SLI and CrossFire Push Power Supplies to the Limit

jmke · 3rd March 2006, 18:17

When we were writing our recent socket 939 motherboard mini-roundup, we wanted to test how the system would run with two high-end graphics cards installed. We began with a system that had a Silverstone SST-ST65ZF PSU. This power supply is rated for 650 watts, and is SLI certified by Nvidia. So we fired up an Nforce4 SLI X16 system with two 512MB graphics 7800 GTX graphics cards and an Athlon 64 FX-60. About halfway through the 3DMark06 run, the system shut down. There was no warning, no smoke, no heat. It just turned off. After some grumbling we tried swapping out memory and changing out the CPU. No effect. So we finally switched the power supply to a PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 850 SSI. At that point, it all ran just fine. We were in a rush to wrap up benchmarking the motherboards, so just chalked it up to a bad power supply and moved on.

Sidney · 3rd March 2006, 18:26

Is this the very reason DFI NF4 board requires the user to plug on both the 4-pin molex and 4-pin mini onto the board in addition to using the 24-pin native and 4-pin 12volt?

Sidney · 3rd March 2006, 20:01

Major vendors to blame for power problems in SLI/Crossfire

Inquirer has more to say on the topic.

http://theinquirer.net/?article=30053

3rd March 2006, 18:17	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	SLI and CrossFire Push Power Supplies to the Limit When we were writing our recent socket 939 motherboard mini-roundup, we wanted to test how the system would run with two high-end graphics cards installed. We began with a system that had a Silverstone SST-ST65ZF PSU. This power supply is rated for 650 watts, and is SLI certified by Nvidia. So we fired up an Nforce4 SLI X16 system with two 512MB graphics 7800 GTX graphics cards and an Athlon 64 FX-60. About halfway through the 3DMark06 run, the system shut down. There was no warning, no smoke, no heat. It just turned off. After some grumbling we tried swapping out memory and changing out the CPU. No effect. So we finally switched the power supply to a PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 850 SSI. At that point, it all ran just fine. We were in a rush to wrap up benchmarking the motherboards, so just chalked it up to a bad power supply and moved on. __________________

3rd March 2006, 18:26	#2
Sidney Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 15,738	Is this the very reason DFI NF4 board requires the user to plug on both the 4-pin molex and 4-pin mini onto the board in addition to using the 24-pin native and 4-pin 12volt? __________________ lazyman Opteron 165 (2) @2.85 1.42 vcore AMD Stock HSF + Chill Vent II

3rd March 2006, 20:01	#3
Sidney Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 15,738	Major vendors to blame for power problems in SLI/Crossfire Inquirer has more to say on the topic. http://theinquirer.net/?article=30053 __________________ lazyman Opteron 165 (2) @2.85 1.42 vcore AMD Stock HSF + Chill Vent II

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