Power Supply Requirements

NVIDIA does recommend at least a 450W power supply that can deliver up to 30A on the +12V rail. For our testing we used OCZ's GameXStream 700W power supply, which features two PCIe power connectors, perfect for the 8800 series.

OCZ sent us a pre-release version of its 1kW power supply for use in our GeForce 8800 GTX SLI tests.

Armed with four PCIe power connectors, the 1kW unit handled the incredible load placed on it by two 8800 GTX cards without a problem. Total system power consumption when running our benchmarks, at times, peaked at over 520W with the SLI setup.


Two 8800 GTX cards in action; four power cables are necessary

The Cards: 8800 GTX and GTS The 680i Platform
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  • haris - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link

    You must have missed the article they published the very next day http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35...">here. saying they goofed.
  • Araemo - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link

    Yes I did - thanks.

    I wish they would have updated the original post to note the mistake, as it is still easily accessible via google. ;) (And the 'we goofed' post is only shown when you drill down for more results)
  • Araemo - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link

    In all the AA comparison photos of the power lines, with the dome in the background - why does the dome look washed out in the G80 images? Is that a driver glitch? I'm only on page 12, so if you explain it after that.. well, I'll get it eventually.. ;) But is that just a driver glitch, or is it an IQ problem with the G80 implementation of AA?
  • bobsmith1492 - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link

    Gamma-correcting AA sucks.
  • Araemo - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link

    That glitch still exists whether or not gamma-correcting AA is enabled or disabled, so that isn't it.
  • iwodo - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link

    I want to know if these power hungry monster have any power saving features?
    I mean what happen if i am using Windows only most of the time? Afterall CPU have much better power management when they are idle or doing little work. Will i have to pay extra electricity bill simply becoz i am a cascual gamer with a power - hungry/ ful GPU ?

    Another question pop up my mind was with CUDA would it now be possible for thrid party to program a H.264 Decoder running on GPU? Sounds good to me:D
  • DerekWilson - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link

    oh man ... I can't believe I didn't think about that ... video decoder would be very cool.
  • Pirks - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link

    decoder is not interesting, but the mpeg4 asp/avc ENCODER on the G80 GPU... man I can't imagine AVC or ASP encoding IN REAL TIME... wow, just wooowww
    I'm holding my breath here
  • Igi - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link

    Great article. The only thing I would like to see in a follow up article is performance comparison in CAD/CAM applications (Solidworks, ProEngineer,...).

    BTW, how noisy are new cards in comparison to 7900GTX and others (in idle and under load)?
  • JarredWalton - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link

    I thought it was stated somewhere that they are as loud (or quiet if you prefer) as the 7900 GTX. So really not bad at all, considering the performance offered.

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