460 GTX really needs two six pin?

DJready

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Jul 13, 2010
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I wanna know if you really need two 6 pin connector's to power 1 GTX 460 786mb or GTX 460 1gb.

And if thats the case how come all these SLI-ready PSU come with only two 6 pin instead of four 6 pin connectors?
 

g00fysmiley

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because not all cards require two 6 pin connectors, some only require one... try a molex adaptor if you need it... btu in general i'd imagine if the psu only has 2 6 pins i'd question it actually being able to support two 460's
 

notty22

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benski

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A couple of years ago there were very few if any cards that required 2 6 pin connectors so the power supply manufacturers didn't anticipate the need to put the extra connectors on there. The adapters work fine if you have enough watts on the 12v rail. I've got 2 465's in SLI running on a 620w PSU, one uses the 2 6 pins and the other uses the molex adapters and I haven't had any issues yet.
 




Yes but if you want to SLI you will either need a new PSU or grab some molex to 6pin
 

ionut19

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Amm..NO. AMD rates the Radeon HD 5770 for 18W of power consumption at idle and 108W maximum board power at load. The gtx460 is rated at 20-30w at idle if i remember right and 160w at maximum load.

If you want to go sli, use the 6pin PCI-E power connectors from your PSU, one for each card and use the adapters that came with the cards for the second connection.
 
I am rather curious as to why someone would even bother to ask this question when all one has to do was look up the base power consumption of this card. 160w on reference clocks (with margin for give or take) with a max out over 200w. If you see a power connector it doesn't mean that it optional like a usb port or a serial port but is required for the normal operation of the card. Two power connectors equal that you need to hook up two power cable to ensure that the card works. Common sense seams to be all out the window these days no matter ware one is in this third dung heap from the sun.

The 5770 in general uses less power than the GTX460 but however it doesn't compete performance wise and putting a second in crossfire defeats the purpose when efficiency is in mind.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff

The GTX 460 BARELY needs more than one 6-pin connector, so they have two. An 8-pin would have likely carried enough power, except the specs for power supplies make 6-pin more common.

Anyway, since you only need a little more power than a single 6-pin provides, you can follow the suggestion of using a 4-pin "molex" to 6-pin adapter.
 

notty22

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This generation of cards are all about even, very good at idle. Can't say the same about ATI's 48XX's :)
power_idle.gif