Is there a maximum power that a graphics board can deliver

[Aleksa18041998]

I have seen some rumors about the dual Hawaii card from AMD and i was thinking about the tdp of the r9 290x. So if the Hawaii chip need's around 300 watts of power wouldn't it take like 600 watts for two of them on one board. If it's correct then even three 8 pin connectors wouldn't have enough power for the two of them on one board. So can the board have like four 8 pin connectors for more power or are three the maximum any graphics board can have?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

The PCIe standard specs a max of one six pin and one eight pin per board, which is 75W (PCIe slot) + 75W + 150W = 300W. Some are already going over that, though.

It's customary to do binning and drop the clocks to put the best chips on the dual-GPU boards. There's no way you can dump 600W continuous on a card.

 

[Aleksa18041998]

The PCIe standard specs a max of one six pin and one eight pin per board, which is 75W (PCIe slot) + 75W + 150W = 300W. Some are already going over that, though.

It's customary to do binning and drop the clocks to put the best chips on the dual-GPU boards. There's no way you can dump 600W continuous on a card.

So basicly there is no way to have four 8 pin connectors to give more power to the chips, but just reduce the clocks?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

You could, but it would be non-standard, and couldn't be certified.

There's binning too, which can have a large impact on power consumption. Look at the 7970 vs the 7990.

That said, the PCIe spec vastly under-rates the amount of power that can be pulled from those connectors. An 8-pin connector has 3x+12V lines, and 5xGnd. A Molex Mini-Fit Jr connector can pull up to 9A (108W) per pin, so you could run a whole card off one connector if you really wanted to. But it would be breaking the rules.

 

[Aleksa18041998]

You could, but it would be non-standard, and couldn't be certified.

There's binning too, which can have a large impact on power consumption. Look at the 7970 vs the 7990.

That said, the PCIe spec vastly under-rates the amount of power that can be pulled from those connectors. An 8-pin connector has 3x+12V lines, and 5xGnd. A Molex Mini-Fit Jr connector can pull up to 9A (108W) per pin, so you could run a whole card off one connector if you really wanted to. But it would be breaking the rules.

Thank you very much for your answers. I really appreciate it.