Hi I am new. I was a long time watcher of Tirger TV back when Logan was running the show and always liked his reviews of hardware back in the day. So I thought I would post and ask about hardware seeing as that's why I'm here.
Last year built a completely new computer:
Specs: 1.) Cooler master stacker (The cheep one) 2.) 2 x gtx9600 BFG (in sli) 3.) Dul core 2.4ghz (800mhz bus) 4.) Antec 500w (EA-500D) 5.) EVGA nForce 790i FTW 4.) G.skill 2BG (F3-10600CL7D-2GBPI)
latter I doubled the ram to 4 and add a few extra hard drives.
On Christmas I got a vary nice monitor but I'm finding that because it's so big games like l4d2 are lagging out more then they did on my old monitor.
So I decided to do some upgrading and I just bought the parts from new egg today. In reality the new additions turn it into the computer I wanted last year but couldn't afford.
However I neglected to buy a new power supply. So my question is do you think the EA-500D can power three 9800GTX+ in tri sli? I did some reading and found that this model of 9800GTX+ is the same as the 9800GTX but it uses the 55nm manufacturing tech over the 65nm, for most 9800GTX+ this translates to a faster clock but with this model it means one less 6-pin power connectors. So my guess is that it uses less power. I did a power calculator and it told me that my whole computer with hard drives and dvd drives would use around 470 watts.
Minimum of a 450 Watt power supply. (Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 24 Amp Amps.) Minimum 550 Watt for SLI mode system. (Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 30 Amp Amps.)
That's what it said on the Newegg website. Even if you would get them to work, do you have 3x6 pin connectors ? I would suggest getting 750w+
You're going to needs at least 800Watt power supply just to be safe. Also with a dual core, which judging by the 800 MHZ FSB, is a Pentium dual core, you're going to have a huge CPU bottleneck. Since you have such a great motherboard, go for a nice Intel Quad core.
If it docent work out I will just buy a bigger PSU... although I wish I had thought about it when I made the order with new egg in the first place. Oh well...
you'd be better off just dual sli'ing until you get a bigger psu, you may honestly get WORSE performance, and instability with that low of power with 3 gpus running.
I'm running into a new problem. The case I have is a cooler master stacker. I'm looking around on new egg for a new PSU however it looks like my case will not allow the top down cooling fan on a PSU. My question is has anyone been able to put a top down cooling fan PSU in this case or is their a type of PSU that will fit in this case that is not the top down cooling kind that's 1000w and perferably 80 pluse?
edit:
Oh never mind I just looked closer at the case and I can see that it doesn't restrict airflow to the top of the case.
i would take something around 1000w for overclocking and future upgrades (you rpower supply will only take as much power as your pc need: i have a 500w power supply but my pc needs only 250w -> c2d e6420 @ 2.5ghz    9800gtx+ oc to 780/1950/1150    4 gb ram   1 harddrive   Â
but dont buy a cheap PSU because mine didnt even got enough connectors for my gfx card so i went to the computer shop and they replaced some connectors so it worked...
At anyrate I went ahead and picked up a 1000w BFG EPS12v from best buy. It's got the 80 pulse bronze and sli ready logo on the box. I didn't even try it on the 500 watt. With the part's I had left over I went head and built another computer, one that I can run L4d2 servers on and what not.
As for performance, Tri SLI is not all it's cracked up to be. I'm getting these funky screen flickers in Crysis and it's not doing vary good at high resolutions. It might be because the clock speed shipped faster then what it said it was on new egg. I think I might try under clocking it to see if it preforms better. However I didn't install the latest patch for Crysis yet and I am kind of busy playing the remember the password game at the moment, so it may take time before I get around to it.
Although someone here must have done Tri-SLI, maybe even with this same set up. Is there something I am forgetting?
If you get any more problems with your setup, check out the Nvidia-forum -> SLI-Zone section -> Need Help -> SLI For Beginners/Installation Help/Ongoing SLI-Support. Good forum, people usually find what they need.
Btw, good choise on the PSU! Â Remember, a single-rail PSU with lot of amps, and good powerusage is the best you can get!
