Does anyone know how much power would I need to run a system with two 8800GTS's in SLI and a Core 2 Extreme X6800. I don't know if 550 watts would be enough. I don't want to spend much on a power supply. And what's a really good and popular/ Gaming PSU out there now?

Quote: Originally Posted by raydub Does anyone know how much power would I need to run a system with two 8800GTS's in SLI and a Core 2 Extreme X6800. I don't know if 550 watts would be enough. I don't want to spend much on a power supply. And what's a really good and popular/ Gaming PSU out there now?

Anything over 500 should do, with all that hardware and few fans, and a few HDD/optical drives, i would suggest atleast600, but the OCZ powerstream is a good bet, or the gamerstream, othewise PSU's areone of the most important choices in your system, so i would choose it wisely (even for some extra cost brand over price) and i think Hiper has a few good ones ATM.

Other choices would be anything Enermax, PC power and cooling, also check out Ultra, (look up^^^). Thisad was endorsed by our sponsers. if i can say that.

Quote: Originally Posted by raydub Does anyone know how much power would I need to run a system with two 8800GTS's in SLI and a Core 2 Extreme X6800. I don't know if 550 watts would be enough. I don't want to spend much on a power supply. And what's a really good and popular/ Gaming PSU out there now?

I cant really say specifically for that hardware how much power you will need, but I can recomend OCZ as a good psu. I am running my computer with 5 hard drives, a 7900gtx, and an amd x2 on my 700 watt OCZ GameXStream. The 700 watt version may be a bit more than you need so you may want to look at the 600 watt version. I can say that I get very stable power and though I cant personally mearure the efficiency they are both supposed to be very efficient and they have active pfc. By the way it is worth spending a little bit extra to get a good power supply. FYI At newegg right now the 600 watt version is running for $120 and the 700 watt is $140 and have rebates to bring those prices a little bit lower. Also if you care about noise, it is probably the quietest part of my computer and it produces very little heat (some, less efficient, power supplys can produce a fair bit of heat and need a louder fan to cool them).

oh yeah and it supports sli with 2 pci-e power connectors and, if you need them all, it has 6 SATA power connectors

If I were you I would err on the side of caution and go a little overboard with your powersupply. Even with the GTS version you're still gonna be sucking alot of power. When Anandtech benchmarked their 8800's they were using the 700w OCZ GamerXstream and it held up fine. I personally wouldn't go for anything less than 600w but you could probably get by with a lesser power supply if neccessary. Ideally any of these PSU's would be just fine though if you plan on adding more hard drives, fans etc you'll want to add more power accordingly.

Also I'll second OCZ. They make some of the most durable power supplies I've ever encountered. I put one in a computer that was to be used in a middle school science classroom--It's been two years now and its still going strong--despite all the abuse. I would however stay away from Ultra. They may have improved and they may be dirt cheap but I've got a 600w X-Finity and I'm not all the happy with it.

I'd second that about Ultra. I know we're sponsored by them and everything, but personally I've heard bad things about them.

Seasonic are the stablest PSUs I've heard of. I was reading up on a lab test where they actually took all the tested PSUs to Germany to one of the few machines in the world that can actually stress test PSUs, and Seasonic came out top in all of the tests - most efficient, quietest, etc. Ultra were....erm....bottom.

Check this out... Seasonic M12 Modular 700W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply

Ok, it looks like i have to choose a 700W power supply. I found out that the 8800GTX's can take up to 200W per card because of the two pci-e ports on each card are required. So, what are some of the best 700W PSUs out there?

I like the PC Power&Cooling myself, all links are "Clickable" BTW....