PSU question

O

omechengineeru

New Member
Just a quick question some of you should be able to answer real quick. For a psu, the 8 pin power connector is for X16 pci-e and the 6 pin the normal pci-e or what... Im noticing most of the power supplies are either just having 2 pci-e connectors or 2 8pins and 4 6pins. Little clarification.... thx
 
Both cables are for the PCIe x16 video card. And for the PCIe 2.0 x16 for that matter. It's because bigger cards require more power. A single 8800GT, 9600GT, or 4850 etc. requires only a single 6-pin power cable because it doesn't consume very much power. Some of the bigger cards like the 9800GX2 and the GTX 280 require a lot of power and use one 6-pin connector and one 8-pin connector. As of now, the most a video card uses is a single 8-pin and 6-pin. You would need the 2 8-pins if you wanted to put two video cards together than needed the 8-pin. The 4 6-pins are for cards that require only 2 6-pins, and if you wanted to SLI them. It all depends on the card.
 
im planning on gettin a 9800gx2 on a p5q pro mobo... does that mean i needa get a special psu that comes with a 6pin and 8pin for the?? or will the only factor limiting be W??
 
No, there are 3 main factors. First of all you need a good PSU with a good overall wattage. For the 9800GX2 I would recommend a PSU around 600W-700W. Second, you need a power supply with high amps on the 12V rails. For the 9800GX2, you would need a minimum of 40A. And lastly you need a power supply that has the sufficient connectors. You can buy 6-pin adapters that convert 2 4-pins to a single 6-pin but I'm not too sure about the 8-pin.
 
Um, if you get one of those 1000W corsair PSU's (don't know the model on top of my head), you can ship it back to corsair and they'll give you the cables you need for your build if you're lacking an 8 pin cable or a 6 pin cable.
 
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