Doubts..

Soldato
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Now then I am planning on upgrading to a 5850 , after speaking to a mate who is a computer techy he says my CPU will be bottleknecking me , correct or not?
 
The 245 will slow you down quite a bit, but your results will still be pretty good compared to a 250. If you can overclock it (unless you already have) then that will get you a few more fps.

What motherboard do you have, that way we can see what is the max cpu you can have
 
The 245 will slow you down quite a bit, but your results will still be pretty good compared to a 250. If you can overclock it (unless you already have) then that will get you a few more fps.

What motherboard do you have, that way we can see what is the max cpu you can have

Cheers for the advice guys . :) Gigabyte m61pme-s2p.
 
The 245 will slow you down quite a bit, but your results will still be pretty good compared to a 250. If you can overclock it (unless you already have) then that will get you a few more fps.

What motherboard do you have, that way we can see what is the max cpu you can have

Overclock if you have an after market cooler, if not I would use the money towards a new CPU as dual core is not really ideal nowadays. Might be able to drop a decent CPU into current mobo if you list it.
 
The Gigabyte m61pme-s2p can take AM3 CPU's, I would suggest getting a 550 black edition. Its a dual core CPU @ 3.1GHz, but there is a BIOS tweak that can be made to unlock it to a quad core. As it is a stock it will beat some lower end quad cores, and once all four cores are unlocked its an absolute animal.

Agree with the above comment about the dual core vs quad core scene. Don' want to go off topic but its true that there arn;t currently many programs that utilise all 4 cores (not even crysis), but to future proof yourself, a quad core is always good, just don't get a low end model.
 
400w should be fine for the 5850, as it's a Corsiar. However if you are unlocking two cores you might want some more headroom.
 
500W is what ATI recomend, however in reality actual draw from the wall is likely to be less than 400W, hence why a Corsair 400W which actually provides 400W is better than a no name 500W PSU which prob also provides 400W
This shows total system load as 340W
 
different to the response I got here .. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18113797 who is right?

I definately wouldn't trust that. Not going against anyones advice, but its best to be safe than sorry.

Corsair are really good quality and very efficient, but when in a whole system 400-450 watts is simply not enough. ATi do give silly requirments for power recomendations, but they have to in order to cover themselves so people dont blow their systems up. Maybe try heading over to ATi to see the supported power supply list for the 5850.

You 5850 may be ok at this moment in time, but after a few months of strain, the power supply might not be up to it anymore, and could take out some other components in the process (they normally go with a bang). I'd suggest to everyone to get at least a 500 watt power supply these days, even if its a basic dual core build.

EDIT: a 500 watt well known brand power supply
 
Right i'm looking to upgrade to this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-253-AM and a 5850 , the next issue is my 400w corsair psu is it enough?

Your mobo wont support a 965 (officially), there is no bios for it yet.
The nearest thing you will get to it will be the 95w version of the 945.

The 550 wont unlock to quad on that mobo either. Its a great chip dont get me wrong, but that board does not have enough guts and the wrong SB to possibly unlock it (from what researech I did very recently)

Edit: Too slow, cat got there first
 
The Gigabyte m61pme-s2p has a 3+1 phase VRM and I would not be pushing it with a 125W TDP processor. I would be getting the 95W version of the X4 945 which runs at 3GHZ instead.

The Corsair actually can supply up to 480W according to Hardware Secrets:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/750

According to the review the PSU should actually be considered a 450W unit.

Yea I heard the exact same thing. Agree on a lower TDP CPU aswell.
 
different to the response I got here .. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18113797 who is right?

Just had a better look at that post there. It seems that most people have overlooked the +12V rail requirements.

You can have all the wattage in the world 2,000 watts+ if you want, but without amperage it can't do a lot. Quite a few power supplies have more than one +12V rail, but most high end power supplies stick to a single rail design so the power feed is always constant as its on the same rail. A £300 power supply will get you around 1500 watts with 100amps on the +12V rail (a lot lol)

Im not sure how many amps this corsair kicks out, the wattage is probably enough though
 
The Corsair CX400W provides up to 30A on its 12V rail:

http://www.corsair.com/products/cx/default.aspx

30 amps is a little low for a 5850. ATi suggest 45 amps I think (not 100% sure) but that is quite a lot over what it actually consumes. I'd suggest 35-40 amps would be sufficient.

The corsair 400W will work with it, but it will be under quite a bit of strain, especially if you plan on getting a quad core too.
 
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