Your opinions please, I currently have a HD7850 which I've used for nearly two years. Is it worth me getting another card for around £85 brand new and using crossfire (my mobo is capable at x16) instead of shelling out more on a newer gen card. What sort of gains am I looking at and would my PSU be enough to cope (also 2 years old) see my sig below. Thank you in advance!
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Dual GPU - should I do this?
- Thread starter Jinxter
- Start date
Thanks for replying so quickly - I was just tempted for the price and considered it a cheap upgrade for some performance gains. If I did go for 280x or 290, would my PSU be able to cope as that would be another expense to consider?
Soldato
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- 12 Sep 2012
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- Surrey
PSU has 44A on 12v. Decent PSU for what it is but my 290 has shown spikes of power use of up to 370w in game. If you think about what else is grabbing power, it wont be a surprise if this 2 year old PSU cant handle the load. My 750w 6 month old fatal1ty PSU kept triggering the protections and it had a fair bit more to give on teh 12v rail than your 550w.
290/x only rely on the PCI slot, 6 pin and 8 pin for power. PCI can supply 75w max, the rest is taken through the 6 and 8 pins, of which are normally over specced on quality PSUs so they can handle more than their 75w and 150w ratings but considering the situation, it all looks a bit sketchy to me.
290/x only rely on the PCI slot, 6 pin and 8 pin for power. PCI can supply 75w max, the rest is taken through the 6 and 8 pins, of which are normally over specced on quality PSUs so they can handle more than their 75w and 150w ratings but considering the situation, it all looks a bit sketchy to me.
Thank you all for your advice - all things considered it looks as though I should wait and upgrade both the GPU and PSU next year. On the plus side I could re-use these components and make another (albeit old) gaming PC based on my Phenom 965, the components of which are gathering dust in my spare room, I could stick it in the lounge on the big screen and hope that my better half doesn't notice .. !
Soldato
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Your PSU should be fine to run a 4670K and a single 290, provided you don't go nuts overclocking them. Stock will be absolutely fine and you might even be able to overclock the card a little, but I wouldn't advise it, but definitely stay away from trying to overvolt the card.
I was pulling 650-ish watts from the wall with 2 x 290's at stock and a [email protected] (which will pull a lot more than your newer 4670K). That was with an XFX 750W Core PSU, so call it 85% efficiency that means my PSU was running at 550W of it's rated 750W. I did once try adding a little voltage and overclocking my 290's a little - the PC froze when it tried to draw 940W from the wall.
That was all with 2 x 290's. With a single 290 and your more efficient CPU, you shouldn't have a problem running a single 290 from a quality 550W PSU such as your Seasonic-made XFX. Just don't go for any heavy overclocking without upgrading the PSU first!
I was pulling 650-ish watts from the wall with 2 x 290's at stock and a [email protected] (which will pull a lot more than your newer 4670K). That was with an XFX 750W Core PSU, so call it 85% efficiency that means my PSU was running at 550W of it's rated 750W. I did once try adding a little voltage and overclocking my 290's a little - the PC froze when it tried to draw 940W from the wall.
That was all with 2 x 290's. With a single 290 and your more efficient CPU, you shouldn't have a problem running a single 290 from a quality 550W PSU such as your Seasonic-made XFX. Just don't go for any heavy overclocking without upgrading the PSU first!