jayssa2 Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Hello guys, I am thinking of ordering an Akitio thunder 2 to fit my AMD RADEON HD 7970 in to, to run with a corsair 500 watt power adapter. I will then run via thunderbolt in to my Mac. I wanted to ask, do I have to use a barrel plug, connected to the PSU, which I then plug in to the Akitio, to have the PSU powering the Akitio and GPU. Can I not just use the PSU for my graphics card, and use the given Akitio power adapter to power the Akitio thunder 2? Will it still work? I am running it off an external monitor. Thank you guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irons324 Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Hi mate, I can't see why that won't work, I think most eGPU setups choose to use the PSU with a modded barrel plug to use the same power supply to both the card and the thunder2. Best way to find out is try, if it doesn't work, mod the barrel plug and try again. From what I've read AMD cards are power hungry hence why most people go for nVIDIA cards. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti_padawan Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 (edited) First and foremost, a quote from Basic hardware guide: Quote It is important to keep in mind that you HAVE TO use only ONE PSU for the whole system. Please don’t mix two PSUs in this setup, because that can cause ground loops and damage hardware. I'm not completely sure that includes Akitio's shipped power supply as I have seen people try and succeed in using it while powering the GPU with a separate PSU. However, people on this forum would advice against that, labelling Akitio's shipped power supply as a temporary solution. Then, the issue is how much power your card needs (I don't know). There are 3 input types: - PCIe x16 slot - max. 75W - PCI 6-pin slot - max. 75W - PCI 8-pin slot - max. 150W If you use Akitio's shipped power supply, the PCIe x16 slot's input will be limited to max. 25W (in practice, it should be less - maybe 10 or 15). Nevertheless, don't be afraid of making your own barrel adapter. The important thing to remember is to make the adapter from a cable that came with the PSU (made by the vendor), and to make sure you convert the right end of the cable. Theoretically, you can also use other cables but then, you really need to know what you're doing. You see, vendors don't generally use standardized pinouts on their PSUs' connectors and this can be deadly. I almost fried my system after I made the adapter from a standardized cable that I bought online. Edited February 5, 2017 by ti_padawan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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