Amd 290x crossfire and corsair ax860

[delpy8]

Hi guys

With a power draw of 750 watts in crossfire will my psu handle this and the rest of the pc

 

[Make]

Yeah it will be just fine. The cards will never take that much; more like 300 max if even that per card.

If you do happen to have an AMD CPU clocked to 5GHZ you might struggle. Otherwise, no problems.

My 4670k at 1.295v 4.6ghz eats up just around 110W (Measured with a consumption meter).

 

[ubersonic]

As above, no problem, I am running three off a 750w PSU with room to spare.

 

[Confused Stu]

As above, no problem, I am running three off a 750w PSU with room to spare.

Wow! I run 2 x 290's (not the X) and a 2600k clocked to 4.6 at 1.3V and I'm pulling up to 750W from the wall. I realise this only equates to 650W-700W after efficiency, but this certainly doesn't leave enough room to run a third 290. If you don't mind me asking, what's the rest of your spec?

 

[LtMatt]

Wow! I run 2 x 290's (not the X) and a 2600k clocked to 4.6 at 1.3V and I'm pulling up to 750W from the wall. I realise this only equates to 650W-700W after efficiency, but this certainly doesn't leave enough room to run a third 290. If you don't mind me asking, what's the rest of your spec?

How are you finding the cards Stu?

 

[Puppetmaster]

When mining with 2 cards my system draws approx 700w from the wall. I will check later what its like running BF4 with crossfire.

 

[ubersonic]

Wow! I run 2 x 290's (not the X) and a 2600k clocked to 4.6 at 1.3V and I'm pulling up to 750W from the wall. I realise this only equates to 650W-700W after efficiency, but this certainly doesn't leave enough room to run a third 290. If you don't mind me asking, what's the rest of your spec?

Sorry I came into this thread with my mining cap on /facepalm.

For ref the system is:
3x R9 290X (undervolted)
AMD Sempron 145 with stock cooler
Single 4GB DDR3 stick
Laptop SATA HDD
ASRock 970 Extreme4
XFX xxx 750w Silver
2x OcUK golf ball fans

So while great for mining not much use for gaming lol.

 

[Confused Stu]

How are you finding the cards Stu?

Loving them mate. Just to refresh your memory, I've previously run a single stock 7970, single 7970 with Accelero, Crossfired Accelero & Windforce and Crossfired Accelero & Twin Frozr.

Only the 7970 with Accelero was quiter at idle than the 290's. Both the Twin Frozr and Windforce made more noise at idle, not much but enough that I found it annoying when surfing late at night with consequently almost no background noise (pretty much the only time the kids aren't on my PC and I get to use it). The 290's are literally whisper quiet when not gaming.

Under proper load, the cards do get noisy but not to the point I notice it when I'm in game. It's a bit like a well soundproofed car on the motorway, wind noise is there if you listen for it, but easy to tune out when focussed on driving. I've used CCC to allow my fans to hit 100% if they need to, and the graphs on my monitoring screen never seem to go much about half way (really should find a widget that gives percentages rather than a bar). Everyone's noise tolerance level is different, but for me, it's silent enough at idle and quiet enough under load that I never notice either.

Temperature wise, they're obviously much hotter than my 7970's were - mid 60's to 70's when idle/surfing, and 90-94C when gaming. Remember I'm running multiple screens so they don't clock down as much as people running 1 screen. However, with the stock cooler routing all the hot air out of the case, my CPU and HDD temperatures have actually dropped noticeably compared to my 7970's. Once I decided AMD must know what they're talking about when they say the card's are designed to run at 90-95C for their whole lives, I just stopped worrying about the temperature of the cards and just leave them to it. Still monitor it, just don't worry about it.

Performance wise, it's night and day compared to my 7970's. Frame rate is slightly up, but not by a huge amount, but I now have smoothness on Crossfire+Eyefinity that I never saw with before - whether it be 4870s, 5870s, or 7970s. Games are just so silky smooth compared to before, I now genuinely can't understand why I never noticed the slight stuttering before, and how on earth I put up with it. For me, this has been the thing that's made the change over worthwhile.

Power consumption is a little higher on the 290's than it was on the 7970's, but then I never could overvolt the 7970's without my 750W running out of juice and shutting down. Thanks to the stock check OcUK did a couple of weeks ago, I now have a lovely Silverstone 1200W PSU (only cost me £120) so can now overclock my cards when I have time/need, and the PSU isn't pumping out very warm air any more. Currently though, stock clocks are providing the right balance between performance and noise, so I haven't bothered and been playing games rather than benching.

I was very happy with my 7970's until the day they died, but refunds/replacement for both meant moving from 2 x 7970's to 2 x 290's was a no-cost upgrade for me. I'm very, very happy with the results and would suggest it to any crossfire+eyefinity user (not sure for single screeners it would be worth it as you guys already have frame pacing).