Hey, as the title suggests, I am planning to buy a 8800gt. I am planning to replace my old 6600gt. My current specs include: AM2 3800+ 6600GT 128mb 4 sticks 512mb DDR2 Ram Sata 250gb HDD A DVD-RW burner- ATA 450w OCZ Modstream PSU please tell me that a 8800gt won't blow up my pc
That psu is advertised to have 26 amps on the 12v rail, thats the minimum recommended but as the minimum includes a safety buffer it should be fine.
I think you would be safer getting a new power supply, my card requires 30 Amps on the +12v Rail so I think you are below minimum, unless I am wrong but I don't think I am :S
Give it a try, no harm will (likely) be done. There's a very important point here tho, all 450 (smae wattage badged)power suppies aren't the same. Unfortunately a lot of companies use that as marketing and not as a true specification on the power supplies capabilites. It's always good to use a QUALITY power supply. Have fun, Lex
Based on what? Nvidia states 450w@26amps I run a 470w@26amps with an o'c Evga (my card's manufacturer) states 400w@22amps (too close for comfort I think) http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=512-P3-N802-AR Requirements Minimum of a 400 Watt power supply. (Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 22 Amp Amps.) Minimum 450 Watt for SLI mode system. (Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 24 Amp Amps.) An available 6 pin PCI-E power connector (hard drive power dongle to PCI-E 6 pin adapter included with card) The required amperage on the 12v is just as (if not more) important as the wattage. Having a quality psu in your system is just a good idea.
wow...I have to wonder if they made a typo there on the SLI recommendation. I think perhaps 12V@24A might power some system configurations (barely) but it doesn't really add up to me. I mean it's like they are saying that the extra card only draws two more amps (24 watts) and we know that's not right. Maybe it's the single card recommendation that is way higher than needed but I would think that EVGA would want the same amount of overhead and breathing space to account for things like low-quality PSU's, over-rated PSU's, old worn-out PSU's, overclocked systems, systems with an extraordinary amount of 12V consuming components, some space for not red-lining the PSU uhmm some accomodation for people who either don't know the correct 12V rating of their PSU and/or people who won't look any farther than total wattage etc. etc. Obviously the overhead for those things built-in to the single card recommendation is not the same as their SLI recommendation because there's no way that an 8800GT only consumes 24W...especially an overclocked 512mb version like that one....go figure <shrugs>
Those amp figures are for the whole system, not just the card. Anyway eVGA might say 24amps for SLI but I would say 28-30. eVGA stated 22 for single card, I went with 26. Other manufacturers from what I've seen add 6-8 amps to their requirements from single card to SLI/Crossfire setups.
You're definitely fine because I'm running my current system with a 8800GT and a 350watt PSU and I've been doing fine.
yeah I know they are for the complete system and I assume that EVGA has a "typical" system in mind for both single card and SLI and the only thing different is the extra card. So with only 2 amps different it's as if they are saying the extra card only uses 2 amps (24W of 12.0V current). The actual single 512mb card consumption is something like 6-8 amps depending on clockspeeds and what was used to stress the card...and the SLI numbers that I've seen indicate about 13A for the two cards together...so that's what I would have expected EVGA's recommendations to reflect. If their single card recommendation was 18A it would make more sense to me. Anyway...sorry for going off topic here...just was kinda shocked to see EVGA's numbers
Same here, so either EVGA's and Nvidia's recommendations for single card operation are way off or EVGA's SLI numbers are whacked.
As Kpo said, your power supply should be fine as it has a 26a +12v rail and should you ever need to upgrade again in the future remember it's not all about the wattage. The amperage on the +12v rail matters as much, if not more so, than the wattage. Of course quality of build should always be factored in as well as there a lot of overrated power supplies out there wanting your cash. So if someone states that they have the same card and it's running just fine with a 400w power supply, you should also take into account that their power supply could be better than your 450w power supply. For example the Enermax ELT400AWT is a 400w dual-rail and it has 30a combined on the +12v rails. Good luck and enjoy the card. You should see a very nice performance bump moving from a 6600GT.
