[rescue] U20 motherboard upgrade ?

[nate at portents.com]

> Sandwich Maker wrote:
>> " If anything, the single greatest determinant in desktop applications
>> " for what capacity and capability power supply you should have in a
>> " desktop/workstation configuration is the video card, which can draw
>> " upwards of 300W per card and can easily dissipate the most heat in any
>> " system.
>>
>> i was boggled a couple of years ago to read that the gpu is now the
>> biggest chip in high end systems, with up to 1G transistors whereas
>> cpus have 'only' 1/2G transistors...
>
> Actually, my gaming boxes that have multi-core CPU's and SLI video cards
> don't actually pull that much power according to Kill-o-Watt.  It's only
> the machines I have that have large numbers of hard disks that are
> really piling on the wattage.

That's not really saying much unless you explain what cards you have in
SLI.  If you have a couple of GeForce 9600 GT cards, those only draw 95W
each, at most.  If you have a couple of GeForce GTX 295 cards, those would
draw 289W each, and I can assure you that your Kill-o-Watt would reflect
that under load, or else it's defective.

- Nate