First Choice Video Card

[crollison]

Anybody know what type and where to purchase the power cords needed for the Video Cards that came out in First Choice? Doing a little reading says it needs power to two places. Thanks.

[ehochstein]

We built a computer and hooked it up yesterday with the new card. Besides putting it into the correct slot, we didn't add any power cables and it seems to be working just fine!

Just make sure you have the correct driver installed for it.

[Chris_Ely]

You need one standard 6 pin PCIe power cable. Most modern computer power supplies should have at least one.

Originally Posted by Wiifi

We built a computer and hooked it up yesterday with the new card. Besides putting it into the correct slot, we didn't add any power cables and it seems to be working just fine!

This could burn out you motherboard under heavy load. The 6 pin PCIe power plug is on the back of the card.

See this product page for specs, and this PDF for the power guidlines.

[pribusin]

It may work under light computational loads and seem fine during idle but once you start using graphics intensive programs or do a quad monitor setup, your system may crash and/or suffer electrical damage. We had that happen to one of our quad-monitor systems with dual graphics cards once. It worked fine initially when we tested it but even using labview over quad screens would make it crash after a short time.

[cbale2000]

I'm not sure what kind of packaging that card came with, but virtually every graphics card I've ever bought that has an additional power connector on it has come with a big sticker on it saying something to the effect of "Do not under any circumstances use this card without the additional power connector attached and powered by an adequately rated power supply".

Those connections are NOT meant to be optional.

Plus the adapters to connect them are super cheap if one wasn't included. Wouldn't you rather spend $5, instead of $500 replacing a graphics card?

[bduddy]

Any modern power supply should include the necessary cables. Trying to find and buy them yourselves is probably a bad idea. If your power supply doesn't already have what you need, you probably need a new power supply.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by bduddy

Any modern power supply should include the necessary cables. Trying to find and buy them yourselves is probably a bad idea. If your power supply doesn't already have what you need, you probably need a new power supply.

Yup. Unless you have a modular power supply, getting a cable off the internet and hacking it on is going to void your PSU warranty and probably cause you problems.

Side thing: A lot of people skimp on the PSU when building a PC but that's a really terrible idea-- a bad PSU will cause you nothing but issues down the road-- and possibly the rest of the components in your build. Get a nice, quality PSU and you'll never have to worry about it.

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by luckof13

You need one standard 6 pin PCIe power cable. Most modern computer power supplies should have at least one.



This could burn out you motherboard under heavy load. The 6 pin PCIe power plug is on the back of the card.

See this product page for specs, and this PDF for the power guidlines.

The card we received has no auxiliary power input, the only additional connector is the SLI bridge. You've also linked the wrong card. The K model is a newer generation than the one on FIRST choice.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by mman1506

The card we received has no auxiliary power input, the only additional connector is the SLI bridge. You've also linked the wrong card. The K model is a newer generation than the one on FIRST choice.

Are you sure? It's listed as the K4000 on the FIRST Choice website and both have identical specs. They both list the power draw as 80W.

Edit: Also, on the product page for the card linked by cadandcookies above, it says that the package contents include an auxiliary power cord and I don't see any reason why AndyMark/FIRST would remove it from the package and ship only the card itself. If that actually is the case, you should probably buy the cord by itself.

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

Are you sure? It's listed as the K4000 on the FIRST Choice website and both have identical specs. They both list the power draw as 80W.

Sorry my mistake it is a K series. Still the card we received appears to be a different variant of K4000 card (maybe a OEM version) than even the one of FIRST choice and does not have an auxiliary hook up.

[Chris_Ely]

Originally Posted by mman1506

Sorry my mistake it is a K series. Still the card we received appears to be a different variant of K4000 card (maybe a OEM version) than even the one of FIRST choice and does not have an auxiliary hook up.

As far as I know, all K4000s have a 6 pin power plug on the back. See the attached picture.

[z_beeblebrox]

Originally Posted by luckof13

As far as I know, all K4000s have a 6 pin power plug on the back. See the attached picture.

This is a different model than the FIRST Choice one. In that one, only part of the circuit board is covered by the black box.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by luckof13

As far as I know, all K4000s have a 6 pin power plug on the back. See the attached picture.

That's not what came in FIRST Choice.

These are what came;
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-Quadr...em35e1f6 8dd7
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-Quadr...em2c9323 7098
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-Quadr...em27f3ab 6b7e

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by luckof13

As far as I know, all K4000s have a 6 pin power plug on the back. See the attached picture.

Well the one we were given does not. Can anyone else confirm with their FIRST choice cards?

[Chris_Ely]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

That's not what came in FIRST Choice.

These are what came;
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-Quadr...em35e1f6 8dd7
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-Quadr...em2c9323 7098
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-Quadr...em27f3ab 6b7e

Sorry, I did not realize that there was this model. Every image that I have found was of the variant that I linked to, including FIRST Choice and nVidia's product page.