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Upgrading from 8800GTX advice

Bony Maloney

Bony Maloney

Bony Maloney

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
9,833
Location
Welsh Wales
What would be the best way to go? I have a Seasonic 600w psu and would prefer not to have to upgrade this too. I'm running a Q6600 @ 3.4Ghz, and I game @ 1900 x 1200 with AA and AF if possible. I would like to go with a 4870x2 but the psu may not hold up to it. So is a GTX280 the other option?
Thanks.
 
Dont go for Nvidia,for the performance of the 48** series,the nvidia prices are just stupid.4850 or 4870,wich ever you like best,if you can support CF,then go for 2 4850 and then maybe sell when the 4870x2 is released.
 
MiNxYyY said:
Dont go for Nvidia,for the performance of the 48** series,the nvidia prices are just stupid.4850 or 4870,wich ever you like best,if you can support CF,then go for 2 4850 and then maybe sell when the 4870x2 is released.
Click to expand...

I have the Abit IP35 Pro motherboard. I believe I loose some of the power of crossfire with this board due to 1 of the slots only running at pcie x 4 speed. I'm hoping that the 4870x2 will be ok with my psu, but until retail reviews are up I won't be sure.
 
Bony Maloney said:
I have the Abit IP35 Pro motherboard. I believe I loose some of the power of crossfire with this board due to 1 of the slots only running at pcie x 4 speed. I'm hoping that the 4870x2 will be ok with my psu, but until retail reviews are up I won't be sure.
Click to expand...

From Guru3d's preview....

Our test system contains a Core 2 Duo E8400 Processor @ 3.0 GHz (FSB 1333), the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe mainboard, stock cooling on the CPU, DVD-rom and a WD Raptor drive. The results:

Videocard
System Under FULL load

Radeon HD 4850 269 Watt
Radeon HD 4870 334 Watt
Radeon HD 4850 Crossfire (2) 421 Watt
Radeon HD 4870 X2 (R700) ** 448 Watt
Radeon HD 4870 Crossfire (2) 480 Watt

** this is an early beta engineering test-sample, the power saving features are disabled on these boards meaning that IDLE wattage and even peak wattage sill be off by a good number.

The monitoring device is reporting a maximum system wattage peak at 450 Watts with 2-way 4870 embedded on the X2. Our IDLE wattage was 260 Watt, way too high but again .. power saving features are disabled on these boards, so that will drop significantly on the final product.

Power supply wise I recommend at the very least, 750-800 Watts. You might not utilize all that power distribution, yet especially in this high-end game make sure you have some reserves folks. You do not want your PSU to run at it's maximum all of the time. See, it's not that your PC will consume that much power, it's just that you want to make sure your PSU can deal with the hefty load and will stay stable during you entire gaming experience.

Please make note of the fact that the card uses one 6-pin PCIe power connector and one 8-pin connector.
Click to expand...
 
Bony Maloney said:
What would be the best way to go? I have a Seasonic 600w psu and would prefer not to have to upgrade this too. I'm running a Q6600 @ 3.4Ghz, and I game @ 1900 x 1200 with AA and AF if possible. I would like to go with a 4870x2 but the psu may not hold up to it. So is a GTX280 the other option?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Get a GTX280, especially at 265quid, the PSU should be fine.
 
According to that Guru3d preview that Seasonic 600w PSU should be fine with a 4870X2, so id wait for that, shouldn't be long until it arrives now either.
 
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