Thermaltake Toughpower 700 watt PSU for SLI

[comrade]

I've bought two, BFG 8800GTX OC cards to put into an EVGA 790i Ultra MB with a Xeon 3360 quad core processor. I have a Thermaltake Toughpower 700watt PSU. I haven't even opened it yet, but it says it's rated for SLI. Reading the box, I'm not sure it would have all the correct connectors. Doesn't the 8800GTX require two power connectors on each card?

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Yeah you need 2x 6 pin PCIe connectors, but should be able to use the adapters for the other 2 connectors that your PSU does not have. The problem then becomes, do you have enough power? Please list your complee system specs.

 

[comrade]

It's going to have an Intel Q3360, (same as a 9550), in an EVGA 790i Ultra MB with 4 gig of DDR3. The two BFG 8800GTX OC cards in SLI, connected to a 24 inch wide screen LCD monitor and a 19 inch LCD monitor. I'll have a dual-boot system with XP and Vista installed on a partitioned WD Raptor 10000 RPM, 150 Gig SATA drive. For data, I have a Maxtor 300 gig SATA II HD and two, old IDE 200 gig drives from an older computer. There will be a couple of Samsung SH-203B SATA optical drives. Plus the usual printer, scanner and a set of Klipsch 400 watt 4.1 speaker system powered by the on-board HD audio on the EVGA board.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Ouch, from what I can see that set up will smack 600w on full load, and the amperage on that Thermaltake isn't very good, only 56A. You would be using 85% of the PSUs power on peak load, thats a bit much with absolutely no overclocking. The normal "high" load of the PSU will be about 550w which still is 78%, and is not in the comfortable area of 30%-70% that most PSUs run best at. I must say that you most likely can get away with that PSU, but with no room for upgrade or overclock. You will be taxing that PSU, and it is not the actual wattage that worries me it is the amperage and quality. If I were you I would either upgrade to a PC P&C 750w which is comfortable to around 90% continuous load and your system wont even break that at peak. Also it has a single rail at 60A, which is much more efficient and has all 4 6 pin PCIe connectors which draws less than the converter would. If you want to overclock to the max then get the Enermax Galaxy S, either the 850w or 1000w, both will be more than enough for your system, and the Galaxy S is the absolute best PSU on the market in the 800-1000w range, while the PC P&C Silencer series is the best from 450-750w. Hope this helps.

 

[comrade]

Thanks! I'll start looking for one of your recommended power supplies. I only bought the Thermaltake one because I originally bought a 9800GX2, and the PSU had the required 8 pin plug and it was above the recommended 580 watts that was on the 9800GX2 box. After much reading about problems with the 9800GXT, I returned it and bought the two, 8800GTX's.

I haven't opened it yet, so returning it should be no problem

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Great, good luck.