420w PSU enough for 6800Ultra?

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krizzle

Gawd
Joined
Jun 28, 2004
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About to get 6800u here... I have a thermaltake PurePower 420w PSU powering:
AMD64 3200+
2x optical drives
4x hard drives
Koolance Exos

Looking to overclock the card as well...
Am I in barney?
 
im kind of wondering the same thing but the bfg site says that 480w minimum is needed!
sure seems like a ton of power for a video card?
 
i'm not trusting the BFG powersupply requirement... I think it's a marketing scheme to get people to buy their card+psu combo.

I have heard of them running on 300watts before, but I'm concerned about my 4 hard drives...
 
I don't think there's a quick answer if you want to be certain about it, especially with the 4 HDDs you mention. I'd check out the sticky in the PSU forum about seeing if your PSU is up to it.
 
krizzle said:
Am I in barney?
Click to expand...
Barney? Barney rubble? ;)

I ran 3 barracudas, 2 opterons and 6800u off of a 400w PSU and it worked fine (overclocked gpu and cpus too).
If you seem to get problems just give the 6800u its own two power lines. I would however try and get a 480+ one if I were you, for the future.
 
Error Macro said:
Barney Rubble?

Trouble?



Crazy English slang... ;)
Click to expand...
offtopic: we dont actually say barney, cept for some reason US movies think we do :rolleyes:
 
we really need a sticky to show if a certian wattage is enough to run a Ultra. There are just way too many threads.
 
To OC a 6800ultra you'd need at least a Fortran or a PC&P, those things suck some serious psu power.

~Adam
 
It totally depends on what make of 420W PSU you're talking about. There are some with 18A on the 12v rail and some with nearly 30. You could run it easily off a good quality 420W, since it only uses about 30% more power than a 9800 pro, and uses less than a 9800XT at idle.

Zippy, Enermax, FortrOn and Sparkle are all good PSU's. Thermal Take PSU's are total pieces of shit.
 
krizzle said:
About to get 6800u here... I have a thermaltake PurePower 420w PSU
Looking to overclock the card as well...
Am I in barney?
Click to expand...
Probably not sufficient. I was running two PSUs for my OC'd 6800GT and a Pressy. The Ultra just couldn't hack it. I know your CPU takes less power, but I'd still want at least another cheapo PSU to run the HDDs. Of course, that was with a "500W" Aspire :rolleyes: and a 350W Antec. Haven't tried it on my new Powerstream. Too lazy to pull the 6800 out of the drawer and switch the drivers yet again. :D

Isn't that Koolance self-powered AC?
 
arent there people running these badboys (or the GT's) in their shuttles? ive seen a few on this board alone.
 
uclajd said:
Probably not sufficient. I was running two PSUs for my OC'd 6800GT and a Pressy. The Ultra just couldn't hack it. I know your CPU takes less power, but I'd still want at least another cheapo PSU to run the HDDs. Of course, that was with a "500W" Aspire :rolleyes: and a 350W Antec. Haven't tried it on my new Powerstream. Too lazy to pull the 6800 out of the drawer and switch the drivers yet again. :D

Isn't that Koolance self-powered AC?
Click to expand...

You probably shouldn't be putting multiple PSU's that aren't made to be used that way in the same computer. You'd be safer using one good one instead of a bunch of shitty ones.
 
CleanSlate said:
To OC a 6800ultra you'd need at least a Fortran or a PC&P, those things suck some serious psu power.

~Adam
Click to expand...


Jeez is that overkill! I am running my 6800 Ultra, 4 HD's, my dvd burner, Hydrocool, A64 3200+ @ 2.4 Ghz with some misc PCI cards with my Antec True power 430w. Card OC to 460/1.15. I don't have any problems with my system....
 
If you look at my sig my system runs rock solid on an Antec 430 watt Truepower. I am getting ready to upgrade and put the system in a Koolance water cooled box taht a friend of mine gave me.
 
gsboriqua said:
Jeez is that overkill! I am running my 6800 Ultra, 4 HD's, my dvd burner, Hydrocool, A64 3200+ @ 2.4 Ghz with some misc PCI cards with my Antec True power 430w. Card OC to 460/1.15. I don't have any problems with my system....
Click to expand...

Well hell, I stand corrected then.

Actually what I said is correct (I shouldn't have second-guessed myself), if you are going to OC I've heard from PSU experts on the psu forum that you need a top of the line to ensure low incidence of power fluctuations. Just been a while since I looked at psu's :), I remember now.

~Adam
 
We really just need to know the absolute peak power requirements of the GeForce 6-series cards.

I'm still trying to figure out if it'll pull more than 7A on the +12V rail (a 6800 Ultra Extreme) seeing as that's the untapped potential of my current PSU.
 
BossNoodleKaboodle said:
its system dependent. you'd have to calculate it including the peak of all of your other components.
Click to expand...
Isn't that what that calculator does?

And would my D875PBZ draw more power than a common P4 board? The only features it has are onboard gigabit LAN and SATA RAID support.
 
you bought a bad ass Video card now spend some money on a good powersuply. look at a pc-power and cooling 510atx.....about 200dollars delivered. (180 bucks or so last time i checked)

i never though i could tell a difference but man!!! my comp runs soo much better. and overclocks a little better.

MAX CLOCK
cpu 2205 mhz
fsb 200.5x2/400.9 mhz

MAX CLOCK PC-P&C 510atx
cpu 2315.5
fsb 210.5x2/421 mhz
all same gear and voltage settings except for the PSU.
 
Thanks, Noodle... perhaps this means I'm not in too much trouble.

I don't understand why the thing needs two Molex connectors... can it not pull it through one?
 
probably needs consistent amperage and voltage distribution that would otherwise overload or draw too much from other components on the line.
 
BossNoodleKaboodle said:
You probably shouldn't be putting multiple PSU's that aren't made to be used that way in the same computer.
Click to expand...
It's fine to use more than one PSU as long as you only use the second for drives, fans, etc. Running the GPU and mobo/CPU on different PSUs is precarious.

BossNoodleKaboodle said:
You'd be safer using one good one instead of a bunch of shitty ones.
Click to expand...
Uh, yeah that's why I have a $200, 600W PSU? :rolleyes: The point I was making is that running an overclocked 6800 takes a lot of watts.
 
BossNoodleKaboodle said:
its system dependent. you'd have to calculate it including the peak of all of your other components.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-19.html
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-20.html
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I fully understand that, and I have done that. My system (sans video card) is consuming 13.1A on the +12V rail at this point in time, and my PSU supplies up to 21A. That's why I need to know the power consumption of the card itself.
 
You fuckin rule. I'm glad to know that my system *should* be ok with my current 350-watt PSU and a 6800 Ultra Extreme. If it turns out to be insufficient, the worst likely damage would be BSODs and instability, right? Or do I run a high risk of severely damaging the card? I know that voltage fluctuations (both up and down) can seriously damage hardware, but as for current fluctuations I'm honestly not too sure... Can anyone straighten this out for me?
 
Can you explain this Ultra Extreme business? What's different in it from the reg Ultra?
 
krizzle said:
Can you explain this Ultra Extreme business? What's different in it from the reg Ultra?
Click to expand...
UEE was like a "limited edition" ultra, very rare, comes with clock speeds of 450/1200 and says Ultra Extreme Edition.
 
cool. I'ma overclock mine with watercooling so i don't feel too far behind... although i doubt i could hit 1200mhz on RAM...

how did you get, anthrax?

edit: funny,... i found specs like this on the UEE

Manufacturer Part Number: Extreme EN6800ULTRA/2DT/256MB

Specification
Graphics Engine: GeForce 6800 Ultra
Video Memory: 256 MB
Engine Clock: 450MHz
Memory Clock: 400MHz DDR (800 MHZ effective)
RAMDAC: 400MHz
Bus Standard: PCI-Express x16
Memory Interface: 256-bit
Max Resolution: 2048x1536
OS Supported: MicroSoft Windows XP/2000
Capabilities: Microsoft DirectX 9 and OpenGL 1.5

from monarchcomputer... not 600mhz ram..
 
gsboriqua said:
Jeez is that overkill! I am running my 6800 Ultra, 4 HD's, my dvd burner, Hydrocool, A64 3200+ @ 2.4 Ghz with some misc PCI cards with my Antec True power 430w. Card OC to 460/1.15. I don't have any problems with my system....
Click to expand...

I agree, I am running my GF6800U with an A64 3200+, 15k Fujitsu scsi, and 6 ide hd's. All of this is running off of an Antec 400 watt PSU with 18A on the 12v rail. So, I would definitely think you can run it on much less than a 480 watt PSU, as long as its not a $25 CompUSSR brand one.

Vlad
 
krizzle said:
edit: funny,... i found specs like this on the UEE
Click to expand...


That sounds like a misleadingly-named limited edition. Check out the eVGA site if you want to see the specs of the 'proper' UEE. As far as I'm aware they are the only company to sell an Ultra badged as 'Extreme Edition', though Gainward have a 'standard' Ultra with 450/1200 clocks.
 
krizzle said:
cool. I'ma overclock mine with watercooling so i don't feel too far behind... although i doubt i could hit 1200mhz on RAM...

how did you get, anthrax?
Click to expand...
The friend of mine who's "lending" it to me is incredibly loaded, and the moment he heard about the 6800 Ultra Extreme he pulled out his 9800 Pro and called Falcon Northwest... They sold it to him for like $800.
 
I ran about that much on an Antec Truepower 430. So you should be fine. Contrary to popular belief, high end systems don't need 600watt CPU's.
 
i got my 6800Ultra today and got it installed in my system and it seems to be running great!
Thermaltake XaserIII case with Tt 420 PSU = so far, so good!
 
I like my Tt and I did look at the psu stickies before buying it.

Could use a larger ampherage on the 12v rail though =/.

~Adam
 
you should be fine. Watts aren't as important as volts/rail/etc. I am in a bit of a bind as well. I am about to run a 6800GT in an SFF case that only has a 220watt power supply. I only have one CD drive, one hard drive, and no floppy in it. I'm hoping I'll be good as far as power is concerned, but I'll have to see :p
 
6800 Ultra will run on a quality 350 watt power supply. Antec Smartblue 350 runs my Bfg 6800 Ultra o/c without a hitch.
 
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