How to hook up new graphics card?

[darkmatter14]

Hi,

I recently bought a new graphics card, MSI GeForce 660 TI Power Edition. This is my first discrete VGA; I am very new to the concept of building my own desktop. My question is how do I hook it up to my PSU? I have a thermaltake TR2 RX 750W bronze psu, so I know that it should be able to handle everything, but I want to be sure that all the cabling is correct before I turn it on. I know I will need to plug in some extra cables, there what look like two sets of 8 pin ports on the PSU, 2 labled SATA/molex and 2 labled pci-e. How do I know if they are the correct voltage and which ones to use?

I have one cable with 6 pins, labeled pcie, one cable with 6+2 pins, labled pcie, and one cable that has four 4-pin molex connectors, all of which came with the PSU. To further confuse things, the VGA came with two cables, both with a 6 pin connector on end and two 3-pin molex on the other end. Can I just use the molex cable that came with the PSU and both of the VGA 6-pin to two 3-pin molex, only using one slot? Or is it better to use both pcie ports on the PSU with the two pcie cable that came with it?

Ultimately, I am just really, really, really worried about accidently frying my computer because I am such a noob when it comes to things like this. Any advice would be greatly appricated.

Thanks in advanced!

 

[Smeg45]

You only to take 2 PCI-E cables from the PSU (and only the PSU) and plug them into the 660. Simple.

 

[Sakkura]

Yeah the PCIe cables are the better choice. They're specifically there to feed a graphics card (or two), so you can be confident that will work as long as the PSU itself is powerful enough.

Using the molex adapters would probably work, but it's the riskier choice since those molex connectors are normally used for things that are a lot less power-hungry than a graphics card. Putting a big load on that part of the PSU might not work as well.

As for voltages - the various connectors are mostly designed to only fit stuff that they won't be able to damage. That's one of the advantages of ATX over ye olde AT, which had two power connectors that looked almost identical, but would fry the motherboard if plugged in the wrong way around.

 

[darkmatter14]

Best answer selected by darkmatter14.

 

[darkmatter14]

Thank you so much! My only reservation about using the two pcie cables was that if I buy a second card, there won't be any more slots for pcie cables. I would probably by a new PSU before I go SLI anyhow.

Thanks for the reassurance. Nothings scarier than a fried electronics.

 

[Sakkura]

Actually, reading a review about your PSU, it seems to be semi-modular with 2 PCIe cables permanently attached to the PSU and 2 modular ones that can be added. That way it would be theoretically possible to run two GTX 660 Ti's in SLI off of it. However, you definitely wouldn't want to. The review showed the PSU failing when pushed even to 600W.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/902/

Might want to go with eg. Corsair/Antec/Seasonic for your next PSU.