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Houmie75

85 Posts

45034

November 6th, 2007 07:00

XPS 720 Power supply - 1000Watt or 750Watt?

Hello everyone,

Right now the XPS 720 is only sold in two different ways without much room to customization. I miss those times where you could customize so much more.

XPS 720 with a single Geforce 8800 and 2.4ghz Quadcore
or a DUAL SLI Geforce 8800 and 3.0Ghz Quadcore which is just way too expensive.

I wished I could choose a DUAL SLI Geforce 8800 with a 2.4Ghz Quadcore. But I can't right now. (Note I live in UK and talking about www.dell.co.uk)

The question is now, if I would be going with the single Geforce and 2.4 Quadcore, would I be able to buy a second Geforce at a later time to have SLI?

In other words is the power supply in XPS 720 750watt or 1000 watt?

Many Thanks
Houman

MoneyGuyBK

2.3K Posts

November 6th, 2007 18:00

Houman;
 
XPS720 Aircooled Black, comes with 750W PSU
XPS720 Aircooled Red,   comes with 1KW   PSU
XPS720H2C,                    comes with 1KW  PSU
 
you can run SLi with all.
If you have the 750 PSU, you must purchase splitters for the Power Connector.
 
Peace
 
 

Houmie75

85 Posts

November 6th, 2007 18:00

Thanks for quick answer.

I am a bit confused. Then why is Alienware insisting to sell 1000Watt Power supply for a SLI option? I thought you would need more power for SLI configuration. So why is 750 Watt enough?

Besides what are these Aircooled Black and Red types you were talking about? Can you guys in USA choose between them? I think in UK we cannot choose between any color scheme.

Many Thanks,
Houman

Houmie75

85 Posts

November 6th, 2007 20:00

An electrical crackle sound? ...fantastic. Why is that? Maybe because of our Victorian houses? ;-)

I would have two harddisks in Raid 0 and a DVD drive. Nothing more.
So maybe the 750 woul dbe enugh for future SLI...if ever....I think I pass on SLI for now then.

It is a pity that there is no other CPU type between 2.4 Ghz and 3.48 Ghz in Quad Core. The price difference is horrific. Why is there no 2.66 Mhz in between I wonder...Is this because of Dell, or because such a thing doesn't exist?

Cheers
HOuman

XPS710

4 Posts

November 6th, 2007 20:00

Houmie, can't answer your question for sure, but I'd guess that you *may* run out of juice on the 750w if you have SLI plus 3 extra hard drives, extra CD drive etc.

You should also note that the 1k and the 750 have an electrical crackle sound to them in the UK, and that it's supposed to be much worse on the 1k.

Garred

418 Posts

November 7th, 2007 01:00


 So why is 750 Watt enough?
You can see my system stats in the sig.  At this moment in time,  I am only using 354 Watts.

Houmie75

85 Posts

November 7th, 2007 07:00

Garred,

How have you overclocked your memory? I thought XPS 720 is locked and doesn't allow you any kind of overclocking?

Message Edited by Houmie75 on 11-07-2007 03:28 AM

TangoWRX

68 Posts

November 7th, 2007 08:00

Hi Houmie75,
 
I am also a UK resident, and I also own a 720H2C.    I can first confirm that the PSU does humm a bit on the 1000w, but never heard of the 750W doing it. Mine is under a desk and I wear headphones so it is not a problem to me.  I read on here someone was testing a modified PSU and it was looking good.
 
The reason I think Alienware insist on a 1000w PSU is to play it safe.  They don't know what you are going to do with your PC so it may look bad on them if a lot of people turn round and start moaning when it is not enough for thier 4 hdd's and dvd/bluray/burner.
 
The American's also get an option that we don't with the red/black 750w/1000w psu option on the non-h2c.
 
As for overclocking you can do some basic bits in the BIOS.  You can overclock the memory from 800 to 1066 using SLI/EPP.   I can also overclock my CPU, but only on one thing (mine is a 2.9ghz chip but runs at 3.73ghz perfectly). 
However I have heard you can only overclock the extreme editions..  or it might be the quadcores.  This is done by intel and not dell. 
 
If you install nTune you can do a lot more OC'ing with voltages etc..  but I don't like to play with that as I not clued up on it.

TangoWRX

68 Posts

November 7th, 2007 09:00

The manual isn't so hot on that,  it basicly says plug in the power etc.  I had a discussion on here with someone else about the power cords for the H2C GFX as it could indicate that you needed to make sure the cables with plugged in a set way as some had a lower amp rating..   but anyway.
 
The H2C is not cheap..  but I think it was well worth the money.  Mine is very fast and I got a bench mark in 3dmark06 of almost 18000  and thats with Vista Ultimate (which we all know is currently slower than XP)  All the games I have played so far fly..  the latest being The Witcher which is smooth on max settings.
 
Don't worry about coupons..  haggle with the Salesman (and be tough!).  I got £300 plus delivery knocked off as I was just not prepared to pay what they offered.  So in the end I only paid around £2200 (no monitor).
 
I have the QX6800  - Quadcore extreme.  It think I got luck with my chip and the liquid cooling also helps a lot...   I even ran it at 4ghz and it was OK..  but I didn't want to leave it there.
 
As for the faster memory speed making the cpu more OC'able..  I can't say.  I think you are getting at the faster FSB having an effect..  but I didn't think you could OC the processor that way in the 720..  but I am really not sure.

Houmie75

85 Posts

November 7th, 2007 09:00

TangoWRX,


Thank you for your detailed information. I think the 750W is good enough for me since all I am planning to put inside are two harddisks and one DVD drive. With a splitter power cord I could feed both SLI cards easily then. I wonder if I have to feed both of the cards eventually...hopefully the manual in clear on that.

The 3.46 Mhz Quadcore CPU is too expensive for me. £700 for an update from 2.4 Ghz to 3.48? Thats a lot of money. I suppose you have the Duo-Core 2.9 Ghz which you have overclocked so high. Thats fantastic. Do you think I would be able to overclock the 2.4Ghz Quad-Core to something higher if i bought 1066Mhz memories straight away from Crucial? Would the 720 Bios allow that? (I wont be able to afford a H2C edition and besides waiting time is 5 weeks) So hopefully the air cooling and Bios options are enough to bring it close to 3 Ghz. but then you mentioned the nTune software. Which seems like an alternative. :)

I better wait until 15th Nov to see if the real Xmas deals come through. By the way is there any chance for us in UK to get a coupon promotion code like the guys in US?

Cheers
Houman

mp_108

175 Posts

August 2nd, 2016 09:00

I realise this is an old thread but did you ever fit two graphics cards to the 720 with 750 W supply?

I ask as I am planning to do the same; fit two GTX 560 cards

I have two HDs and a soundcard, the 12 V supplies to the graphics card are rated at 18.0 A so should be enough.

mp_108

175 Posts

August 3rd, 2016 12:00

An update.

I connected two GTX  560s using home made power splitters and nothing has gone bang - yet!!

Only difference I've noticed is that when running some graphics tests, the fan (cpu or psu?) made more noise as it sped up -  presumably as things were getting hotter.

According to the tesst resutls, the grahics performance is up by between 40%-80% (I didn't expect double but am happy withy that).

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