PS for 2500k + SLI 480s

C

centex99

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 3, 2012
Messages
155
I'm setting up a 2500k or 3570k (not sure which yet) with GTX 480s in SLI... this will be water cooled and likely overclocked (processor more so than gfx)...
My budget for a power supply is ~$150... I'm trying to determine the best I can get that'll be sufficient.
Will 850 be enough or do I really need 950+? I'm open to used power supplies if anyone has one. I'd really prefer modular, but may end up going non modular. Build will be in a Switch 810 case, so should be lots of room to hide extra cabling...
 
750 watts would be enough. 850 watts is definitely more than enough.

If you can possibly wait, the Seasonic x750 goes for $110 every so often from Newegg.
 
GTX480's are notorious for their power guzzling for a single GPU card. Anandtech benchies show it reaches well over the use of 800w... to 851w on full load while running furmark, although it is not a real world app and probably won't apply to you, I would go no less than a quality 800W psu

probably something along the lines of a corsair ax, silverstone strider, or seasonic as said above.
 
while it was gtx 470s and a i7 930, a 650 watt wouldnt allow me to oc my cards.
I switched to a high quality 850 watts and everything ran fine.

As mentionned, with whole watercooling setup, i would suggest a good 850.
 
I personally don't think 750w is enough for that type of setup. I wouldn't want to run a psu that close to its max wattage. Also, research has already been done on this matter, by the guys here at H.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/04/27/gtx_480_470_power_supply_unit_buying_guide/4

Looks like they're recommending a good 850 for normal 480's and a 1kw overclocked 480's. I'd think since H used a 1366 proc instead of ivy, you could probly get away with a good 900 or 950 though if you wanted. Obviously those psu models are older, but I think the wattage recommendations are still valid.
 
Yeah, I'd have to agree... guess my search is on for a 950-1200W power supply....
 
[H]OCP's testing had two 480s at 600 watts on furmark. This translates to, for a ~80% efficient power supply, 480 watts system load pulled from the power supply in a worse case full GPU load. An overclocked i7 920 could draw up to 200 watts or more, but your 2500k/3570k will draw at best 150 watts.

So, 150 + 500 + 50 (for peripherals) = 700 watts in a worse case P95/furmark overclocked CPU and not overclocked GPU load. You won't ever see this kind of load in gaming, the only non-benchmarking way to see this kind of load is to do folding.

If you don't increase the voltage on the GPUs, the power consumption won't go up much when overclocking. It's when you start increasing the voltage does the power consumption go way up.
 
You go with an 850w here. I pull 844w from the wall which equates to 750w from my 750w Sparkle with SLI 580's. 480's will use more power, and like Tsumi said it is when the core voltage is increased that the 480's really turn into a run away train at power consumption. OP you will surely be OC'ing w/ water (who wouldn't) so 850w.

If you are buying from the US:

FSP Aurum Pro 850w $156
NZXT HALE90 850w $150
Lepa G900 $130

Admittedly I've heard horror stories about LEPA customer service which is a shame considering it's more or less Enermax.
 
I was in the same boat. I have a quality 750 watt PSU that would most likely be enough to drive two gtx 480's, but its very close, and I prefer to have some overkill with my PSU. Instead of upgrading my PSU I'm going to do an EVGA step-up to a gtx 670. If I need another gtx 670 for SLI in the future the 750 will have plenty of headroom for that.
 
Tsumi said:
[H]OCP's testing had two 480s at 600 watts on furmark. This translates to, for a ~80% efficient power supply, 480 watts system load pulled from the power supply in a worse case full GPU load. An overclocked i7 920 could draw up to 200 watts or more, but your 2500k/3570k will draw at best 150 watts.

So, 150 + 500 + 50 (for peripherals) = 700 watts in a worse case P95/furmark overclocked CPU and not overclocked GPU load. You won't ever see this kind of load in gaming, the only non-benchmarking way to see this kind of load is to do folding.

If you don't increase the voltage on the GPUs, the power consumption won't go up much when overclocking. It's when you start increasing the voltage does the power consumption go way up.
Click to expand...

I don't know, even with the lower wattage cpu, going against the recommendations of this site that has 10+ years of experience in hardware? Brave.

I think even if it's 700w worst case, why would you push a 750w psu to over 80% of its capacity? I'd much rather give myself some extra cushion and go with an 850w at a min. Psu should run quieter as its not as loaded and hopefully it will live a longer life as well. I think acoustics should start to play a role in this decision since he'll be WC and running a psu close to max will have the fan spinning pretty much full speed.
 
I've pushed my M12D probably over its max (6990 in AUSUM mode, 4.0 ghz i7 920) and have never heard the fan.

And I'm just telling the truth as I see it. If he goes with stock 480s and an overclocked 2500k/3570k, even if he was to push the 2500k/3570k to their max overclocks, he would be covered with a 750 watt PSU. And when I look for a power supply, I look for one to run at ~90% of max theoretical peak load. In gaming, you're likely to run only around 60-70% of the max theoretical peak load. [H]'s recommendation was based on using the x58 platform, which is a power hog. See this. The overclocked 2500k uses ~250 watts less than an overclocked 920.

How fast the fan spins is a matter of internal temperature of the power supply, not the load levels. So a larger capacity power supply at the same efficiency level would have the same amount of heat that needs to be exhausted as a lower capacity power supply. This argument is mostly invalid.

To get a quieter power supply, you need one with a higher efficiency level, so that it doesn't put out as much waste heat.

TL;DR if no overclocking or small overclocks on the 480, 750 watts would work. Larger overclocks on the 480, go for 800+.
 
This is an amazing value for the money. It's a rebadged Enermax unit and jonnyguru gave it a nice review. This will handle that 480 sli setup no worries.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194083

That being said I ran sli 480's with a 2600k @ 4.7 on an hx750 simultaneously using furmark and IBT trying to get the thing to crash and couldn't. Any quality 800w unit will do you just fine and will run any setup you're likely to use going forward because it's highly unlikely we'll ever see a gpu requiring more juice than a 480.
 
Thanks for that recommendation... 900 should be good, even with some overclocking on the 480s... I agree on future video cards needing less and less... I hate buying a 1200W now to never really need it again in the future. 900W would be good now plus in the future when I'll likely upgrade to SLI 680s after they drop in price to what I paid for the 480s...
 
danielwiley said:
This is an amazing value for the money. It's a rebadged Enermax unit and jonnyguru gave it a nice review. This will handle that 480 sli setup no worries.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194083

That being said I ran sli 480's with a 2600k @ 4.7 on an hx750 simultaneously using furmark and IBT trying to get the thing to crash and couldn't. Any quality 800w unit will do you just fine and will run any setup you're likely to use going forward because it's highly unlikely we'll ever see a gpu requiring more juice than a 480.
Click to expand...

Yeah I linked that above, it would be a good choice.

centex99 said:
Thanks for that recommendation... 900 should be good, even with some overclocking on the 480s... I agree on future video cards needing less and less... I hate buying a 1200W now to never really need it again in the future. 900W would be good now plus in the future when I'll likely upgrade to SLI 680s after they drop in price to what I paid for the 480s...
Click to expand...

I really think that FSP AU-850PRO is the best choice here.
 
danielwiley said:
This is an amazing value for the money. It's a rebadged Enermax unit and jonnyguru gave it a nice review. This will handle that 480 sli setup no worries.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194083

That being said I ran sli 480's with a 2600k @ 4.7 on an hx750 simultaneously using furmark and IBT trying to get the thing to crash and couldn't. Any quality 800w unit will do you just fine and will run any setup you're likely to use going forward because it's highly unlikely we'll ever see a gpu requiring more juice than a 480.
Click to expand...

Lepa? Never heard of it.

EDIT: Just looked em up on [H] and units are of just decent quality, nothing more.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top