Ok, here's the setup,
See, I just started a new job today which in itself was stressful since I always come down with a case of the fraud disease i.e. I'm not good enough for this job, blah, blah, blah...
This time wasn't so bad because I spent the week before giving myself an attitude adjustment.
I mean isn't it remotely possible that my new employer may be a better judge of my competency than I am.after 2 phone interviews, 2 long in-person panel interviews and glowing references to support their decision?
Bah!, enough of that, It has nothing to do with gaming! Ah, but it does...
No I wasn't interviewing to administer EA's corporate network although that might be fun...for about 5 minutes.
But on with it.
The week before I was having fairly good fortune in tidying up loose ends which would get waylaid once work commenced in force. That was until Saturday night when everything slid down the slippery slope of madness and despair for want of a $5 power adapter...
I had this big plan. I was going to swap out my two GTX 285's in my gaming rig with a shiny new AMD Radeon 6970. I was going to get a bit more performance while simultaneously relieving myself and my friend of 10 degrees F of room temperature and 200 watts of power draw from his house where my gaming rig lives.
It was all so simple and wouldn't my friend be surprised. The perfect crown to my newly found employment. Oh the party just wasn't going to stop...
After pulling both 285's a rather annoying discovery revealed itself to my sweat soaked brow. I had forgotten that in their infinite wisdom PC Power and Cooling's (OCZ)1KWSR power supply had no provision for an 8 pin PCI-E connector. The online manual said they should reality said it didn't. That wasn't a problem with the 2 285's that used up 4 6-pin PCI-E connections.
The 6970 uses an 8 and a 6 pin. Now this shouldn't be that big of a deal except that my 6970's maker, XFX, didn't include such an adapter and quite arrogantly states in more than one forum that you shouldn't need one with a suitable power supply.
Suitable? I have a power supply that can supply a stable 72 Amps on the primary rail, delvers a consistent 1000 watts of power and with certification receipt in hand has actually been able to peak at 1100 Watts at 80 Amps.
So my $300 (on sale) SLI certifed (8800GTX) power supply is somehow less capable than a $25 Frys Electronics no-name (no warranty) special because of two 5 cent pins on a PCI-E power connector. One more thing, those extra pins? Yeah, they're grounds! no power, no juice, just grounds!
Well Reliving this story is giving me a headache so I'll get to the point. I ended up having to put one of the 285's back in and waste about 1.5 hours of my precious Saturday night when all was said and done because of the lack of an 8 pin power connection that SOMEBODY should have provided!
My victory celebration cut down in its prime. The gaming wasn't the same either. Almost every game we played defeated us. My game controller hit the soft carpet numerous times that night as I stormed down the stairs in animated frustration. Mad obscenities trailing after my dejected spirit.
The next day after bringing my game rig back home I swapped out the power supply for one that did have the proper connections. (Also a PC Power and Cooling) The final indignity...I ordered a set of PCI-E adapter cables from PC Power and cooling that were meant to address just such a problem.
XFX, you have great products, great warranties (lifetime) BUT YOU ARE CHEAP! You won't put a $5 adapter cable in with your cards when almost all your competitors do without reservation.
Oh yeah and PC Power and Cooling (OCZ), How can you have a $425 list power supply that had no provision for 8 pin PCI-E when you produced other contemporary but less capable (output wise) power supplies that did have the proper connections!
I don't buy cheap, so how come the more money I spend on parts the more trouble I seem to have with them!
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