Ok so I have 1 amd rx 470 using around 120-130 watts and one gtx 1070 using about 120 watts. I have an 8-pin splitter (1 8-pin to 2 8-pins) can I power both the cards without pcie power? or do I need pcie power to safely run it. Thank you!
Splitters are never recommended. Server power supplies/breakout boards and cables aren’t that much more than a few splitters. 250w though a cheap splitter will melt in not too long.
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Fully agree with keaton
Both of them have literally melt even with draining 110W (75W should have come from x16 slot)
One board was frried, beacuse of short circuit on 12v rail
Moreover such cable are often AWG20
100W per PCIE connetor is a long term and reliable threshold to target
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The splitters I currently have claim to be awg16 I should have really looked for a server psu when I was building my rig. so, for now I guess I will just use 2 splitters (dont have normal ones just splitters) so they will be only getting about 140 watts through each. Is that too much? it will only be temporary hopefully
( i guess before i get another card i will get a server psu first)
Also would it be safe to get a server psu from ebay?
Doesn’t matter where you buy from as long as it’s a genuine name brand. Most breakout boards are for the hp 750/1200w psus, which are hard to beat.
140w should be okay, but it’s adding an extra point of failure, and lots of cheap splitters are advertised as thicker wires than they actually have etc.
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Yeah, I would guess the splitters are more awg18 or awg20 rather than 16 which would be pretty thick.
the only thing I’m concerned about as far as server psus is noise. Are they very loud? like 50 dB is ok just
preferably nothing above that
How should I power my risers? would a splitter work well for that because it could power a weaker card as well as a riser.
Loudness depends on temp/load, if you run them around 1/2 capacity they’re not any louder than a gpu is. A name brand platinum rated 1200w atx psu will cost 3-10x of a hp server 1200w + break out board depending on what kind of deals you can find.
And best practice to run individual pcie cables for each riser/gpu with no splitters. You can whatever you want as long as you decide the calculated risk is worth it. I won’t recommend anyone to use splitters though.
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Thank you! I think I’m going to go with a 750 watt gold server psu because I’m just going to be making a 5-card rig and then I’m going to have an electrician change some wiring as the wiring in the house I’m in is really old (don’t feel safe running more than 1kw if I don’t have to) are the voltage meters on the breakout boards accurate? that would be nice for calculating electricity costs
The cheap boards only have the voltage, more expensive ones have amperage but not the most accurate. I would get a wall meter or amp clamp and measure at the wall as that’s what really matters.
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As keaton said HP DPS 1200-FB is a perfect choice for a 5 GPU rig
You will not ear it for 600W drain.
Also they are designed to work 24/7, much more reliable than any ATX PSU
PD19 series of 1200-FB are equivalent to platinum ATX PSU
750W will not be enough
5x what card ?
PSU should be used at 50% to 70% load, else you’l frie it quickly
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So, I’m not on a very big budget so I was thinking cards that are usually like 120-160 watt like 1070’s maybe some newer ones like 2060’s probably just low power cards since I’m going to have to do some electrical stuff anyway before I can get above 1kw. and this is my first rig so I’m just going in kind of slow.
(Right now, I’m trying to make a rvn rig)
Invest in good motherboard and power first. GPUs are where you grow incrementally over time and they are dropping in price day by day.
Not to mention, we can only guess where any single alt coin is going over the next 30 days. You will want a variety of efficient GPUs to be flexible.
Thats very true. I should have done some more research when I built this rig and got a server psu, but I didn’t. I guess that’s what first time rigs are for.
We all have them 
FWIW: They do make great test benches for troubleshooting GPUs, flaky riser testing, etc. All is not lost!
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