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Zka17
05-11-2012, 08:19 AM
While working on my project (http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?11974-BlackBeauty-to-be-born-beginnings&country=&status=) I start playing with an idea...

I have 3 EVGA GTX 480s to be installed in SLI. Then, I also have an Asus ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5 (http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?13372-My-temporary-system-not-perfect-but-works&country=&status=)... So, what if I would set up the Asus one as a dedicated PhysX card beside the 3 EVGA's in SLI?

I'm aware that the 3 EVGAs will be a beast in my system, perhaps I won't even use their entire capacity. It's just for the sake of building... I have these hardwares and i'm curious if I could built them together...

My questions:

1. Is the GTX 560 Ti suitable to use as a dedicated PhysX card beside the GTX480s? I mean, usually a weaker card is suggested for PhysX, but this is what I have...

2. I have the R3E mobo, which is suitable to do 3 way SLI. It has 4 PCI-E lanes. If the GTX 560 Ti is good to go as a PhysX card, in which PCI-E lane should I mount it? There are two possibilities, to place it in the first/upper lane or in the fourth/bottom lane (as the GTX 480s should be near each other for the SLI setup).

3. What about the power needs? The GTX 480s are pretty power-hungry - and I intend to tweak them. In total, the four VGAs will need a considerable amount of power. So, a Silverstone ST 1500W could handle all of it? (the 3 way SLI is OK, I've tried) And a Corsair AX 1200W?

4. As I'm planning to go in a full custom water cooling, it would be nice to find a full cover block for the Asus card... Searched the net for it, but no luck... Does anybody have some experience in this direction? What are my options if I want the Asus ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5 water cooled?

Thanks in advance for any input!

kkn
05-11-2012, 08:57 AM
for just one 560 they recomend a 550w power supply for a build.
a wild guessing, a card needs around minimum of 175W and up to 200W( or more ) ( and this is for the 560 ti stock since i cant seem to find enny other reviews online as per now )( depends on the load i guess ).
but this is pure guessing.
and tried googling for full cover waterblock too but no hits here either, sorry.

Zka17
05-11-2012, 11:25 AM
Thanks for googling it, kkn!

The thing is that you're right, the GTX 560 Ti needs at least 550W and 38A. For one EVGA GTX 480 Superclocked, they recommend min 600W and 42A. So, 3xGTX480 plus 1 GTX560 will need a lot of power!

Just tried the Thermaltake's PSU calculator with my hardware (with 4 VGAs and CPU tweaked at 5GHz) - it gives me a recommended value of 1389W. This is if I'm not considering the capacitor aging... If I'm taking the worst case and considering capacitor aging as 50%, then it recommends at least 2058W!

I guess, if I want to go in this direction, may have to consider a second PSU...

kkn
05-11-2012, 12:06 PM
lol wow.
thats some major power.

Zka17
05-11-2012, 12:18 PM
Yeap, but no worries!

Looking at my options, there are several choices I could have: using an auxiliary PSU (have to big ones, a 1500W and a 1200W), using only two of the GTX480s (not really like this one), get 3 GTX680s instead of the GTX480s (this sounds nice, but my wife would kill me spending that money)...

Well, let's see what others ROGers have to say! Specially about questions 1, 2 and 4...