8 pin pci-e power question

[uneedav8]

Just picked up an 3870x2 and like many of the newer video cards, it has the 8 and 6 pin PCI-E power connectors. My PC Power & Cooling PSU only has 2 6 pin power connectors........what do I need to do to get it to work? Buy a new PSU?? Thanks for any input.

[Guest Lavell]

The only time you will need the 8-pin connectors is if you plan to use ATI Overdrive to overclock the video card. Other than that, you can use the 6-pin connectors as normal and the video card will work.

[uneedav8]

Thanks for the reply

[Praz]

6-Pin PCI Express to 8-Pin PCI Express 2 Adapter Cable. They can be fond at a lot of places.

[Guest Mad Cow]

6-Pin PCI Express to 8-Pin PCI Express 2 Adapter Cable. They can be fond at a lot of places.

 

 

What an absolutely useless cable. It doesn't even have any extra connections, just 2 extra pins connected to nothing.

[radodrill]

What an absolutely useless cable. It doesn't even have any extra connections, just 2 extra pins connected to nothing.

 

Not quite true; it's not clearly shown in the pic, but the extra pair of pins is spliced into one of the existing pairs on the 6-pin PCI-e harness. In essence it's supplying the additional 2 pins with power as well, but the total power draw is still limited to what the 6-pin PCI-e power leads can supply.

[wevsspot]

What an absolutely useless cable. It doesn't even have any extra connections, just 2 extra pins connected to nothing.

 

What in the heck are you talking about? What do you mean by useless?

 

Have you actually purchased this particular adapter and split the sleeving on it to make a statement like you did?

 

First and foremost, you - like everyone else here at DIY-Street is entitled to your opinion, but to question the validity of a solution provided by one of our most knowledgeable mod's with a blanket dumb reply is just asinine.

 

Any more of those and you'll get a short vacation from here.

[Praz]

Those two extra pins that connect to nothing as you so wrongly describe it actually connect to ground. You know, Google could really become a good friend of yours. You have proved this a couple of times now. Maybe in your case pictures would be a better option.

 

 

[Guest MadDias]

8pin pcie connectors are useless...

the only thing it does, is give ur card a better ground connection

i even had to remove the two extra pins of my 8pin connector (the 8pin pcie connector of my psu is designed that way so u can use it either as 8 or 6pin) to get my cards to work with the high mem overclock with the newer cat drivers. cause when overdrive was enabled 3d apps would crash with a funny coloured screen.

 

do urself a favor and don´t buy any useless adapters. 8pin doesn´t give u more power.

[Guest Mad Cow]

Well looking at the picture it looks like they're not connected to anything. Plus 2 extra grounds isn't going to do anything anyway, I just don't see the point of the whole 8 pin standard.

 

And maybe I should stop posting here, every time I make a stupid mistake and end up looking like an butthole. I guess I'm just unlucky here or something, I don't know.

[wevsspot]

From the diagram provided by Praz it clearly shows that the two extra ground pins are required to unlock the ATi CCC overdrive feature. Now all I can do is trust Praz in his knowledge of the subject matter because I haven't owned an ATi card since I sold my beloved X1900XT.

 

With that being said MC, don't be so hard on yourself. You don't look like an A-hole and no one is attempting to make you look like an A-hole. Just be cognizant of the fact that our mods and admins here (well everyone except me) is extremely competent technically and are generally right on the money about 99% of the time. And I can promise you, that if we don't know the definitive answer, we won't post until we can find the answer. Our reputations and livelyhood of DIY-Street depends on it.

 

Keep on posting, but most importantly keep on reading and researching. Knowledge is power. And trust me, I've made some boneheaded posts during my residency here too

[Guest Mad Cow]

From the diagram provided by Praz it clearly shows that the two extra ground pins are required to unlock the ATi CCC overdrive feature. Now all I can do is trust Praz in his knowledge of the subject matter because I haven't owned an ATi card since I sold my beloved X1900XT.

 

With that being said MC, don't be so hard on yourself. You don't look like an A-hole and no one is attempting to make you look like an A-hole. Just be cognizant of the fact that our mods and admins here (well everyone except me) is extremely competent technically and are generally right on the money about 99% of the time. And I can promise you, that if we don't know the definitive answer, we won't post until we can find the answer. Our reputations and livelyhood of DIY-Street depends on it.

 

Keep on posting, but most importantly keep on reading and researching. Knowledge is power. And trust me, I've made some boneheaded posts during my residency here too

 

Thanks, if I were you I'd probably insult somebody who posted like that, I didn't realize how the tone of my post was different from what I was trying to say. I guess I'm just not used to the fact that people here are more technologically competent than all the other computer forums I've been to.

 

Those 2 grounds do unlock CCC overdrive, but that's all they do. People can still OC 2900s to the moon with just 6 pins.