TheShadowlord

Did you get any joy from NVIDIA or Supermicro? TheShadowlord

I e-mailed Enermax on Thursday, but no answer so far. Could people let me know of any PSU they know works with the Supermicro X6DAE-G2 motherboard, please? TheShadowlord

I have just tried the above and the Enermax 660watt PSU connected to a normal ATX motherboard (I had to use the 24-pin to 20-pin converter included with the PSU) works fine (I can only test the 24-pin connection works since it is the only I can use with this ATX motherboard). Any other ideas, please? Answering lilkev715: I have not plugged any USB connectors, I have not reached that stage in the assembly yet. OK, on a more basic approach: Has anyone ever seen or have info on one of these Supermicro X6DA?-G2 motherboards working in anything but Supermicro PSUs? Except for accepting that both processors came broken out-of-the-box, the only other option I am still considering is kimbawannadie2's that these motherboards are just bloody picky about their PSUs regardless of standards. But before I go and buy a Supermicro case (the bast***s do not sell their PSUs alone), I would like to know for sure that is the reason. Thank you all for your help, TheShadowlord

Hi, I am back! I bought the equipment (only one graphics card since I cannot get the right SLI bridge; but forget about that, this is about the PSU) and started assembling it. I got the Enermax 660watt PSU, which has 24-, 8- and 6-pin 12V connectors. I used the 6-pin to 4-pin converter to get 24-, 8- and 4-pin connectors which are needed for the Supermicro X6DAE-G2 motherboard. I installed the processors, memory and graphics card, plugged it to the PSU and tried to boot, but after the fans started moving for 2-3 seconds they stopped and did not get anything on the monitor. I returned the motherboard to Supermicro but they sent it back with a NFF (No Faults Found) note. I have swapped the processors and also tried them one at a time; I have moved the memory to different banks and also run without memory (the motherboard should beep a warning about it, but it does not even get to that stage); I have tried with and without the graphics card; but whatever I do it does not boot more than 2-3 seconds. I also have to unplug the PSU from the wall socket to be able to try again. Unless both processors are broken at the same time (what are the chances of that happening with out-of-the-box processors!?), the only thing that could be wrong is the PSU or the way I have connected it. Does anyone have any ideas on what else I could try to determine what is wrong, please? Thank you for your help, TheShadowlord

I am not going to use the machine "purely for encoding", that is just the reason for the big processors. I am trying to get SLI to have *also* an excelent gaming platform (if one fast Pentium 4 can do games, a two fast Xeons should as well). Besides, as I said before, the SLI thing is cheap once you have paid for the motherboard (I did not choose the X6DAE-G2 for its PCI-E slots, but because it is a good dual Xeon MB). But all this is subject to getting a SLI Bridge, which is looking more difficult every day it passes. Bleeming NVIDIA seems to be very butt-tight about them unless you buy one of their motherboards (or motherboards with their chipsets). Come on, I am sure some obscure Chinese factory are churning them in their hundreds as we speak; I just need to find them out! I almost have all the components for the machine except for the graphics cards, and will have to decide on those soon depending on whether I find the bridge or not. I have also found out that the SLI Bridge that comes with the MSI Diamond MB is of the same width as the one I need, so if you have one of those and are not using the bridge, I will buy it from you. TheShadowlord

1. I am not getting the Xeons for gaming, but for the encoding, so the article is perfectly relevant for what I want. 2. I am not getting a SLI system with dual Xeons, but a dual-Xeon system that may have SLI (since the motherboard supports it, why not use it; it is cheap enough). 3. If you do not like Xeons, fine; I do and have already ordered them. If you have some idea on where I can find the SLI Bridge Connection, please let me know; if not, go away, this is not a Xeon-Opteron discussion! TheShadowlord

1. After having used a dual-processor for the last 6 years I have grown used to being able to keep working without any slowdown while the machine is busy encoding and other stuff; 2. I prefer to buy the best and make it last rather than buy the average and having to change it in three years' time; 3. I prefer Intel to AMD so, since you cannot dual-proc a Pentium 4, Xeons it is. 4. Why do you want to know? What does that got to do with my SLI Bridge Connector search? TheShadowlord

Woooha! I go to bed and all this happens! OK, the following is from my own research and the talk I had with one tech guy from a manufacturer known to me. As it is word of mouth I could have understood it wrong; you decide if you want to trust it or not: SLI allows you to have two graphics cards processing the same frame (or alternate frames) of an application identified by the nVIDIA drivers. If the application has not been identified by the drivers (that depends on whether nVIDIA have added a profile for that application to the drivers) then it will not benefit at all from SLI. If the application (games mainly so far) is SLI "compatible", then both cards work on it (in different ways depending on how the application works its graphics) and you get a performance improvement, the more the higher the definition. For SLI to physically work you need the following: 1. power to both cards; 2. high speed communication to the motherboard; and 3. high speed communication between the cards. You need two PCI Express slots for the graphics cards so that both get power from the motherboard (and from the PSU if you have one of the newest graphics cards that need a separate power plug), but in communicating to the motherboard you only need the equivalent of one PCI-E x16 connection in channel bandwidth (as far as I know there are no graphics cards in the market that can fully use the PCI-E x16 connection; this may change in the future, but so far they aren't fast enough to need the full bandwidth x16 offers). How you achieve the x16 communication between the graphics cards and the motherboard is up to you since by having the SLI Bridge connection between the cards, they do not need to talk to each other through the PCI-E bus; they can do it directly. nVIDIA chose to balance the communication between the cards and the motherboard so that both PCI-E slots run at x8, and their chips just arrange that for motherboards with a x16 and a x8 PCI-E slot. BUT, you do not need the balancing to run SLI, as long as one of the slots is x16 and the other is x4 or better (x4 or x8) you should be able to run SLI as long as you do not run out of bandwidth. Armari (http://www.armari.co.uk) used this to build themselves a SLI system based on the Supermicro X6DAE-G2 motherboard (see http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/66999/armar...etar-xisli.html), the one I am planning to use (it is true that now Armari have chosen to use the Supermicro X6DAT-G to build their latest SLI system, http://www.armari.co.uk/system.asp?SysID=26, but in their X6DAE-G2 system page it does specify the motherboard is capable of SLI, http://www.armari.co.uk/system.asp?SysID=226). As to why would I want to have SLI on a dual-Xeon system there are two reasons: 1. It is just going to cost me the price of one extra 6600GT graphics card, and those come cheap these days. Since the system is going to cost me quite some money (dual-Xeon, remember),

1. Being a Xeon board does not mean it cannot do SLI; the two have nothing to do with each other. 2. The Supermicro X6DAE-G2 has 2 PCI Express slots, one x16 and one x4 (see http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherb...25/X6DAE-G2.cfm). As long as you use a PCI Express graphics card that does not use all the channels in the x4 PCI Express slot and have a SLI Bridge to connect the two cards you can actually run SLI (see http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/66999/armar...etar-xisli.html; Armari have now moved to the X6DAT-G for their SLI system, but they did confirm to me that the X6DAE-G2 does support it). The problem remains that Armari can cannibalize SLI Bridges from one motherboard to another to get their systems done, but I am not going to buy a SLI-specific motherboard just for the bridge; and eBay is not being very helpful either. TheShadowlord

Hi, For the system I am building I need to get a SLI Bridge Connector. The motherboard I have chosen (Supermicro X6DAE-G2) does not come with one (though it should support SLI) and I am not having much luck in finding where to buy the connector that bridges the two graphics cards. Do you know of any supplier that does, please? Tom's Hardware talks about different SLI Bridges (see http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/2...ormance-03.html), but there does not seem to be a way to get any of them. Motherboards specificly designed to use SLI come with their own bridges, but I cannot find any of the generic ones they say nVIDIA provided (and nVIDIA's website do not list any). Any ideas? Thank you for your help, TheShadowlord

What is a "rail" is what I am asking? Until now the only rails I have heard of are the ones you put in some Supermicro tower cases to make them 4U rackmounts. They join 2 HDD connections to make one 6-pin +12V, don't they? TheShadowlord

I am prepared to pay up to

Hi all! I am building a new machine with dual Xeon (800FSB) processors and an nVIDIA SLI dual graphics card set up. I have settled on a Supermicro X6DAE-G2 motherboard but now I have to choose the power supply unit for this monster. From what the MB manual specifies you need a full ATX12V EPS12V PSU with 24-pin, 8-pin AND 4-pin 12V connectors (at least that is what I understood from the manual, which is not in the clearest English; if I am wrong please correct me!). To be able to run the two PCI-Express graphics cards I need a PSU with two 6-pin PCI-Express connectors. Also, as I have 4 hard drives, I would like to have plenty of spare wattage above the 450W that is suggested in the Supermicro website. I can find a PSU with the 2 PCI-Express connectors, 24- and 4-pin 12V connectors and spare watts, but no 8-pin 12V (see Thermaltake Silent PurePower 680W W0049 at http://www.thermaltake.com/purepower/w049a...w0049atx12v.htm). I can find a PSU with 24-, 8- and 4-pin 12V connectors, spare watts but only one PCI-Express connector (see Enermax EG851AX-VH(W)FM at http://www.enermax.com.tw/products_page.ph...&Gid=26&Gid2=35). I can even find a PSU that has been used for this same purpose (using a Supermicro X6DAE-G2 MB and dual PCI-Express graphics cards in the Scan 3SX Cobra), but a bit short on the wattage side (see Tagan TG480-U01). As you can see I have made my homework but I still cannot find what I am looking for, so, does anyone know of a PSU with the needed connectors and power? Thank you for your help. TheShadowlord