Wanting to build a 4870+4870x2 setup

[o3srt4me]

Ok so I had a sapphire 4870 1gb which died, and newegg has so kindly restocked it and allowed to buy whatever I please....

I have decided that I would eventually like to aspire to having a 4870 and a 4870x2...

The reason is I want to buy this in 2 chunks.... the first chunk would be a new PSU+a 4870 and the second would be the x2. My question is what wattage powersupply would be sufficient for this build and also do I need to buy a 512mb 4870 or 1g??? I would assume probably a 1gb since the 4870 is a 2x1gb....anyhow is there any specific 3rd party company such as HIS or Powercolor that work well with this setup...?

 

[footballrunner800]

well, my sig uses 710w at full load so if youre going for a x3 setup, i would get a 850w p.s. Get a 1gb 4870 because getting a 512mb card will limit all 3 cores to that.

 

[OCGuy]

Yes the 1GB would be the way to go.


I am against the people who recommend the 1KW PSUs, but in your instance, I would have to say go with that.


What size is your monitor BTW?

 

[adairusmc]

850w or higher, at least. And yes, go with the 1gb 4870.

I have a tri-fire setup myself, but I liked my PC P&C PSU so much (and because I recently bought it), I went with the 450w thermaltake drive bay VGA power supply, works great. I let my main PSU power my 4870 and everything else, and the thermaltake powers just the 4870x2.

obligatory pic

My 4870 1gb is a Sapphire with the heatpipe cooler, and the X2 is a VisionTek, FWIW.

 

[yh125d]

Originally posted by: footballrunner800
well, my sig uses 710w at full load so if youre going for a x3 setup, i would get a 850w p.s. Get a 1gb 4870 because getting a 512mb card will limit all 3 cores to that.

No it doesn't. If you used a kill-a-watt or something to come to that figure, it is grossly inaccurate.


OP, for a 3x 4870 setup, a quality 750W or higher would be good. PCP&C 750w, Corsair TX750 and TX850 are a few good choices

 

[o3srt4me]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
Yes the 1GB would be the way to go.


I am against the people who recommend the 1KW PSUs, but in your instance, I would have to say go with that.


What size is your monitor BTW?

Its a 22inch but it runs at 1920x1080....

Ok so from the looks of it 850+ is the consensus!, well I will begin shopping around and making this happen, btw has anyone had any experience with those multi-core power supplies. I was a few of them but I was sure how they worked/their purpose

 

[yh125d]

Multi core power supplies? Do you mean PSU's with multiple 12v rails? They're fine. In practice, there's really not much of a difference between single and multi-rail

 

[o3srt4me]

Originally posted by: yh125d
Multi core power supplies? Do you mean PSU's with multiple 12v rails? They're fine. In practice, there's really not much of a difference between single and multi-rail

No I was just no new egg looking and there were some that said 400x2, It looked like 2 small 400w powersupplies put together in one, had 2 power switches in all???


Anyhow this is the one im mainly looking at/the one in my price range


Its by corsair and they are claiming the stength in this one lies in its single core design??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...9009&Tpk=corsair%20psu

 

[adairusmc]

Originally posted by: o3srt4me

Originally posted by: yh125d
Multi core power supplies? Do you mean PSU's with multiple 12v rails? They're fine. In practice, there's really not much of a difference between single and multi-rail

No I was just no new egg looking and there were some that said 400x2, It looked like 2 small 400w powersupplies put together in one, had 2 power switches in all???


Anyhow this is the one im mainly looking at/the one in my price range


Its by corsair and they are claiming the stength in this one lies in its single core design??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...9009&Tpk=corsair%20psu

That would be a good power supply, from what I have heard (haven't used one personally).

 

[apoppin]

Well i DO have one such CrossfireX-3 setup .. ASUS 4870-1GB + VisionTek 4870x2

850w is *plenty* for the PS as long as it is a decent one

as to using a 512MB 4870 with a 2GB 4870-x2 is not recommended although in practice there are few games that are really impacted by it

FINALLY, what MB are you going to use? .. x38 or x48 will take full advantage of PCIe 2.0 plus 16x+16x PCIe full bandwidth Crossfire configurations

 

[yh125d]

Originally posted by: o3srt4me

Originally posted by: yh125d
Multi core power supplies? Do you mean PSU's with multiple 12v rails? They're fine. In practice, there's really not much of a difference between single and multi-rail

No I was just no new egg looking and there were some that said 400x2, It looked like 2 small 400w powersupplies put together in one, had 2 power switches in all???


Anyhow this is the one im mainly looking at/the one in my price range


Its by corsair and they are claiming the stength in this one lies in its single core design??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...9009&Tpk=corsair%20psu

Dual core PSU eh? never heard of such a thing. Sounds gimmicky though, stay away


That Corsair is a very good unit. Highly recommended, powerful, efficient, stable, quiet, cool, all the good stuff. Pretty good value too

 

[dguy6789]

The machine in my signature uses under 400 watts full load. You will not need a kilowatt power supply to run your machine.

http://www.anandtech.com/casec...us/showdoc.aspx?i=3413

This article should be a sticky and a must read before anyone makes a thread about building a pc.

 

[footballrunner800]

Originally posted by: yh125d

Originally posted by: footballrunner800
well, my sig uses 710w at full load so if youre going for a x3 setup, i would get a 850w p.s. Get a 1gb 4870 because getting a 512mb card will limit all 3 cores to that.

No it doesn't. If you used a kill-a-watt or something to come to that figure, it is grossly inaccurate.


OP, for a 3x 4870 setup, a quality 750W or higher would be good. PCP&C 750w, Corsair TX750 and TX850 are a few good choices

Yes this was done with a kill-a-watt and the power supply test in OCCT. Yea after calculating efficiency and the inaccuracy of the meter it should be lower. Still, Its always a good idea to get a bigger power supply as it generates less noise and will be more efficient.

 

[F1shF4t]

I'm using a Corsair HX1000 in my main comp and its a great psu, really good choice if you end up going for a 1KW psu.
Sure my TT Toughpower 750w can power this comp, but even light loads cause it to sound like a jet turbine, full load its just ennoying.
The corsair unit is completely silent.

It might be worth it going for a larger psu just to keep the noise levels down.

 

[o3srt4me]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131299

This is my mobo, not sure about the x38 or x48...hmmm watcha think

 

[yh125d]

I'd stick with what you got. You either won't be limited at all by the 8x speed, or you won't be limited very much. Not worth paying for a new Xx8 motherboard imo

 

[speedfreak]

make sure you'll be using a decent psu on that. 4870's are power eaters. lol

 

[PCTC2]

Originally posted by: yh125d

Originally posted by: o3srt4me

Originally posted by: yh125d
Multi core power supplies? Do you mean PSU's with multiple 12v rails? They're fine. In practice, there's really not much of a difference between single and multi-rail

No I was just no new egg looking and there were some that said 400x2, It looked like 2 small 400w powersupplies put together in one, had 2 power switches in all???


Anyhow this is the one im mainly looking at/the one in my price range


Its by corsair and they are claiming the stength in this one lies in its single core design??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...9009&Tpk=corsair%20psu

Dual core PSU eh? never heard of such a thing. Sounds gimmicky though, stay away


That Corsair is a very good unit. Highly recommended, powerful, efficient, stable, quiet, cool, all the good stuff. Pretty good value too

I'm guessing those 400x2 PSU's he's looking at are redundant server power supplies. I had a few in rackmounted servers at my work. Hotswappable dual 650W PSU's are nice when one burns out.

 

[adairusmc]

Originally posted by: yh125d
I'd stick with what you got. You either won't be limited at all by the 8x speed, or you won't be limited very much. Not worth paying for a new Xx8 motherboard imo

:thumbsup:

I am running my Tri-Fire rig on a P5Q deluxe, works just fine at 8x/8x.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: o3srt4me
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131299

This is my mobo, not sure about the x38 or x48...hmmm watcha think

2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots, support ATI CrossFireX technology at x8 link

When you run 4870x2 in Crossfire, your bandwidth is limited to 8x + 8x PCIe lanes - 1/2 the bandwidth of a x38/x48 MB with 16x + 16x PCIe CF lanes
- it IS significant .. in some cases

 

[nitromullet]

Your plans of getting a 4870 and a PSU in one shot and then getting a 4870 X2 later seems a bit out of order to me considering your motherboard. Personally, I would get the 4870 X2 and PSU first. This would give you a chance to familiarize yourself with the eccentricities of a two way Crossfire setup (all mutli-gpu setups have them) before jumping into a three way Crossfire X setup. Plus, you may find that a 4870 X2 is all you really need to run your games at the settings you want.

Also, my advise on the PSU... Get the biggest/best you can afford. Unlike pretty much everything else in your rig, you actually can future proof your PSU somewhat. That being said, the Corsair 850W will be more than capable for the your currently planned rig.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: footballrunner800
Still, Its always a good idea to get a bigger power supply as it generates less noise and will be more efficient.

Is this true? Less noise and more efficiency?

 

[alcoholbob]

With these PSUs the lower the load typically the lower the fan speed setting, unless you are inclined to voiding your warranty and doing some free DIY fan voltmod.

As far as efficiency, I don't know, I would think efficiency would be heavily linked to the PWM chipset and there's probably not that many industrial manufacturers where a PSU company can source their components. Once they assemble the box I imagine a lot of them just make up numbers or take measurements in favored conditions so two identical PSUs will have completely different marketed specs. Very typical in the electronics industry.

 

[o3srt4me]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
Your plans of getting a 4870 and a PSU in one shot and then getting a 4870 X2 later seems a bit out of order to me considering your motherboard. Personally, I would get the 4870 X2 and PSU first. This would give you a chance to familiarize yourself with the eccentricities of a two way Crossfire setup (all mutli-gpu setups have them) before jumping into a three way Crossfire X setup. Plus, you may find that a 4870 X2 is all you really need to run your games at the settings you want.

Also, my advise on the PSU... Get the biggest/best you can afford. Unlike pretty much everything else in your rig, you actually can future proof your PSU somewhat. That being said, the Corsair 850W will be more than capable for the your currently planned rig.

Well this is a good plan, most definately but one problem with this is money. The 4870x2 is just so darn much that that plus a psu is about ....600+ after tax and shipping...

Hmmm I hate to make a new thread of an old one but what about starting out with at 4850x2 and then going to another 4850 later on???? any takes on that....????