Another crossfire noob thread !

[shinyazz52]

Hey guys
iam thinking of trying crossfire , i have xfx 6850 black edition , phenom 955 , asus m4a88td-v evo , coolermaster 700 silent pro psu. Would i need a 2nd black edition gpu and does it have to be made by xfx if not ? also is my psu enough to handle the extra card ? Thanks

 

[panyan]

i *think* that another 6850 at the same clocks will be fine, no it doesnt have to be XFX, and the 600W might be a tad low

 

[Surveyor]

You can Crossfire with any other HD 6850 regardless of clock speeds or manufacturer.

However, the motherboard you have is not the best for Crossfire as the second x16 PCI-E slot only operates at x4 speed which can cause a bottleneck.

See here.

Frame rates can be reduced by up to 26% Running at 16/x4 compared to x8/x8.

You can Crossfire, but you may not see the full benefit.

 

[shinyazz52]

That s the thing i was worrying about as being a black edition card it has 820 MHz clock but standard are 775MHz and im struggling to find a identical card in stock . Also i have a 700 watt psu is it enough ?

 

[Surveyor]

That s the thing i was worrying about as being a black edition card it has 820 MHz clock but standard are 775MHz and im struggling to find a identical card in stock . Also i have a 700 watt psu is it enough ?

You're worrying about the wrong thing.

You can run the cards at different speeds or you can try and overclock the slower card to match the faster card.

700W is plenty as long as it's a half decent PSU with two 6 pin PCI-E power connectors.

What should worry you the most is running the cards at x16/x4.

Look at the link I posted above. In some games performance takes quite a hit running at x16/x4.

 

[shinyazz52]

maybe best to sell it and get a stronger card then me thinks , thanks for the advice