Noobish question about a Cougar sx850

[kain000]

Hello everyone,
I have a somewhat beginner question about my current build as it's the first modular PSU I've used.

as the title states we are talking about a Cougar sx 850 PSU
http://www.cougar-world.com/us/products/power_supplies/cougar_sx.html

Under the specs tab you will find the power chart that states 4 12v rails, two @22A and the other two @24A.

http://www.cougar-world.com/uploads/pics/cable_draw_sx850_02.jpg
Here is the cable layout.

http://www.cougar-world.com/uploads/pics/cougar_sx_6_03.jpg
Here are the modular connections

what is getting me hung up is (if you look at the PSU there are 4 red connectors labeled 12v4 and 12v3, and from this I assume both rails 3 and 4 are powering that block of 4 connectors. The unit came with two red modular connectors for PCIe 6+2 pin cables for a graphics card.
The unit also has 2 PCIe 6+2 pin cables hard wired... which from the table above I can assume is powered by 12v2. (as the unit has the block of black connectors labeled as 12v1)

So I suppose my question to the forum is this;
Running dual EVGA 560 FTW+ cards in SLI (each requiring two 6 pin PCIe connections) I have a total of 4 PCIe 6+4 pin cables, two from the box labeled 12v3/12v4 and two that were hard wired from 12v2.

How do I power these cards properly? the two "red" connectors state 24A where the hard wired ones state 22A.

do I a) use both "red" (24A) connections on a single card and both 22A ones on the other

b) Use one 24A and one 22A for each card

OR

c) try to get a hold of 2 more "red" PCIe cables for the second card.... It would seem to me that they built 4 "red" ports so you should be able to connect 4 "red" cables on those rails... however only two were included which makes me wonder if they did that for a reason.

 

[Bobnova]

Plugging the red plugs into the black connectors will likely cause hardware death. Color coding is not to be ignored!
The two reds on the left are 12v4, the two reds on the right are 12v3.
Use one rail for one card and the other for the other card. Red, in both cases.

The red plugs are all 12 V and GND. The black plugs have 12V, 5V, 3.3V and GND.

 

[kain000]

The two reds on the left are 12v4, the two reds on the right are 12v3.
Use one rail for one card and the other for the other card.

I was never going to cross plug the red tip'd cables into the black side haha yeah I can imagine BSG that would be.

So you are saying use a single rail (being either bottom or top of the LEFT or RIGHT side, not vertically stacked) for each card? But what about the additional 6 pin PCIe required by each card? should that be filled with the PCIe connector that is hard wired to the PSU. (Recall that the hardwired ones are @22A vs 24A of the "red block")

 

[Bobnova]

I assumed that with four plugs you'd have four cables.
Failing that, use one of each.
Realistically speaking, those GPUs don't eat enough power for it to matter at all anyway
If they were GTX480s, or 590s, or something like that, it might make a difference. 22a rating means ~30a OCP, that's 360w. I think those are somewhere in the 150w-170w range.

 

[kain000]

I assumed that with four plugs you'd have four cables.

Yeah that is what was throwing me for a loop, because It would make sense that the four outlets would be meant for 2 cards using 2 each but only 2 cables were included and I couldn't find anywhere on Cougar's website suggesting that I could buy additional cables.

so In review; one 560 card will receive one 24A cable and one 22A cable.

Thanks a lot for bearing with me here lol I appreciate your reply. I've been watching the views on here and Tom's hardware climb with zero replies for hours.

 

[Bobnova]

Sounds good, it should be perfectly happy with that.

Glad I could help!