SLi Question

gintasr · Post by **gintasr** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 5:36 am

What is the difference between a regular PSU and a SLi certified PSU? My next system over the summer will be as follows:

Antec Sonata II (Yes, another one

)
2x120mm SilenX 14dB Fans
1x80mmSilenX 14dB fan
Asus A8N-SLi Premium Motherboard
Corsair XMS 2x512 PC3200 (2,2,2,5) Memory
GigaByte 7800GTX Video Card
2xWD Raptor (74GB) in RAID 0 Hard Drives
1xSamsung 160GB Hard Drive
NED DVD Burner
Floppy

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:54 am

SLI Certified PSU? Never heard of that, but that could be my ignorance. SLI means that you run two SLI capable video cards on a SLI capable motherboard. You need lots of PSU power to do run two high power video card on one mb, but I don't know if there is any specification as to exactly how much power.

SLI cards come in several models, like 6600GT and 6800GT, etc. The 6600GT gets all its power from the motherboard PCI-e slot, whereas the 6800GT requires extra power directly from the PSU, for which you need special connectors that either come with the PSU or come with video card (attached to a molex). Obviously, you would need more PSU power if you run 6800GT's rather than 6600GT's in either one or two (SLI) configurations.

Whether or not a video card gets extra power directly from the PSU has nothing to do with whether it is SLI. You do not need any extra power to run a Asus A8N-SLI mb with a single video card that gets all its power from PCI-e slot, nor do you need any extra power to run the A8N-E (non SLI) mb with a single SLI capable 6600GT video card (like I do).

hazindu · Post by **hazindu** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:03 am

Nvidia has it's own psu testing standards, and companies can have their products tested by nvidia so that they can put a SLI logo on the box if they pass.