580 SLI on an 850W

[bullbearish]

Any of you gentlemen (or ladies) running 2x SLI 580s on an 850W power supply without issues? I understand the 580s are power hogs and question if I need to go to 1000W to run BF3 full stop.

 

[Rvenger]

What kind of 850w?

A seasonic 850w? Then your answer would be yes.

 

[bullbearish]

It's a corsair Gold AX850

 

[fffblackmage]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-580-sli-review/14
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4012/nvidias-geforce-gtx-580-the-sli-update

It'll work, but I wouldn't recommend doing any overclocking, unless you can measure your rig's power consumption.

 

[Rvenger]

I think you will even be fine as long as you are not overclocking an AMD FX CPU. I would invest in a $17 Killawatt just to make sure you are not exceeding the continuous power rating of that PSU.

 

[bullbearish]

Thanks for the links and feedback, folks. I do like to overclock my CPUs and GPUs. 850W seems marginal if BF3 runs at load similar to Crysis. I may just wait until the 7970s become more available and xfire 2 of those. They seem to require 100 to 200 less wattage. I can sell the 580 and squeeze a little more performance out of the system for not much more cash.

 

[Rvenger]

Thanks for the links and feedback, folks. I do like to overclock my CPUs and GPUs. 850W seems marginal if BF3 runs at load similar to Crysis. I may just wait until the 7970s become more available and xfire 2 of those. They seem to require 100 to 200 less wattage. I can sell the 580 and squeeze a little more performance out of the system for not much more cash.

Or sell your 580s and pick up two 7950s. Sell them soon while they still bring decent $$. I have been seeing them dip in price below $400 now.

 

[zidan]

I am running 2 GTX 580 MSI Lightning Xtreme cards on an AX850 without any issues. I don't have them overclocked but my 2600k is overclocked to 4.2GHz at 1.28V.

 

[bullbearish]

I am running 2 GTX 580 MSI Lightning Xtreme cards on an AX850 without any issues. I don't have them overclocked but my 2600k is overclocked to 4.2GHz at 1.28V.

What kind of framesrates are you getting?

 

[zidan]

What kind of framesrates are you getting?

I think the last game I checked the frame rate on was SC2, which was running 128 fps on maxed settings (1900 X 1200).

I also play Dota 2 which doesnt really stress the GPU much, and SWTOR which I play with all settings maxed except bloom is turned off and it runs smooth.

 

[bullbearish]

I think you will even be fine as long as you are not overclocking an AMD FX CPU. I would invest in a $17 Killawatt just to make sure you are not exceeding the continuous power rating of that PSU.

I've never seen such a thing. Looked it up on Amazon. Pretty cool. I've got a 2600k turned up to 4.7G and my 580 is overlclocked by about 20%. It will be interesting to see what kind of power I am drawing currently.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Guru3D which is a site that I trust completely for psu recommendations recommends at least a 900w if you do no overclocking.

I would say your 850w would be fine if you didn't overclock the GPUs and maybe had a very small overclock and overvolt on the CPU. More then that and 1kw is needed.

Your PSU is of a higher caliber then most PSUs which is why I think it would be fine.

 

[Fantazn]

It will be mighty close. As long as you have a nice PSU I think it will work but you won't have much headroom for anything

 

[xxslay3rxx]

should be fine!