Tri-SLI/CrossFire 680/7970 only uses 701W/825W at gaming load!

grambo

[H]ard|Gawd
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http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/25/geforce_gtx_680_3way_sli_radeon_7970_trifire_review/8

It's pretty impressive to me that 3 top of the line cards only draw those numbers at the wall. The PSU used is a PCP&C 1200W and the 2600K was OC'd to 4.8GHz. Assuming 85% efficiency they are using 595/700W power, not bad at all.

Who needs 1200-1500W PSUs, even for 4 GPUs on this generation unless you are using 4x non-reference cards with dual 8-pin and massive volt modding.
 
Who needs 1200-1500W PSUs, even for 4 GPUs on this generation unless you are using 4x non-reference cards with dual 8-pin and massive volt modding.

People who are doing compute.
 
3930k draws significantly more power than the 2600k. And if you're doing quad-SLI with these cards, chances are you're on the X79 platform with at least the 3930k.

Also, you always want to plan for max load, not typical load. That way, for some reason, if you ever do encounter a game that maxes your system out, you know you're covered.
 
Folders/Bitcoin miners need these large PSUs. A smaller one might handle a 700W load for a few hours but sustaining that load for 24/7 at peak efficiency is a different ball game.
 
Not to mention I don't believe those power draws are overvolted (please tell me if I was wrong), in which case the draw would increase dramatically.
 
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/25/geforce_gtx_680_3way_sli_radeon_7970_trifire_review/8

It's pretty impressive to me that 3 top of the line cards only draw those numbers at the wall. The PSU used is a PCP&C 1200W and the 2600K was OC'd to 4.8GHz. Assuming 85% efficiency they are using 595/700W power, not bad at all.

Who needs 1200-1500W PSUs, even for 4 GPUs on this generation unless you are using 4x non-reference cards with dual 8-pin and massive volt modding.

680s are indeed very modest in regard to power consumption.... however, 7970s can be power pigs when it comes to high overclocks and overvolting... and depending on what you're doing with them, distributed computing/GPU+CPU rendering(LuxReder)/etc you might see considerably higher loads than any game can generate...
 
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