Pci-Express 6pin to 8pin, safe?

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RaptorZX3
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Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2006 11:57 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec (Canada)

Pci-Express 6pin to 8pin, safe?

Post by RaptorZX3 » Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:26 pm

i might get a Dell XPS 630i board from a friend (with C2Q6600 + 8gb DDR2-800) and maybe the power supply that go with it, supposedly a 750W Dell genuine PSU.

Now that power supply only have 2 x 6pin PCIe connectors, and i would like to use a Geforce GTX 280 OC on it, which have 1x 6pin and 1x 8pin connectors.

I noticed the +2pin provided on 6+2 pin cable are only ground connectors, so...i've been wondering, is it safe to use those 6pin to 8pin adapters?

also, on a side note, are the Dell XPS boards standard ATX for board mounting holes? (dumb question probably) Cos i'm going to use that in my Antec P180 case.

andyb
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Re: Pci-Express 6pin to 8pin, safe?

Post by andyb » Sat Mar 08, 2014 9:25 am

Regarding the 6-8 pin adaptors, I cant imagine that they are NOT safe, after all lots of modern graphics cards come with molex to 6/8-pin graphics card power connectors and they also only have a single wire providing ground for the 12-volt line - saying that, I have no idea why the 8-pin graphics card connectors ever came into existance, I dont know enough about electrics as others.

Any good quality 750W PSU will be far more than ample for that setup, and as a general rule the PSU's used in Dell PC's are pretty good by OEM PC builder standards, I would guess that its an Enhance or if your lucky an FSP.

As for whether its a standard motherboard or some weird Dell design I cant say without looking at it, although Dell did stop using proprietry designs some years ago on pretty much every desktop they built, whether yours is standard or not I cannot tell, but I would like to know when you find out.


Andy

RaptorZX3
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Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2006 11:57 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec (Canada)

Re: Pci-Express 6pin to 8pin, safe?

Post by RaptorZX3 » Sun Mar 09, 2014 2:15 am

well it's standard, but the case itself, the board is mounted upside down, so the CPU it pointing downward, expansion cards are pointing up, power supply is up in the case, and some things are proprietary such as the front I/O board for buttons, THOUGH you can still use the "Front LED" headers which contain HDD led, Power led, power switch and reset switch headers/pins.

So finally i'm using a 2-Molex to 1 PCIe 6-pins, and a 2x PCIe 6-pins to 1x PCIe 8-pins, for the video card, since it's a tailored PSU, it have a lot less cables than standard ones you buy in stores.

So i was able to fit my Scythe Ninja plus. Rev.B on that Core 2 Quad Q6600, and i may try to fit my Thermalright HR-05 on the chipset someday.

I had to remove a big foam block on the back of the board in order for me to fit the board inside the case, i guess this block was used as a support in the XPS case which must have a deeper back case.

So yes, the Dell XPS 630i motherboard is a standard ATX board, but you need to figure out the pinouts for the power, reset switches, and power and hdd leds, shown on the "my630i.com" website.

But fitting a large LGA775 cooler is a pain in the ass, but i guess it's pretty much the case on ALL boards, except coolers which size/width doesn't go over the push-pins. Good thing i kept all brackets for this cooler!

Though i'll have to wait till my friend bring me his 4 x 2gb DDR2-800 because it's a pain to install patches with 1gb DDR2-667 on Windows 7...

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