so before i blow up another power supply

kcmastrpc

[H]ard|Gawd
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May 26, 2011
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i'm on a tight budget.. i'd love to order a 800w corsair and be done with it but i just need some reassurance.

here's the scoop... had an older enermax 625w on my main rig (see sig) - seemed to work fine. one night while i wasn't even gaming (i have a computer repair side business and i had my bench loaded) i threw a breaker. i figured that might happen so i moved my gaming pc to a circuit in the adjacent kitchen.

computer wouldn't boot. pulled a xion 700w (i know, crappy psu) and plugged in the 24 and 8pin - pretty lights and sounds. ok, here's where i messed up. i split off the single PCI-E power line to power both my 6870's. I don't know what I was thinking really, but yea, 1 hour into a BF3 session system powers down with an electrical motor smell in the air.

so the only spare power supply i have left is a raidmax 730w. what i decided to do is use the single PCI-E cable for one card, and i used two seperate dual molex to pci-e 6 pin converters for the other. i'm assuming this is going to feed each card from the two seperate 12v 22a rails that this psu has. (this is probably what i should of done with the xion).

ultimatly... when i fire up BF3 tonight, am I going to blow this PSU up? If so, I'm just going to disable CFX, bite the bullet, and order a corsair 800w.

edit: i'm going to add that i'm amazed none of my components are toast after this debacle. don't even want to RISK popping another PSU for some extra framerates.
 
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If its the raidmax hybrid 730w I would not suggest trying it, it appears to be an overrated 450 watt andyson unit. You do not need a 800+ watt supply for that setup, a QUALTY 650-700watt will do you just fine and leave you room to expand later. Obviously buying the 800+w is not a bad thing either but if your budget is tight you don't have to.
 
That TX650 will work fine, and is a good quality unit. I would suggest not trying to run crossfire on the raidmax supply until you get something reliable.
 
Yet another case of someone buying high-end stuff and skimping out on the power supply...

650 watts would be more than sufficient, and that TX650 should work just fine. Get the XFX Pro650. It's in the same class as the TX650 quality and performance-wise, and is much cheaper.
 
Check out Silverstone psus might be cheaper. They are server class for decent money!
 
Yet another case of someone buying high-end stuff and skimping out on the power supply...

lol, the enermax 625 i had on it didn't break a sweat under load.. srsly, it was only warm to the touch. i just made the mistake of trying to use crap psus in lieu of quality.

and i'm paying for it... the server the xion was in didnt need that much juice but either way, gotta replace that now as well.
 
If you build computers for a living, why the hell do you have such terrible power supplies anywhere within 500 meters of your house or workplace? I mean, Raidmax and Xion? Only thing worse is to put on a full pyrotechnics show with diablotec!

Even if it's OTHER people who want these power supplies, wouldn't you be doing them a favor, and winning more customers, if you had more decent power supplies for the rigs?

I'm glad that you at least came here to ask about the Crossfire thing, though. Now you won't risk blowing up another PSU and maybe taking the video cards with it...
 
If you build computers for a living, why the hell do you have such terrible power supplies anywhere within 500 meters of your house or workplace? I mean, Raidmax and Xion? Only thing worse is to put on a full pyrotechnics show with diablotec!

Even if it's OTHER people who want these power supplies, wouldn't you be doing them a favor, and winning more customers, if you had more decent power supplies for the rigs?

I'm glad that you at least came here to ask about the Crossfire thing, though. Now you won't risk blowing up another PSU and maybe taking the video cards with it...

lol the xion came with an ibuypower pc i bought a few years back before getting back into computer service and repair (i was too lazy to build my own). i'm pretty sure the only part i have left from that computer now is the dvdrw drive. :p

the raidmax is an RMA from a bad unit that was replaced a while back and will likely go into my server. i typically put antec earthwatts in lower-end builds and corsairs in the higher-end builds. essentially the only reason i was using these were because they were "free" and they were powering rigs that didn't come close to stressing the rails.

i ended up grabbing the xfx pro650. 5 year warranty, single rail, for 60 bucks. sucks that it's not modular but theres a good amount of room in the cm560 series case.
 
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