Also, there are 2 120mm intake fans in the front of the case and one 120mm fan blowing out of the case in the back, there are no other spots for fans in the case, which is a bummer. It's not that great of a case, but I like the look for my GF.

No need for a 2007 PSU, if you really want to buy one, buy a new one to avoid troubles. And like I said no need for a 800-1000W PSU, I used a 600W one and everything worked nicely.

Now, when I used my quad the results I got with it made no sense. A single GX2 had about the same performance. Drivers may be better now, but don't expect crazy scaling.

sprcorreia wrote:

No need for a 2007 PSU, if you really want to buy one, buy a new one to avoid troubles. And like I said no need for a 800-1000W PSU, I used a 600W one and everything worked nicely.

Now, when I used my quad the results I got with it made no sense. A single GX2 had about the same performance. Drivers may be better now, but don't expect crazy scaling.

Yeah, I don't expect anything crazy from it, I just have the cards and see it as more of an anomaly than anything. I will probably only use one GX2 at a time but it would be nice to try it out. I was just thinking of that 2007 PSU because someone said I may be overheating my chipsets with a newer PSU. If that's not true, best buy has the evga 600w for 35.99 right now.

This is a good reading.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/nvidia-q … i-review,1.html

For an idea of the PSU power required:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080101110742/htt … _build_psu.html

There are some 600W in there, so just pick something modern (and good) and don't look back.

I think somewhere down the line people got a little crazy about psu's.....

When for example Nvidia said to use a minimum of 400w for a graphics card they wanted to cover everything so even the cheapass craptastic 400w units. People made it into: '' better have some extra so please use a Corsair (or other good psu) 500w or better.... A good 250w psu would do the job, or a badly made 400w was needed (and would still die earlier).

So yes, if yoo have a good psu you can run this setup fine with a 600w, if you use a cheap (and NOT recommended) psu you better shoot for a 1000W or more. In the end, the 600w will still be better and safer. And yes, buy a NEW one. Older psu's will degrade a bit and even very good ones do not live forever. quad sli needs good, clean power.

Btw, i had a 750sli board new a couple of years back and i never liked the stability of that chipset. It was a MSI and i only used a core2duo and a single card (no gx2 either).
I had a p965 intel board before that with the same cpu, and went back to intel and bought a p35 board and never had a problem again.

So i don't know if the 7950gx2 cards need a certain board to function correctly in sli but otherwise i would use a later intel base for these 2 cards.

About scaling: The max. fps will probably not be much higher with 2 cards but you should be able to play later games compared to one card and/or crank up the details a lot more and use AA.
It's just a fun setup and i would finish it. It is also nice that you have a 3th card in case one fails down the road.

I think the most important thing to look at for the "recommended" wattage for a video card is the 12v Amperage. Just because you have a 400watt psu does not mean it puts out, say 18 on the 12v rail. Often times older designs or cheapo 400watt PSU will put out 12 or 14 and the rest will be on the minor rails.

I wonder how your build is doing especially with newer drivers, got two 7950 GX2s and I know that they are not power hogs given how cheaply they are built. No more than 50 to 60w per side under sustained load. Someday I want to buy a second GTX 690 but sadly quad sli is dead in modern gaming 🙁