hello have just been bit by the new PC bug and got a new rig recently. I thought it was pretty nice, then i tried running crysis on it... the game looks great, but i want. more. power... so, i just picked up an XFX HD 5970 Black Edition card - but I'm concerned that I may blow my rig if I connect it up (not enough power supplied to the components etc) Here's the spec, please could anybody give me any tips about this? Should I remove one of the 5850's? sorry if this is a very stupid question - thanks a lot in advance for any help: - Coolermaster ATC S 840 Aluminium Black Case - CORSAIR TX 950W POWERSUPPLY - Asus P6X58D Premium Socket 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Core i7-930 Socket 1366 Quad-Core CPU - Thermaltake Frio CLP0564 Overclocking Ready CPU Cooler - G-SKILL TRIDENT 6GB KIT - 2000MHz DDR3 MEMORY - G-Skill 100GB Phoenix 2.5inch MLC SATA Internal SSD Hard Drive - Sony 24X Int Blacklightscribe Bare SATA DVDRW/RAM - Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Toxic 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E 2.1 x 16 Graphics Card - Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Toxic 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E 2.1 x 16 Graphics Card - Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium With DTS Connector and 64Mb XRAM Bulk PCI-E Sound Card
update - i removed one of the 5850's, more due to size/space than PSU considerations. now i have another problem - windows 7/64 won't boot... perhaps its something to do with my overclock settings, now i have changed the gfx card config i may need to adjust the cpu? though i've no idea how to solve it... will be on to the shop in the morning i think and hope they can help me. thanks anyway for reading my tales of noobwoe
I was thinking the very same thing. 950Watts should be enough to run a pair of cards. If you are mixing the cards and going for triple cross fire, one thing you need to be aware of is that the quicker card (5970) will slow down to the same speed as the 5850's, so it's probably not a good idea to mix and match these cards.
Why would you get a 5970 if you have CF 5850s? The only decent upgrade from CF 5850s is CF 5870s IMO. A 5970 isn't much faster than CF 5850s.
A 5970 IS CF 5870s. The GPUs are just underclocked in the 5970. Not sure about the XFX HD Black Edition, but if the cores are underclocked you just overclock them and end up with CF 5870s or faster, depending on how much you push the overclock To the OP, yeah you'd have enough power, but WHY? As bulldogjeff said the 5970 would slow down. You'd be better off taking out both 5850s and just using the 5970 IMO.
5970s aren't binned to run at the level of a 5870. You might manage to get a 5970 oc'd to 825/1200, but there's no guarantee. noizdaemon666, the card you're thinking of is the Asus Ares, and I doubt OP is willing to shell out $1300 What games do you play and at what res OP?
i did have the 'bright' idea of running the 5970 with two 5850s until i found that they wouldn't all fit (boards cover the PCI-E slots). so now i have installed a 5970 with a 5850. before windows wouldn't boot (when i was running the two 5850s), i was getting about 60fps out of crysis with everything turned to very high albeit with a lowish-res of 1280x920 (i think) - my i7 930 was clocked to 4GHz to help this. one other thing - on my first powerup after putting the new board in, i forgot to attach the crossfire bridge... the pc switched off soon after powerup... though i don't know if that was because of the bridge error or because the CPU was now too high given the higher level card going in. gonna try my default CPU settings and see what happens. what have i done...
You spent $700 on a graphics card and you didn't check to see if it would fit, you didn't make sure that the ridiculous setup (CF 5850+5970) would work with your motherboard, and all you're doing with these cards is playing Crysis at 1920x1280? You best be trolling.
Right time for me to step in. He can run 2 x 5850 and 1 x 5970 which will = Quad CrossFire. Ideally 2 x HD5970 would have been a better choice. If the op hasn't or not intending to overclock the HD5970 then all 3 cards (4 gpu's) will run at the default 725mhz 1000mhz each. FYI; The HD5970 packs 2 underclocked HD5870 GPU's. I have a Pre overclocked vbios in my other thread which is 100% stable running 950mhz Core 1250mhz (5000mhz) Memory. My GPU's are running 1000mhz Core 1300mhz (5200mhz) Memory, but not many HD5970 can run that OC. Right I take it your PSU has 6 x 6+2 pin PCIe adaptors, so therefore you ain't having to use the molex to PCIe convetors which comes with the GPU. Anyway your PSU can handle all those cards fine at once, even with room to overclock if you wish. Cheers, Simon
update - took out the 5850 and ran the 5950 on its own for a while. got 10mins gametime then BSOD "A clock interrupt was not received on a secondary processor within the allocated time interval" which smells like a broken CPU but will revert to default clock settings and see what gives. if no joy, will seek paid-for help i think while moving to a dual 5970 rig.
More money than sense. My rig will play Crysis on Very High at 1920x1200 smoothly, and those GPUs cost £90 each used. Also, you do know that tri and quad Crossfire doesn't scale for ****, right?
more money than sense maybe, but looking to learn (the hard way it seems) to get the gear:idea ratio working a bit better. so, experts... any ideas on this BSOD issue? I have also been getting IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, something do to with CPU being set too high/hot or could be a memory issue. Ph4ZeD, what FPS are you getting out of crysis with your rig?
Meh... Sorry, but I smell a troll aproach here How can you buy a 5970 and try to pair it with a 5850?, if you have the money better get a pair of HD 5870. Now in your case, use just the HD 5970 along, you'll get better performance, the PSU its more than enough.
Magicianlord, my freind you have too much money. I would strongly suggest posting one of your 5850's to me (the poor) to make some proper use of it
ok the 5850s are out, the 5970s are in, all is overclocked nicely and relatively stable (just a few more checks to go) and then i'm in business. hasn't taken too long and have learned a lot. spanky there's a couple of 5850 toxics going begging now
