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Double Power Supply

S

SudburyOntario

Gawd
Joined
May 5, 2008
Messages
575
If I was to run a double power supply setup... how would I sync them both so when I power up the system, the other one turns on aswell.

Thinking about building something new and fun but run the motherboard and hard drives / ect on the main power supply.

Run the video cards on the second power supply. Probably have something like Two x 1200 watts ( give or take ).


I was hopeing someone else had figured this out instead of myself playing around inside some expensive psu's
:p
 
I would probably just splice the second PSU into the power on sense wire (green) on the ATX connector going to your motherboard. Simple, safe and easy.

But why on Earth would you need 2x1200W? That's absurd for even the most decked out rig.
 
You can find adapters for this, without needing to splice or open up anything.

Although I cannot think of anything in a desktop that would possibly come close to 2400 watts. (yes, I clearly know -servers- can get that high)
 
I would not call such a setup safe - if the secondary psu (not attached to mobo directly) were to fault, it would shut down and the primary would continue running. What would happen to your system when suddenly only half of it is powered, I do not know. To protect against this scenario, you would need to AND together the two psu's gray wires & feed the output to the mobo.
 
Either make your own or find it cheap as you can.
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186&products_id=21193
You get the idea, greens go together.

That answers your question.

Now I'd like to comment that 2x1200W wouldn't work in the same room if you're in a house. You cannot run both of those PSUs on the same circuit. And everyone else has already mentioned that is an absurd amount of power for a computer. What are you doing? Or you just want to buy the largest PSUs you can and waste their potential?
 
Well actually, you can connect both of those PSU's to the same outlet, however, the max the outlet will put out by specification is 1500W, with breakers safetripping at 1300W. Also, who cares what he wants to use it for, hes not asking if he should or what your opinions of the setup are, hes asking how to set it up. Not everything needs to be born out of necessity.
 
I thought I would take on some welding beside my pc..

Honestly I wouldn't mind a 900 - 1200 just for the video cards x however many I want. I want to have all the power I can get with some room to breath. Two x 1200 was an ideal target. Perhaps I would be looking more at 1000w + 600w ?

I'm not sure what I will be building yet, however I will have a couple monitors hooked up for research and data banking. I'm also doing a bit of gaming but not much. Six display seems to come to mind. ( I don't want to squint :p )
 
lol i was looking for that link yesterday myself

he should be fine if the wall outlets are on their own circuit , or better yet a pair of 20a outlets
 
SudburyOntario said:
Honestly I wouldn't mind a 900 - 1200 just for the video cards x however many I want. I want to have all the power I can get with some room to breath. Two x 1200 was an ideal target. Perhaps I would be looking more at 1000w + 600w ?
Click to expand...
You'd be looking more at 600W or 1000W alone for everything combined depending on the specific components you use.
SudburyOntario said:
I'm not sure what I will be building yet, however I will have a couple monitors hooked up for research and data banking. I'm also doing a bit of gaming but not much. Six display seems to come to mind. ( I don't want to squint :p )
Click to expand...
For connecting auxiliary monitors for research and data banking, the cheapest, lowest-power cards will do fine. If you want to game, just get a powerful primary card or a pair of cards in SLI/Crossfire if you run a high-resolution display, and have the third monitor run off a low-end card. You'll be able to achieve what you want, and your power requirements will still be pretty low.
 
Why dont you look at something like this? It's an independent 5.25" drive bay PSU specifically for video cards. I've used them, they work great. This way you wouldn't have to find a way to mod your case into fitting two ATX sized PSU's.

I'd pair it with a good 1000W PSU with a single 12V rail. The single rail on the PSU is IMPERATIVE for multi-PSU configs because many PSUs with multiple rails dedicate a rail or two to powering specific things, such as video cards. If one multi-rail PSU is powering video cards, and one multi-rail PSU is powering the mobo, etc, then each will have unused rails and wasted power.

I'd like to find a desktop computer that this combination couldn't power. Even with 4 video cards (2 powered by the 5.25" PSU), all drive bays filled with drives on a full tower, watercooling, and an overclocked i7.... it wouldn't break a sweat.
 
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If you need to exceed a single 20a circuit and you're running wires specifically for this setup, I would recommend a single 220v circuit. PSUs are more efficient and run cooler with 220v power. If you can power the two PSUs from separate breakers this also fixes the problem.
 
ordovician said:
I'd pair it with a good 1000W PSU with a single 12V rail. The single rail on the PSU is IMPERATIVE for multi-PSU configs because many PSUs with multiple rails dedicate a rail or two to powering specific things, such as video cards. If one multi-rail PSU is powering video cards, and one multi-rail PSU is powering the mobo, etc, then each will have unused rails and wasted power.
Click to expand...
That single-rail stuff is BS. With modern PSUs, the number of rails is 99% irrelevant.
 
SudburyOntario said:
If I was to run a double power supply setup... how would I sync them both so when I power up the system, the other one turns on aswell.

Thinking about building something new and fun but run the motherboard and hard drives / ect on the main power supply.

Run the video cards on the second power supply. Probably have something like Two x 1200 watts ( give or take ).


I was hopeing someone else had figured this out instead of myself playing around inside some expensive psu's
:p
Click to expand...

A single 1200W PSU is going to be enough for whatever you're doing, that's kind of why they exist.
 
SudburyOntario said:
Sure that would work for me, but it's like asking someone why they want a powerful computer only to find them watching movies on it :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
The fact is that if you get two large PSUs, it would just be a complete waste. There is absolutely no benefit in doing what you're asking about.
 
SudburyOntario said:
Okay than I'll just use 2x 600w :)
Click to expand...

???:confused:

What parts are you planning to get that would require that much power? Also, it'll be more cost effective to just get a single good quality 1000W PSU than two 600W PSUs. Also, your thread reminds a lot of this older thread:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1364394

I highly recommend figuring out what parts you're planning to get first and THEN figure out how much power you might need.
 
SudburyOntario said:
Okay than I'll just use 2x 600w :)
Click to expand...
And that's also a complete waste compared to just using one 1200W PSU. Although chances are you could even do it with a single 600W PSU depending on your specs (and don't say that you'll use two 300W PSUs then, because that's just stupid).
 
Okay than I'll just use 2x 600w :p haha.. I don't know what I was thinking.. I've seen others use a multie psu system ( surely not for fail safe ).

Back in a time when processors had a notably different response time apart from each other, now I'm just going for the best so to not get stuck with the least.

I will be using an intel core i7-975 extreme edition ( unless something newer swings over ). Mated with an asus P6T Deluxe and I would like to add in some GeForce GTX 295 video cards. Ram would definitly be chalk full.

I've been looking at a Tesla computer aswell but I'm pretty sure this will do fine.
 
SudburyOntario said:
Okay than I'll just use 2x 600w :p haha.. I don't know what I was thinking.. I've seen others use a multie psu system ( surely not for fail safe ).

Back in a time when processors had a notably different response time apart from each other, now I'm just going for the best so to not get stuck with the least.
Click to expand...
That reasoning doesn't make sense at all.
SudburyOntario said:
I will be using an intel core i7-975 extreme edition ( unless something newer swings over ). Mated with an asus P6T Deluxe and I would like to add in some GeForce GTX 295 video cards. Ram would definitly be chalk full.
Click to expand...
All of that is well within the capacity of a good 850W PSU like the Corsair HX850 or Antec Signature 850W.
SudburyOntario said:
I've been looking at a Tesla computer aswell but I'm pretty sure this will do fine.
Click to expand...
What would you need a Tesla for?
 
SudburyOntario said:
Back in a time when processors had a notably different response time apart from each other, now I'm just going for the best so to not get stuck with the least.

I will be using an intel core i7-975 extreme edition ( unless something newer swings over ). Mated with an asus P6T Deluxe and I would like to add in some GeForce GTX 295 video cards. Ram would definitly be chalk full.

I've been looking at a Tesla computer aswell but I'm pretty sure this will do fine.
Click to expand...

Ummm, just because a CPU or PSU is the best in terms of performance doesn't always make it smart buy. For example, the i7 975 EE. It is not worth the extra ~$600 over the Core i7 920 in any way. It's not gonna last that much longer than the i7 920 to justify such an extra nor does the extra clock speed.

I still don't see why you want two 600W PSUs as everything that you have mentioned so far about your planned build doesn't require anything of the sort.
 
Zero82z said:
All of that is well within the capacity of a good 850W PSU like the Corsair HX850 or Antec Signature 850W.

What would you need a Tesla for?
Click to expand...

Somewhere I hope your considering the hard drives and dvd burners I failed to mention..

I don't know what a Tesla would be good for in comparison to the setup I just mentioned. I'm not a scientist but they sure look interesting. On the reality of things I'll look into your Corsair HX850, Has a catchy name to it mmm Corsair :)
 
SudburyOntario said:
Somewhere I hope your considering the hard drives and dvd burners I failed to mention..
Click to expand...

You could have 20 hard drives and you still would have enough power with any good quality 850W PSU like the Corsair 850TX. So once again: You still don't need 2x 600W PSUs.
 
Danny Bui said:
Ummm, just because a CPU or PSU is the best in terms of performance doesn't always make it smart buy. For example, the i7 975 EE. It is not worth the extra ~$600 over the Core i7 920 in any way. It's not gonna last that much longer than the i7 920 to justify such an extra nor does the extra clock speed.

I still don't see why you want two 600W PSUs as everything that you have mentioned so far about your planned build doesn't require anything of the sort.
Click to expand...

Have I mentioned how I don't look at the price when I build :eek: i7 920 justified, thanks Danny Bui

Leave my PSU idea alone.. I just want to be different from the rest ;) Rest assured to read my first post that follows yours :)
 
SudburyOntario said:
Somewhere I hope your considering the hard drives and dvd burners I failed to mention..
Click to expand...
Those parts are kind of an obvious addition to every build, so yes, I did consider them ;).
SudburyOntario said:
I don't know what a Tesla would be good for in comparison to the setup I just mentioned. I'm not a scientist but they sure look interesting.
Click to expand...
If you don't know what it's for, then you don't need one.

Seriously though, if you're just trying to blow money, toss some my way :D. I could sure use the kind of dough that it would take to buy one of those Tesla cards...
 
Zero82z said:
Those parts are kind of an obvious addition to every build, so yes, I did consider them ;).

If you don't know what it's for, then you don't need one.

Seriously though, if you're just trying to blow money, toss some my way :D. I could sure use the kind of dough that it would take to buy one of those Tesla cards...
Click to expand...

How the heck did I read your post for money when it doesn't show on the main screen.. :confused:
 
SudburyOntario said:
Leave my PSU idea alone.. I just want to be different from the rest ;) Rest assured to read my first post that follows yours :)
Click to expand...

But in this case, you're just wasting money just to be "different" with no gain whatsoever. I can understand people wanting to deck out their cases with badges, UV lighting and what not or color coding and matching the insides of the PC but having two PSUs in your case is just an inefficient use of money and doesn't get you anything besides the fact that you have two PSUs. Doesn't make you stand out as that was a common thing to do when one's funds were extremely limited and the fact that quality PSUs were expensive. Nowadays, quality PSUs are cheap and there's very little reason to go with dual PSUs, especially in your case.
 
If you're getting the best psu you can buy, get one of these.
PC Power and Cooling 1200W. Will set you back $500 but it sounds like you have the money to spare.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703012

I'm pretty sure it could power tri-sli easily.
If you find out you need more power, which I doubt, you can buy the drive bay PSUs for extra juice.

BTW you did notice that the Tesla is technically NOT a video card?

Important Note: This board is NOT a video card. It has no display outputs for connecting a monitor. It is a processor that offloads the computation from the computer’s CPU. Also note that for operation under Windows XP, this board requires a NVIDIA graphics display board or motherboard NVIDIA graphics. This is not a requirement for Linux operation.
Click to expand...
 
vjcsmoke said:
If you're getting the best psu you can buy, get one of these.
PC Power and Cooling 1200W. Will set you back $500 but it sounds like you have the money to spare.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703012

I'm pretty sure it could power tri-sli easily.
If you find out you need more power, which I doubt, you can buy the drive bay PSUs for extra juice.

BTW you did notice that the Tesla is technically NOT a video card?
Click to expand...

Sweet.. it's not moduler :D I like this. I know Tesla is the entire system and NoT a video card as I have stated wanting the 295gtx... which is a stand a lone from having to use large servers. I only know that much. But what difference would adding one of the linked cards do for me ? Would having more cores through my pci-e enable faster compression / decompression.. editing and such ?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tesla

The primary function of Tesla products are to aid in simulations, large scale calculations (especially floating-point calculations), and image generation for professional and scientific fields [2], with the use of CUDA.
Click to expand...

So basically I think it helps you crunch calculations faster but it doesn't actually display any images, so your 295 GTXs will handle that.
 
Hmm.. I thought it would be similar to like having a cheaper processor and performing a shit ton better with this installed aswell. I think it's ( obviously always was ) a pass.

and No.. I won't buy someone one.. :p
 
vjcsmoke said:
If you're getting the best psu you can buy, get one of these.
PC Power and Cooling 1200W. Will set you back $500 but it sounds like you have the money to spare.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703012
Click to expand...
The Turbo-Cool 1200W is not the best PSU on the market, nor is it remotely necessary for a system like this. The Corsair HX850 I suggested before is a better-performing PSU, and if more power is really needed (although it isn't in this case), the Enermax Revolution85+ 1050W or Galaxy EVO 1250W would be better options as well, and for a significantly lower cost. Other excellent high-wattage PSUs include the Silverstone OP1000-P and Zeus 1200W, and the BFG LS-1000 and LS-1200.
 
You sound like my friends little brother. Wants 24 Sata ports and tri sli and tv tuner and dedicated physics and terrabytes of storage! Yet he's got a hp with a 320gb drive with about 35% usage. Anyway take my comment and toss it into the trash if you want but seriously get some plan for this machine. By the looks of your sig the machines you have are not super powerful and trying to build a super computer now will never last but a few months.
 
Given they may not be all the computers I have, however I want the options should I venture back into gaming or something interesting. I'm mainly working with a pile of data which I would like to catch up on, but I too would like to enjoy some entertainment with high rez videos. The only computers I own that are name brands and not self built are my laptops and the boat anchor server..

ps the First computer on my sig isn't good enough to play the second coming of Crysis. The first one was just playable.
 
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