There's a world of difference between cooling 2 or 3 GPUs and cooling 6.
What the hell do you not understand about this?
My comment about your work was obviously sarcasm, you don't seem to grasp that your little scrap bin anecdote was entirely pointless.
'480W won't run a system and two cards, and that was the question asked. 480W is overkill for a third card in parallel, a cheaper supply could be had for less.'
I never claimed it would, having trouble with
reading comprehension eyesight perhaps? Maybe you are suggesting that the cost of a 1200 or 750 watt PSU is comparable to the cost of an additional ~ 400 watt PSU, a combination that could run 3 decent GPUs fairly easily. Is that indeed what you are suggesting?
Did he ever say re-purpose exclusively for mining or indicate that he only intends to mine on the machine? NO.
'I would buy a name brand 80 gold 750W supply instead though, and parallel another 650W supply for two more cards when you get them.'
Yeah, that's not a terrible idea but I would be interested in knowing how you reached the conclusion that the relative additional cost of a gold efficiency PSU is offset in by power savings, especially when the difference between silver (or even bronze!) can be minimal at best, depending on the relative efficiency ratings and operating conditions. Of course, there may be situations where there is no additional cost for a gold efficiency PSU. However, such situations are not a constant, nor would they even be a norm.
You seem to like drawing interesting conclusions supported mostly by opinion and you're unwilling to acknowledge your tendency, otherwise you would have engaged in this conversation like something other than a little immature kid.
*** oops, just notice key00 is the OP, my mistake key00
If you have no restrictions on acoustics, only really want to mine on this machine ( in other words, you have no use for additional CPU compute) and can see the possibility of running more than 3 or 4 GPUs, then new is a better plan indeed. Also, buying a quality rebranded PSU is almost always the wisest plan (unless you like paying extra for brand names and stickers) , check out johnnyguru for detailed PSU information and reviews.