nVidia SLI Certification

[Sovereign]

I know for sure (at least I think I do) that they seem to rate too high watt-wise, but then certify pieces of crap, do they not? Does anyone know exactly how they rate PSUs? Cause there was a test done over at LegitReviews that showed several "SLI Certified" PSUs failing to power a "normal" SLI system...

 

[jonnyGURU]

Actually, a pair of 7800GTX cards or a pair of X1900's on a X2 5000+ or Intel 965 is hardly what I would call "normal." But ok...

The original SLI certification was done when the 6800 was the most power hungry GPU nVidia had. Since then, nVidia has created a separate list for 7800 and 7900 cards and 7950 GX2 cards. None of the PSU's Nate reviewed were on either of those newer lists. And of the PSU's that failed, none of them were on ATI's list for X1900 Crossfire.

 

[Makalu]

Nvidia has listed some criteria for SLI power supplies and they imply that they've done some sort of test but I've never found what exactly that would be. ATI doesn't seem to offer any clues at all but here's the info from Nvidia:

NVIDIA provides the following power supply guidelines for SLI PCs:

Ultra High-End SLI PC*:
You must have a power supply that can provide a minimum of +12V @ 22A of dedicated power for the two graphics cards. Of this 22A requirement, +12V @ 5.5A must be available to each of the two PCI Express 6-pin auxiliary power supply connectors. The remaining 11A must be supplied to the motherboard for dedicated graphics card use.

High-End SLI PC*:
Minimum of 500-600W Power Supply with a minimum of +12V @ 30A for all PC components.

Mid-Range SLI PC*:
Minimum of 450-500W Power Supply with a minimum of +12V @ 26A for all PC components.

Low-End SLI PC*:
Minimum of 400-450W Power Supply with a minimum of +12V @ 22A for all PC components.

*Note: These power supply recommendations are based on the following test configurations using standard component clock speeds:

Ultra High-End SLI PC Configuration:
Dual GeForce 7900 GTX or Dual GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB
AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 2.6 GHz or Intel Pentium EE 955 3.46 GHz
NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 motherboard with 2GB system memory
Two HDDs in Raid 0 configuration
Two optical drives
PCI Sound Card
LCD at 1600x1200 resolution

High-End SLI PC Configuration:
Dual GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB or Dual GeForce 6800 Ultra
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 2.8 GHz or Intel Pentium EE 840 3.2 GHz
NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 motherboard with 2GB system memory
Two HDDs in Raid 0 configuration
Two optical drives
PCI sound card
LCD at 1600x1200 resolution

Mid-Range SLI PC Configuration:
Dual GeForce 7900 GT or Dual GeForce 6800 GT or Dual GeForce 6800
AMD Athlon 64 4000+
NVIDIA nForce4 SLI motherboard with 1GB system memory
Single HDD
Two optical drives
PCI sound card

Entry-Level SLI PC Configuration:
Dual GeForce 7600GT or Dual GeForce 6600 GT or Dual GeForce 6600
AMD Athlon 64 4000+
NVIDIA nForce4 SLI motherboard with 1GB system memory
Single HDD
One optical drive

Looks to me like they're missing an "Uber Ultra High-End SLI PC Configuration" for the dual 7950 GX2 setups and it's hard to tell from looking at the list of the units under that what sort of 12v amperage they are looking for there....hmmm there's some other discrepencies too sort of that i see...like the Silverstone zeus st56zf has like 38 continuous 12v single-rail amps so I'm wondering why it didn't make the Ultra High-End list (total watts??). Also I see ATI has the Enhance ENS-0560G under X1900 and that's the same unit as a Silverstone Strider ST60f and a lot of folks have had problems running X1900 crossfire with that unless they get an adapter and move one of the cards off 12v3 so it sure makes ya wonder how they are testing these <shrugs>

 

[jonnyGURU]

Also I see ATI has the Enhance ENS-0560G under X1900 and that's the same unit as a Silverstone Strider ST60f and a lot of folks have had problems running X1900 crossfire with that unless they get an adapter and move one of the cards off 12v3 so it sure makes ya wonder how they are testing these <shrugs>

Fud. That problem was fixed late last year.

 

[Makalu]

oh really? the Enhance I bought a few weeks ago was wired the same as the one I bought last summer but no telling how long it'd been on the shelf. Silverstone still has the link to the page with the adapter info on their site for the unit too so what is it they've done to fix the problem? And to the point, when was the Enhance unit certified?

 

[jonnyGURU]

Clarification: The Silverstone was fixed. To my knowledge, Enhance has/had no intention to "fix" their unit because they consider their product more "server level." Servers with modular connectors?? Whatever.

I suppose the Enhance was tested with an adapter.

 

[Makalu]

I see, so what's different on the Silverstone version?

 

[jonnyGURU]

By the second revision they increase the 12V4 and by the third revision moved one of the PCI-e connectors.

 

[solobaricsrock]

The original SLI certification was done when the 6800 was the most power hungry GPU nVidia had. Since then, nVidia has created a separate list for 7800 and 7900 cards and 7950 GX2 cards.

7950 uses the same or less power than a 7800GTX.......This from someone that has owned and extensively used both GPU's.

 

[Sovereign]

Actually, a pair of 7800GTX cards or a pair of X1900's on a X2 5000+ or Intel 965 is hardly what I would call "normal." But ok...

The original SLI certification was done when the 6800 was the most power hungry GPU nVidia had. Since then, nVidia has created a separate list for 7800 and 7900 cards and 7950 GX2 cards. None of the PSU's Nate reviewed were on either of those newer lists. And of the PSU's that failed, none of them were on ATI's list for X1900 Crossfire.

Haha sorry what I meant was that originally most people who owned SLI/CrossFire systems had a crapload of other stuff (expensive high-end at that) and that (for the time) was "normal." However, the SLI cert didn't guarentee that these high-end systems would survive....so that's why I bought my PCP&C 850 and called it a day. Best investment ever. Even when my proc, mobo, RAM and GFX have been sold or consigned to the "obsolete but pretty looking hardware pile" that PCP&C 850 will still be enough to power just about anything AFAIK.

 

[jonnyGURU]

7950 uses the same or less power than a 7800GTX.......This from someone that has owned and extensively used both GPU's.

Ok.

But it doesn't change how nVidia does the their list.

Haha sorry what I meant was that originally most people who owned SLI/CrossFire systems had a crapload of other stuff (expensive high-end at that) and that (for the time) was "normal." However, the SLI cert didn't guarentee that these high-end systems would survive....so that's why I bought my PCP&C 850 and called it a day. Best investment ever. Even when my proc, mobo, RAM and GFX have been sold or consigned to the "obsolete but pretty looking hardware pile" that PCP&C 850 will still be enough to power just about anything AFAIK.

Oh... So your post was just bait? Gotcha.

Futureproofing with PC's is nearly impossible. So you bought a PSU that was two times what you needed and you're doing fine... good for you. I still have a modular 500W running a pair of 7800GTX's. Good for me.

But your original question was (paraphrased) "how come SLI certified PSU's failed Legit Reviews bench rig" and the answer is, "because those power supplies were out before the cards he used in that rig were ever on the market." nVidia realized the need for the multi-tiered system they have now.

For the record, at least last I checked, nVidia was doing SLI certification with a load tester. ATI does Crossfire certification with an actual build.

 

[praxis1452]

So which do you think is more accurate? Or which one is better really.