Does my Power Supply handles 2x Gtx580 in SLI ?

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Monttanha

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Jun 12, 2009
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Hi there,

Im considering on buying another graphic card for my computer setup, but I havent been able to find out if my power supply can handle it. If it doesnt handle, would the 1000W series of my power Supply solve it?
Also, is there a way to calculate my current power consumption?

Here is everything I have in my computer:

Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800W 80 PLUS Gold Power Supply with Modular Cables (RS800-80GAD3-US)

Graphic card: EVGA GeForce GTX 580 Superclocked 1536 MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 2DVI/Mini-HDMI SLI Ready Limited Lifetime Warranty Graphics Card, 015-P3-1582-AR (Would get another one for SLI configuration)

RAM: Corsair Vengeance Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8R)
Motherboard: ASRock Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 DDR3 2133 LGA 1156 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Z68 EXTREME7 GEN3
Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K Quad-Core Processor 3.4 Ghz 8 MB Cache LGA 1155 - BX80623I72600K
Heatsink: Xigmatek Desktop Computer Heatsink Cooling Fan GAIA SD1283
Soundcard: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro Series PCI Express Sound Card

Main SSD: Samsung Electronics 840 Pro Series 2.5-Inch 256 GB SATA 6GB/s Solid State Drive MZ-7PD256BW
Gaming SSD: SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5-Inch 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7PC256B/WW
Data HD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB WD1001FALS-00E8B0

Computer Case: NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Steel / Plastic Enthusiast ATX Full Tower (Includes 4 fans)

Headset: Logitech Wireless Gaming Headset G930 with 7.1 Surround Sound
Keyboard: Logitech K350 2.4Ghz Wireless Keyboard
Mouse: Logitech Wireless Gaming Mouse G700

Let me know if there is anything else I could provide to help you guys on helping me!
Thanks in advance :)
 
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http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine
Using this site I found your recommended wattage is 650W.

According to the sticker on your PSU you should have 780W available on your +12V rail(The important one for your GPU,CPU) which is more than enough if you want to upgrade to SLI'd 580's.
http://www.pctuner.net/hardware/alimentatori/Cooler-Master-Silent-Pro-Gold-800W/Cooler-Master-Silent-Pro-Gold-800W-19.jpg

Personally I have 2x 580's running with a 3570K on a Corsair 1000W supply and am pretty sure I went way overboard. Thankfully electricity is included in my rent so the efficiency is less of an issue for me.
 
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I've found these websites:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_580_sli_review,14.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580_SLI/23.html

Which states 719W and 627W respectively.

Cooler Master owns calculator (http://www.coolermaster.outervision.com/index.jsp) said something lower then 700W aswell.

But each of these calculations wont use my full specs on their considerations, so I couldnt really tell if they were reliable or not.

And how can you tell if 1000W supply were overboard?
 
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It's best not to focus on the advertised wattage and instead focus on the maximum wattage over each of the rails in the PSU. Many vendors will list their PSU as, for example, a 750watt PSU meanwhile half of that is available on the +12V rail. Add on to that substandard parts and the max wattage will drop even lower as time goes on.

Thankfully you bought corsair which is an excellent brand. Personally, I would not buy any other brand.

Do you have any other components that were not listed? Remember that the wattage listed on those sites include addition parts such as lighting and a watercooling setup which does draw more power than a standard air cooling setup. On top of that they have an overclocked CPU being run on full load. One of those sites even mentions:
"I'd say on average we are using roughly 50 to 100 Watts more than a standard PC due to higher CPU clock settings, water-cooling, additional cold cathode lights etc. Keep that in mind. Our normal system power consumption is a little higher than your average system. But with multi-GPU setups ... well that fact fades away real fast. Check it out."

The only parts that you listed that I would not consider standard would be the soundcard which I plugged into the calculator and the 4 fans, which I forgot to put into the calculator but the only time they use any substantial amount of power is when they are starting up.

The only way to tell if the PSU is overboard is to judge by calculators like the one posted. They are fairly reliable. The only negative to having a PSU that is too powerful is that the further away your power draw gets from the maximum power the less efficent it is, meaning higher electricity bills.

Since you have 780Watts available on your +12V in a well built PSU and all of the maximum draws(includes all rails) that you have seen during a stress test are under that wattage I would say you are safe to go ahead and upgrade.
 
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If I understand correctly you are adding the 600W total system power to the 244W which is the single card maximum and then rounding up to get the 850W number. This seems wrong to me. 600W total system power includes in it the 244W for the single card.

Thoughts?
 
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600W is for a system with 1 card. Adding 244W to the 600W is for the SLI system (two video cards). What part of that seems wrong?
 
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Thankfully you bought corsair which is an excellent brand. Personally, I would not buy any other brand.

Do you have any other components that were not listed?
Click to expand...

Its a Cooler Master actually..

And nope, those are all my components.

What are the downsides on testing a configuration that needs a higher wattage than my PSU can deliver? Can I use a voltimeter/amperimeter to check my current power consumption?

 
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The best way to compute system load in my opinion is to get a Kill-A-Watt plug in http://www.walmart.com/ip/14282370?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227000000000&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=&wl3=21486607510&wl4=&wl5=pla&veh=sem

This will tell you how much you are drawing from the outlet. Now come up with your efficiency (usually from a good review)http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-Silent-Pro-Gold-800-W-Power-Supply-Review/1028/7
and multiply the efficiency by the draw to figure out the system load.

Example: Lets say your supply is pulling 500W from the plug as measured on the Kill-A-Watt meter. According to the review your supply is 88.1% efficent at 488W so 88.1% x 500W= 440.5W Your system is using 441W (power supply output) and taking 500W (power supply input) from the plug. The nice thing about using this meter is you don't have to crack the case or do any heavy math. Let me know if you don't get it.
 
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When your power supply cannot keep up with the demand a lot of strange errors will come up. Sometimes the system won't work at all or you would get a system reboot in the middle of a game. Sometimes you get BSOD with unrelated errors. Also when taxing your psu to the max you are more likely to get noise and ripple in the electrical line which shortens the life of your components. Most psu have max efficiency at 40-60% of their rated load. Remember that the power recommendations often take this into account which is why a card that draws 244W max is suggesting a 600W power supply.
 
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In your scenario, you are saying about 850W just for the graphic cards, right ? Because I dont think the 600W minimum would cover all my peripherals.
And my card is factory overclocked, so I really dont know if I want to disable that =/

Im really interested here in the long case scenario. I dont want a setup that will work for 6 months and then start to fall apart piece by piece. I want something that will last for a few years at least (my computer have about 1.5 years already)

All I do on this computer is gaming (Crysis3, Borderlands2, Farcry3, CivilizationV, Diablo 3, Skyrim and what not) and Programming with GPU/CUDA/OPENGL and since Im not a US resident I do have a hard time buying new pieces (at my country they are rated about 2-3 times more than on Amazon), so I cant really afford to have something failing anytime soon.

With that beeing said, Id like a power supply that not only would work with this setup, but would also be safe to use with it.



 
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It is 850W for the whole system. The GPU's are the biggest draw followed by the CPU and then all the little things. An SSD uses about 3W max, hard drive 7-10W so you see why we don't bother with that. Your i7 will max out about 156W. So with everything maxed you are sitting around 660-700W (SLI System) depending on how many fans you have. What I am not sure of is whether both cards will max out in SLI.

What country are you in and what brand of power supplies are out there?
 
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Im from Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, but am soon going to travel to Cancun, where Ive heard that there were better deals than here. If not, I can always wait for someone to travel to US and bring me something =)

In case you are wondering, the graphic card listed above goes for $425 on amazon and the only store I could find selling it here has the tag of $600, where the difference is almost the price of a new power supply.

The Corsair - Professional Series HX1050 goes for $200 on amazon and about $360 here.

So basically, your call here is I should be fine if games arent running on max settings. Is that it ?
 
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Btw, Ive heard that the second card on an SLI configuration wont ever go max out. Is that true? And was that what you meant by "What I am not sure of is whether both cards will max out in SLI." or did you mean you didnt know if I could max settings on games?

If the second card wont max out, then my logic says it wont be using its full 244W.
 
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The 580 in sli is better than a single 680 and I would get a better performance per dollar upgrading the power supply alongside with another 580 than buying a 680 to preserve the power supply. At least thats what kept me on looking for a SLI configuration.
 
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According to this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5805/nvidia-geforce-gtx-690-review-ultra-expensive-ultra-rare-ultra-fast/11
The 580 sli should be 20% to 30% better than a single 680.

Just for the record, according to this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-680-review-benchmark,3161-10.html
The 680 is also 20% to 30% better than a single 580.

And: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580_SLI/27.html
Which says 2x580 should be about 40% better than a single 580.

In terms of performance gains, Id get the following:
One gtx580 and a new PSU would go for $625, while a single gtx680sc goes for about $500.

So, for $625 I would get 40% more performance while with $500 I would get 25% more performance.



Btw, the same article posted above says the following: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580_SLI/27.html
"The GTX 580 SLI draws a whopping 627W in a worst-case situation. We'd recommend at least an 800W PSU to go with a typically configured system."

And this: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/394344-33-power-supply-gtx580
"I recently ran into an issue with my 850w not powering the 580s and here's what I found. It all depends on your amperage. 2 580s in SLI with only require about 770 watts and that's at stress testing, but they also require about 40 amps at 12 volts each. Now if you are running 2 in SLI, a 60-70 amp PS will be enough unless you plan on stress testing. I wanted to play it safe, since running without enough amps can fry your motherboard so I got a 1200watt 100 amp "

This: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-680-sli-overclock-surround,3162-15.html
Which says that a 3Dmark11 benchark stated that a 680gtx in sli configuration would use about 550w tops.

My conclusion? I still havent got one =/ Any thoughts on this?

My question now relies on buying a gtx580 and a power supply, or buy a gtx680 and in a year or two buy another one, since my power supply does seems to be able to handle 2x680.
 
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Btw, I just got a reply from EVGA:

"Hello,

That power supply will be fine for two 580s. Each 580 will draw at peak 240w each according to Nvidia's specs on their geforce.com site. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask us.

Regards,
EVGA"
 
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