[Suppressor1137]

I am dying laughing at my stupidity.

2 480 gtx cards are what I plan to get down the road to keep up with the new generation video cards, a cheap alternative.

Power draw of 2 gtx 480's peak at roughly 630 watts.

Power draw of I5 2500k at stock 95

630+95=725+2+5+15(hard drive, Disk drive, Periphals*estimate*.)=747. This is under 100% load.

I have a 850 PSU Lazer Gold series by kingwin. It will handle it, but at what point will it give out? I know 1000 watts is recommended, but I can "overclock" my psu to 1000 with a loss of efficiency...if need be.

I know the 500 series are better in terms of tessellation, but the 480 beats the 570 in frames, and is $50 cheaper.

[EarthDog]

LOL, you cant overclock your PSU.

And I would still go 570's. I have only see one or two games where the 480 beats out the 570's.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...0-sli-review/5

Your PSU would be fine, but in better shape with the 570's.

And the TDP for the 570 is like 250W so 500W total at stock speeds. Around 550-575 overclocked.

[Suppressor1137]

by "overclock" I meant it will draw more power, but be less efficiant on its own...ie pull unrated power of 900+ at silver or bronze rating.

[EarthDog]

I understood what you meant. Answer of course remains the same.

[Suppressor1137]

First line of first post emphasized again.

$120 more for the 570's tho, thats the kicker...then again, I never intended to buy em both at once.

plan was to buy one(this is a few months down the road mind you.) and when the next series comes out(600 or whatever they call it.) get a second one in SLI to keep up with improving game tech.

[Bobnova]

Sometimes you can draw more from a PSU than it is rated for without issue.
Sometimes the PSU will die and give your components somewhere from 12v to 370v to think about, and/or catch fire.
It's really not recommended.

[EarthDog]

Originally Posted by Suppressor1137

First line of first post emphasized again.

$120 more for the 570's tho, thats the kicker...then again, I never intended to buy em both at once.

plan was to buy one(this is a few months down the road mind you.) and when the next series comes out(600 or whatever they call it.) get a second one in SLI to keep up with improving game tech.

Well hopefully you have a 2560x1600 monitor or multimonitor setup to actually stress those cards.

GL with your purchase.

[Suppressor1137]

Regardless, I'm not going to be at Max hardly ever, and the draw is still below the rated amount. I only plan to put a 4.0 OC on my CPU as well, which would put the power draw roughly 110-120 watts. still a 94 or so watt breathing room. No need to Overclock video cards in SLI to get a 4-5 fps increase when its already at 60 fps. Not only that, but I game at 1680x1050, so its even less stressful on the cards. What I was looking for is a verification from another person on my observations. the "ampere" use is the entire system, not JUST the video cards.

Well hopefully you have a 2560x1600 monitor or multimonitor setup to actually stress those cards.

GL with your purchase.

I plan on keeping this monitor as long as I can, but as my income improves, going to buy a new monitor to run at that. Still a ways off, as I said, and Life is unpredictable.

This is what I plan on getting, cheap, no led backlight, excellent response time.

[nzaneb]

If you only game at 1680 x 1050, there is no need for SLI

[Suppressor1137]

Originally Posted by nzaneb

If you only game at 1680 x 1050, there is no need for SLI

Not what I said. I said for later on down the road once games become more graphics intensive. XD I was estimating if my PSU would be able to keep up with demand.

[nzaneb]

Originally Posted by Suppressor1137

Not what I said. I said for later on down the road once games become more graphics intensive. XD I was estimating if my PSU would be able to keep up with demand.

If you plan on tackling "future" games with today's hardware you're already in a losing battle. Buy the best current GPU that you can afford, then in the future, sell it and do the same. The novelty of SLI will wear off in a hurry, unless you run DC or benchmark.

[EarthDog]

We understand what you said... what our(well my) goal is here is to just open your eyes a bit on the money you are wasting in going SLI for such a meager resolution.

You yourself said, "but as my income improves", which leads me to believe along with such a low res monitor, you shouldnt be buying SLI now. I vote for a single 570 until you can afford a better monitor. Once you have that monitor, which a 570 will eat alive, THEN consider getting another card.

Originally Posted by nzaneb

If you plan on tackling "future" games with today's hardware you're already in a losing battle. Buy the best current GPU that you can afford, then in the future, sell it and do the same. The novelty of SLI will wear off in a hurry, unless you run DC or benchmark.

+1

[nzaneb]

I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, I saw you mention cost... there are cheaper ways to obtain your goals on a budget. Unless of course, your goal is SLI in and of itself... if that's the case... have at it

As to your first question, you're PSU will be fine. It would likely run 3 480's, for gaming purposes. If you stick it on Distributed Computing, then I'd worry.

[Suppressor1137]

And once again, I am slapped in the face with the first line of the first post.

Roger that.

I think that Once I get my CPU and mobo, and hook up the "new system" this "future" speculation of mine will disappear. I under-estimate how fast technology can improve(take for instance the single to dual cores, we thought we capped with single core cpus, now we are blowing them out of the water.)

If I REALLY want to get ramped up for future stuff, then I should be looking into Quantum Processing, Silicon is reaching its limits(though we are still 10 years or so away from truely capping silicon chips.)

My thoughts were to buy a second card and bring it into SLI to get better performance to equate it to that of the new generation GPU's. It works in theory, assuming the gains were actually 100% of the second card...but...it isn't.

[nzaneb]

Good call. I think you see what we were trying to point out to you
When it comes to technology (I just posted this in another thread, but it's relevant here as well)...Don't buy for the future... buy for the present, that's where you live

[Suppressor1137]

Now...heres an interesting question...

If I am using my GTX 260 in contingency with the intel 3000 thats activated on the z68...will I be able to run in DX11 while using my 260 to buff the frames?

[nzaneb]

Not possible unfortunately. Good thinking though. You might be able to potentially use it as a PhysX card, but I cannot verify first hand that it's possible to do that.

[Suppressor1137]

I have seen people use it for Physx, which is what I plan to do. DX11 is the main reason I even want a new card, Tessellation is just extra :P

Thats unfortunate tho...You can't have everything though :P

[EarthDog]

let me tell you from experience, dont waste your money on a dedicated PhysX card either if you have a nice card like a 570. The 570 will handle PhysX and its other duties juuuuuuuuust fine.

[Suppressor1137]

I'm not, but if its included with a processor, why not take advantage of it?