Power Supply Connectors?

[thelethalblow]

I am looking at buying a new gaming pc in the future and want to make sure it is ready for upgrades. I been looking at aftermarket Powersupplys for comparison and I see that most have 2 PCI Express connectors. Most likely I will not be running two video cards but at some point will be running a PCI- Express Video card and another PCI-E device. (Hence question 1) Recently I noticed the Geforce 8800gtx has requirements of one 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connector (two all together?) or Two 4-pin Molex power connectors.


My questions are as follows (feel feel to comment on anyone or all):

1) Does each PCI- Express device (say a raid controller PCI-E x1) require a PCI-E power connector or just the higher powered devices, such as a video card.
2) If most PSU use two PCI connectors, how are people running this in SLI?
3) How many of these Molex connectors are generally provided with a PSU and are there regualry extra left over?

If you have any links of info related to this, I would be interested to see them.

 

[kchi55]

1. no not all pci-e devices need a pci-e connector, infact many videocards don't need them either. the only nvidia cards i know of that need the connectors are the 6800series, and the 7800GTX and above.
2. well.. i think that was explained in my first answer
3. 4 pin molex connectors? depends on what psu you get, i have a few left over though, they come with alot.

 

[Raffaz]

Just an extra point about ya molex connectors, if ya run out of them you can get splitters that turn 1 connector into 2 connectors.