Just about to start building my first system, and was wondering about the compatibility of the Corsair CX430 V2 and the XFX Radeon HD6870. The main issue arises from the fact that there is only one PCI-E power point in the CX430. Will there be any issues with using a 2 Molex to PCI-E adapter to power the 2nd PCI-E point on the card? The system overall is: M4A88T-M/USB3 AMD Phenom II X4 840 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance 1600 LG GH22NS50 DVD drive 1TB Seagate ST1000DL002 Any advice would be appreciated.
You might be pushing it just a little bit, while Corsair Power Supplies are known to be excellent in terms of quality, the best bet is to nab at least a 500w, just in case.
that will be just fine dont worrie. in this month's issue of CPC thay had a HD 5850 that thay run on that same psu with the same spec's as your current rig. so a 6870 no problem's...
Hmm, I never was too familiar with the CX series, so you can go with Penryn's suggestion, or just look at the amperage on the PSU. If it's +40 it should be fine.
You're fine. The CX430 puts 336 watts to the +12 V line. The TDP of the Phenom is 95 W and the HD6870 150 W, bringing the total up to just under 250 W, with the rest of the system is hardly loading the 12 V rail.
Power-wise, it would be quite enough. On the other hand, the CX series isn't really that known for quality (more for cheep components and DOA units). I'd look at the XFX Core Edition 450W units - Seasonic design, better build quality, longer warranty, and only about 5 quid more than the CX430. A no brainer, if you ask me.
The V2 seems to be better, though not by a lot. They're still cheap units intended for systems with integrated or low-end graphics.
While we are at it ... I'm hesitating between Asus Radeon 6950 and Asus GTX560 Ti. I own a Corsair HX-520W, will it be enough for those cards ?
For those who still can't understand it - i have a i7 2600k and GTX570, both running at stock, and i can hardly get the whole setup to reach 400W mark from the socket with OCCT Linpack and Furmark running at the same time. And with 400W from the socket i mean exactly that - it means about 350-360W with PSU efficiency calculated in, so i could run my setup even from a 400W PSU (of course only a good and quality PSU).
I suppose the V2 versions really are better, but unless I'm mistaken, the difference is mostly just 80+ efficiency and (hopefully) better quality control. I doubt the actual innards are a big improvement, tbh
put it this way a friend of mine was runin a very overclocked q6600 and a 4870x2 on a corsair vx450 for a few year's without a problem
And I ran Q9450 + HD4890 on 400 W (320 W@12 V). Seriously it's going to be OK, stop going all "but it's the Corsair's range of cheap PSU's omg" when it just isn't going to be a problem. They still aren't dangerous bombs like the real cheapo PSUs, just not quite as good as we've used to see from Corsair/seasonic.
