A bunch of rounded-up PC questions for the experts:

[Key West]

Don't want to start multiple threads in all sub sections, here we go:

1. The PSU my friend gave me has only PCI-e power connector. That's fine for the time being. But what if I wanted to SLI a second video card? That's no way around it but to buy a PSU with +2 connectors?

2. When it comes to SLI/Crossfiring two same cards, how much performance improvement are we looking at? I'm assuming there is good diminishing return. I have HD4850 being shipped ($70 sale, $125 msrp). If I get two of these, is it worth more than getting one $200-250 card? What's the general rule here?

3. I'm new to OCing. From my research, my Phenom X3 2.8ghz should be doing 3.5ghz with proper cooling (and unlock 4th core possibly).
....i) How is the setting achieved? It's all just BIOS software setting right?
....ii) What settings do they involve? All I know is Volts and certain volts are too high...
....iii) Teach me about rams... like 2-2-3 or something. What do those mean and what are the optimal settings? They're changed in the BIOS as well right?

AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition 2.8Ghz
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB PCI-E
ASUS M4A78T-E Motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Cooler Master RR-B10-212P-G1

Thanks!

 

[Slugbait]

1) Short answer is yes. Long answer is that you might get by with a PCIe Y-adapter that sucks juice from two molex connectors...but your PSU would likely be taxed to the wall (both wattage and 12-volt rail).

2) You're looking at about a 50% increase. However, in some situations it will be considerably less. There are also the headaches that come with dual cards...might not be worth it.

3) Your research should have uncovered most of this question. Unlocking the fourth core can have bad results. You can get some overclocking hints here, including some RAM timings...but I'm not one to know much about timings...

 

[Key West]

Bump... more responses please. 🙂

 

[MisterDonut]

Everything he said. My general rule of thumb is to avoid CFX when you can. There's beefy single cards out there that'll do anything you want it to (outside of prostitution). There are some cases where they have problems with performance (scaling in Crysis? IDK, it's 1am and I'm too lazy to remind myself). Just get a new PSU if you need to, but again, avoid CFX. Old architecture is just gonna get older anyways, so you can pick up a 5770 later if you want. It tackles just about anything @ 1080 gaming (struggles with AA though 🙁).

You can overclock AMD chips using the Overdrive tool. It makes sunny side up eggs look difficult. Find the sweet spot on the clock and voltage, and you're good to go. You can google countless guides (I think AT might have a couple on AMD chips). Enough people have done it to give you a good idea of what the numbers should be at.

I wouldn't worry about timings. Most OC'ers I know tend to leave them alone (otherwise you can google it). It just means latency (in clock cycles?), so lower timings = better performance. But like I said, almost everybody I know leaves them alone. It's not worth the hassle for regular users, IMO.

 

[fffblackmage]

What they said. XD

The fact that the PSU only has one PCIe power connector would mean the PSU wasn't designed with SLI/xfire in mind.

I'd also avoid crossfire. Complicates power, hardware, and cooling requirements. Then there's the scaling issues in some games. Yada yada yada...

Yeah, ram timings controls the latency. Lower numbers, less latency. Not worth the trouble for the small gains though. You'll most likely never know the difference anyways. I don't.