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Power Supply Best way to power an R9 Nano with an external source

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
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and a 12v to 5v 15A Converter (75W, should be fine for the PCIe slot power

The 3.3V (or 5V in your case before it's converted) power draw for the PCIe slot for video cards is really low. For the Nano it's 1-2W and the GTX 1060 doesn't use the 3.3V rail at all. The rest of the PCIe slot power draw is 12V.
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
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Out of curiousity does anyone here know the amount of power available via the bPlus adapter to the card? Would be curious to know.
 

Therandomness

Cable-Tie Ninja
Original poster
Nov 9, 2016
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General rule of thumb from what I've read (not that I am a super experienced water cooler) is one 120mm rad per component. A 140mm single has about 70% of the surface area of a 240mm rad while a 180 single has about 113% of the surface area. I'm sure having a thicker rad, better fans, etc. can mitigate things to a point and perhaps this would be adequate for your setup. I think if you were to use something like an EK thermosphere on the 1060 which needs relatively little dissipation when compared with the Nano would probably work. Furthermore with a bit of tweaking you could probably underfoot your 6600K without compromising performance depending on your application.

Also with respect to your power supply choice, it actually appears to be larger than a standard SFX power supply by about 50% (215 x 113 x 49 mm) vs (125 x 100 x 63.5), have you considered just using an external SFX like MarcParis did in his S4 Mini Build?
I have considered it but then I realised I really only need one cable from it (6+2 or 8 pin) and it'd cost at least 4 times more... Cost is something I'd love to keep to a minimum.
I'd love to see some pictures!
All I have atm are some cardboard boxes in the general shape of the case, I'm currently just fiddling with the dimensions to see what's give me enough space whilst keeping it as small as possible.
The 3.3V (or 5V in your case before it's converted) power draw for the PCIe slot for video cards is really low. For the Nano it's 1-2W and the GTX 1060 doesn't use the 3.3V rail at all. The rest of the PCIe slot power draw is 12V.
Hmmm.. then why does the M.2 to PCIe x4 thing have a floppy header which uses a molex adapter to give it power (using all the wires too (so 12v and 5v))?
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,784
Out of curiousity does anyone here know the amount of power available via the bPlus adapter to the card? Would be curious to know.

I have no problem running a GTX 1060 or GTX 980 off mine and I've seen threads elsewhere of people using it for eGPU NUC builds so it seems to have no problem supplying the full 75 W (3.3V × 3A + 12V × 5.5A) of power even though it's only x4.

Hmmm.. then why does the M.2 to PCIe x4 thing have a floppy header which uses a molex adapter to give it power (using all the wires too (so 12v and 5v))?

To be clear, the PCIe slot uses 12V and 3.3V.

The 3.3V is mostly used by video cards for standby power though so it doesn't see much amperage and some newer cards don't use the 3.3V rail at all. So the vast majority of the power draw running through the slot will be 12V (up to a max of 5.5A according to the PCIe spec).

M.2 to PCIe slot adapters like the BPlus P4SM2 take 12V and 5V in via a floppy to Molex adapter, but then it converts the 5V to 3.3V for the slot.
 

Therandomness

Cable-Tie Ninja
Original poster
Nov 9, 2016
229
270
I have no problem running a GTX 1060 or GTX 980 off mine and I've seen threads elsewhere of people using it for eGPU NUC builds so it seems to have no problem supplying the full 75 W (3.3V × 3A + 12V × 5.5A) of power even though it's only x4.

To be clear, the PCIe slot uses 12V and 3.3V.

The 3.3V is mostly used by video cards for standby power though so it doesn't see much amperage and some newer cards don't use the 3.3V rail at all. So the vast majority of the power draw running through the slot will be 12V (up to a max of 5.5A according to the PCIe spec).

M.2 to PCIe slot adapters like the BPlus P4SM2 take 12V and 5V in via a floppy to Molex adapter, but then it converts the 5V to 3.3V for the slot.
Oh ok.. That does clear quite a lot up c: Now I just have to find a way to cram everything into the case. This will be fun.
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
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Have you seen anyone using a slot only card like the 1050 or 460 on it?
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
3,382
5,936
Awesome thanks. I'm playing with the idea of a NuC + single slot 460.