8800 GTX power

[lazer_viking]

the reason i ask is because as i said, my PSU has 24 A on the 12v and 20 on the other 12v rail. (is that right/possible? im pretty sure thats what it means) my card turns on and plays games, but not as impressive as i expected. and i only get a little under 7000 3dmark06 bench. so something is wrong, agreed? lol. will a new PSU fix everything? or whats going on here?

 

[Snake-Eyes]

it seems TriEclipse's sticky hasn't made that great an impact. check out the Building Buying and Upgrading for General PCs page.

Glad you said something. I had no idea it was even there. It was incredibly helpful. Everyone should really read it. Great stuff!

 

[CrazeD]

Watts are useless. You have to look at the ampage and the tempature its rated to be running at.

Yeah, so if you had one of those sweet top-of-the-line 250W PSU's with 70A, you could run anything....


Watts are just as important as amps. The 8800GTX consumes a lot of power, if you don't have sufficient power to give it and the rest of your system, you're going to have problems.

You should have around 300 - 350 watts dedicated for the 8800GTX. If you had a 500 watt PSU, that only leaves 200 - 150 watts left for the entirety of your system.

 

[Snake-Eyes]

Yeah, so if you had one of those sweet top-of-the-line 250W PSU's with 70A, you could run anything....

Actually, it's pretty close.

http://techist.com/showthread.php?threadid=131824

* Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700
* NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI based motherboard
* 2x1GB PC2-6400
* NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX
* Western Digital Raptor 150

Consumes only 273W at idle. Granted, you wouldn't want to run your PSU at max while idling, because, one, booting up requires more power than idling, and two, running at max means more heat, heat equals quicker PSU failure.

So you'd truthfully need maybe 500W max, provided 12V rails have enough power, and you could run two 8800GTX's.

 

[lazer_viking]

so do the amps get added? like the 8800 GTX has two power connectors (as you all know). i'm using a 6 pin connector off of each rail (one is 24a the other is 20a). are the amps added together to make 44a?

im trying to determine if i need a new PSU or not

 

[Snake-Eyes]

Yes the amps get added.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817371002

3 12V rails. Total of 54A.

 

[Nagasama]

so do the amps get added? like the 8800 GTX has two power connectors (as you all know). i'm using a 6 pin connector off of each rail (one is 24a the other is 20a). are the amps added together to make 44a?

im trying to determine if i need a new PSU or not

yes thats why i said you would be hard pressed to find a (lemme add DECENT) 500w psu that didn't have at least 30A on the 12v.
which is combined total from the 12v rails.

that is really far from the truth. MAKE SURE you check

so...no, actually not far fom the truth. but do check to be sure.

 

[lazer_viking]

okayyyyyyyy so lets do more in depth trouble shooting... why am i getting a little less than 7000 3dmark06 score?

i havent done a run with my OC'd CPU yet though.... am i just being overly dissapointed? i think there was more hype over this than there is performance.

 

[CrazeD]

Actually, it's pretty close.

http://techist.com/showthread.php?threadid=131824



Consumes only 273W at idle. Granted, you wouldn't want to run your PSU at max while idling, because, one, booting up requires more power than idling, and two, running at max means more heat, heat equals quicker PSU failure.

So you'd truthfully need maybe 500W max, provided 12V rails have enough power, and you could run two 8800GTX's.

Watts
Radeon X1950 XTX GeForce 8800GTX
Idle
184
229
Load
308
321

That's 321 watts at load for the 8800GTX. I'm not sure if they were measuring just the card or the whole system, but if they're measuring just the card then you'd need 642 watts for two.

 

[Nagasama]

if you're using your 4800 and a 7800 gt in 3dmk06, i think 7k is an ok score.
besides, if it plays games well on high settings with no lag, who cares what the benchmark score is...?