered among the best on the market, so even their "value" lines are great.

2) Having an SLI setup should not effect the need of the board to have the 2nd 8pin ATX plugged in. They received their power from the PSU directly, as you pointed out with the 6pin PCIe connector.

3) I'm in agreement with you on the fact You can check to see if there is an unused PCIe x 1.0 slot open and pickup a WIFI card for it instead. A good USB WIFI adapter is equal to a PCI slot card. Both have faster native speeds than the speed of data coming in from the WIFI card. An example: A USB 2.0 slot has a top transfer rate of 480Mbps where the current fastest 300Mbps with some now reaching 480Mbps. As long as your WIFI adapter is below the 480Mbps transfer rate, there will be no bottleneck.

 

[sentry1]

Thanks for the links Tecmo! So, you guys are right, the Corsair does rate higher than both the TT and CM, well, the TT PSU doesn't even show up on the rankings list. I do like the modularity of the CM, and since it doesn't seem to be too far behind the Corsair, I'm going to go with that.

I did a bit of searching through Newegg and some other sites, and it seems all 3 PSUs seem to suffer from a similar ratio of DOA and burnouts.

So, a CoolerMaster 850TX powering an i7-950, 2 EVGA Superclocked GTX 470s, 6GB Corsair Dominator (3x2GB), and peripherals (2x1TB SATAIII HD, 1 DVD-RW, bunch of case fans, USB Wifi adapter, and an Asetek 550LC liquid cooler). Does anyone see any problems with this PSU proving enough juice to run this system at base and OC settings?

I don't know how far I'm going to OC it, as I haven't even touched hardware internals since the days of MMX processors.

 

[tecmo34]

Yes, the CM 850TX has enough power for your setup though on the low end of the tolerance.

 

[sentry1]

Advice noted, l will up the PSU to the... bleh, looks like the Corsair 950TX ends up being CHEAPER than the CoolerMaster 850. Damn Cyberpower, that wasn't there a few days ago, I swear.


I will call them on Monday and have them change the build to the Corsair 950TX, especially since it ends up costing me less. I was becoming rather fond of this newfangled modular design though.

Ok, so back to the 2 8pin EPS 12V connectors for OC power to the CPU: If I'm looking to end up in say.. the 3.6-3.8GHz region, do I need to have the additional 8pin port powered?

On a sidenote, Cyberpower is turning out to be not such a great choice. I configured my order from their Mega Special IV combo, but when I configured an identical system from their X58 Configurator, the same build came out to be $54 cheaper.

 

[tecmo34]

Yeah... I'm not a fan of buying from Cyberpower or any pre-built system. I would recommend building your own from Newegg for even more savings.

 

[sentry1]

Tried it. Priced it out with the exact same components and Newegg costs MORE! I did get the free S&H, plus an extra 5% off from Cyberpower. So in the end, the same build built on my own would cost me nearly an extra $200, whereas I can have CyberpowerPC do all the labor for me, and then tweak it myself after.

It WAS kind of shocking, I used to build my own systems all the time and save hundreds, this is the first time a pre-built system ended up cheaper than a home built one. And I can always call on Cyberpower's shoddy warranty and tech support as a last resort.

 

[sentry1]

Best answer selected by sentry1.