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December 26th, 2011 01:00

Dell T3500 SLI?

Hey everyone,

I'm just here to ask a cuple of question and I appreciate everyone's answer! I just got a Zotac GTX 260 for christmas, coincidentally I recently just bought a Point of view GTX 260 Core 216! So I thought maybe I can run SLI on my rig. The rig is a Dell Workstation T3500 Precision, and I wanted to know a  couple of things. I understood the main issue may be the power supply not being strong enough to handle sli.

After much research I found that 550w can just scrape by, and to the fact that I spent £90 on a new power supply to replace the old one which wasn't functioning I'm not to satisfied with the aspect of buying a new powersupply. However I opened up the computer to realise that there wasn't enough cables for the zotac.

The Dell t3500 only had 1 PCI-e and 2 Molex cables so I was lucky enough to get the first GTX 260 in. The GTX 260 needs 2 PCI-e Connecters. Since I want to run SLI I need a total of 4 PCI-e Connecters. My power supply harness only has:

24-pin ATX mainboard power

8-pin ATX mainboard power

6-pin PCI Express (PCIe) power

4-pin Berg floppy

4-pin peripheral power (Molex)

4-pin peripheral power (Molex)

5 x 15-pin serial ATA (SATA) power

66-pin connector

 My questions are:

  1. Does the Dell Workstation T3500 Precision have SLI compatibility?
  2. Can I replace the Harness of the T3500 Precision with a harness that has 4 PCI-e?
  3. If so can you recommend to tell me one that is COMPATIBLE with the Dell T3500 Precision?
  4. If not can I use a Dell power supply adapter so I can change the power supply?

I'm sorry this is such a long list and so many questions but I would really appreciate you clearing up these frustrating matters! Thank you so much for any help give!

 

14.4K Posts

December 26th, 2011 05:00

You will need a new power supply.  This one would fit your needs.

10 Posts

December 27th, 2011 01:00

Sorry but just to clarify on some weary queries if thats ok?

1. Will this power supply fit the computer?

2. Will it be compatible with the Dell t3500 motherboard? (I read that dell had issues making their motherboards proprietery so that a standard atx supply won't work.)

Ok thanks for you given response also!

2 Intern

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548 Posts

December 27th, 2011 04:00

According to the T3500 brochure, the T3500 has support for 2 PCI Express x16 Gen 2 graphics cards up to 225W including: NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 4800; NVIDIA Quadro FX3800; NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800; NVIDIA Quadro FX 580; NVIDIA Quadro NVS 295; ATI® FirePro V8700; ATI FirePro V5700;ATI FirePro V3750. Yet, this page indicates that the T3500 has support for 2 PCI Express x16 Gen 2 graphics cards up to 150 watts (total) including NVIDIA Quadro 5000; NVIDIA Quadro 4000; AMD FirePro V7900; AMD FirePro V5900; NVIDIA Quadro® 2000; ATI FirePro V4800; NVIDIA Quadro 600; NVIDIA Quadro NVS 420 quad monitor card; NVIDIA Quadro NVS 295; ATI FireMV V2260. (Dell documentation at it's best)

The thing to note is all of the listed graphics cards belong to the 'professional' range produced by either NVIDIA or AMD. These cards have certified 'professional' drivers, not your garden variety 'consumer' drivers. This may or may not be an problem but do note that SLI/CrossFire has licensing considerations on at least consumer grade motherboards that i am aware of. If the consumer class motherboard manufacturer hasn't paid their SLI/CrossFire tax, then the consumer graphics drivers will not allow SLI/CrossFire to function. Whether the same licensing considerations (tax) exist with the professional grade drivers, i do not know. It's a 'suck it and see' approach, else hopefully someone has actually tried consumer grade SLI/CrossFire on T3500 and can shed some more light on this :emotion-15:. So as you may now appreciate, it's also about SLI/CF, not just about power :emotion-9:

In any case, out of the two linked documents above, i would take the lower power as a safe starting point. As the high end professional Quadro 5000 uses 152W per card and as both documents state the T3500 has a 525W power supply, this would mean 150W per card this does not seem out of the question. Considering 2x 150W graphics cards would leave 225W for the rest of your computer (CPU, memory, other PCIe slots, HDDs, ODDs, USB, etc, etc) while 2x 225W would leave 75W for the rest of your computer (which seem way to small a power budget when a CPU can suck ~80W-130W by itself) :emotion-10:.

A x16 PCIe graphics slot can feed 75W to the card itself while the graphics card PEG connector(s) (the power connector on the graphics card) must provide the rest of the graphics card power needs. A 2x3 PEG connector can provide a further 75W while a 2x4 PEG connector can provide a further 150W. There can be more than 1 PEG per card allowing a total (with the PCIe slot) of either 150W, 225W or 300W per card depending on the version of the PCIe electomechanical spec the card was designed towards. In this context, and being a 150W card, i would have expected your Dell power supply to provide 2 2x3 PEG connectors, one for each graphics cards so you can actually get a full 150W per card. Again, if indeed you can SLI/CrossFire consumer cards on this motherboard ! From what i have seen on the web, your Zotac GTX 260 has 2 2x3 PEG connectors and would consume 225W so you will likely not have any left over PEG connectors for a second card.

If Dell won't sell you 2x consumer graphics cards for your system, then your going to have to do some more digging yourself but if consumer grade graphics SLI/CF is not supported, it's an uphill battle. And Dell doesn't like to help with technical information, they just want to sell and get their cut :emotion-6:

So the more specific question should be:
Can i SLI/CrossFire consumer graphics cards on my T3500?
Should the Dell 525W PSU for the T3500 provide two 2x3 PEG connectors for use with SLI/CrossFire graphics cards?
Does a 675W PSU exist for the T3500 and does it have 2 2x4 or 4 2x3 PEG connectors?
Does the T3500 Dell PSU use proprietery pinouts or can a standard PSU be purchased?

Good luck and let the forum know how you went with this..

February 26th, 2013 08:00

I have a T3500 and intend on subbing in a T7500 1100w PSU and instead of the standard T7500 harness or the T3500 harness the system came with I will be installing a Alienware Area-51 ALX harness that has the extra PCIe connectors but doesn't have the "CPU2" connector I don't need anyway. The 1100w power supply for the T7500 is the same one on the Alienware the only difference being the harness from what I can tell.

That way I can run two GTX Titans on the T3500 and crunch more effectively.

WA

1 Message

June 3rd, 2013 09:00

Hello, would a power supply from a T5500 (W299G, 875 watts) fit the modular plug in the T3500?  I am having a similar issue.  Is the modular plug in the wiring harness the same for T3500/T5500/T7500?

4 Posts

March 12th, 2016 20:00

Same question, anyone on dell can ans it pls

9 Legend

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47K Posts

March 19th, 2016 15:00

Crossfire works SLI Does NOT.

4 Posts

March 20th, 2016 04:00

my question is can i user psu T5500 for T3500

sr because did't write down clearly 

9 Legend

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47K Posts

March 22nd, 2016 08:00

The W299G 875w POWER supply works and fits but I do not know if the square wiring blocks are identical or not.

So if you get one I would make sure it comes with the wiring harness.

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