i want to buy another cheap card to use in crossfire. this one seemed to fit the bill. can i combine my current card, an asus eah4870 1gb with this card: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XFX-RADEO...TV_Cards_TW&hash=item4ab0146d5e#ht_500wt_1413 i mean, they dont have to be the same brand do they? will they fit together? also, i only have two 6 pin power connectors for my card, but obviously i will need another 2 for this one. i hard someone say about molex to 6 pin? will these work just as well? like this: http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/17470...tml?_$ja=tsid:11518|cat:17470187|prd:17470187
+1 The only thing to be careful with when using the molex/6 pin adapters is that the rail feeding it is strong enough.
are the cards exactly the same apart from the diff coolers. i mean in terms of length and other dimensions and everything
how can i tell? my psu is an antec earthwatts 650w. it was featured on bit tech some years ago apparently it was the best quality value psu
That should have the guts to do it. The best way to check is is find out how much power the GPUs draw, then check the PSU manufactures site for how much power can be draw from each rail. What might be the best route is to put one dedicated 6 pin on each GPU and then use the adapters off the molex to the other 2 so it's spreads the load.
ah ok cool. i have done some research and found that in contrast to popular belief, you can mix 2 cards of the same series, and they wont downclock. do you know anything about this? e.g. you can have a 4870 and a 4890 and run this at their specified speeds and they will work together if so, how much performance gain would a 4890 get over a 4870?
There isn't much of a performance benefit. I am running a 4850 and a 4870 and with both at 4850 speeds I get 55 FPS in GTA4, and with one at 4850 speeds and one at 4870 speeds I get 58 FPS. I have downclocked the 4870 to reduce the heat it outputs. Just note that crossfire with 48XX cards is hot as hell. I've had to mod an extra 120mm and an extra 60mm fan in my Lian Li A05FN to stop it overheating. The top card would reach 75 C in idle! And that was with a slot between them.
interesting to know. its a shame you can literally turn one whole card off when you arent gaming but tbh you could just pop the case open and pull the connector out could you not. when gaming i feel i have good airflow in my case i should be ok for heat issues either way. my 4870 is idling at 40 degrees at 19c ambient. is that ok? while we are on this note, i have never cleaned the fan on my 4870 and i think it is pretty clogged up with dust and crap. have you done it? is it simple to do? i think temps would be lower if i did what psu do you have. according to ati's site, duel 4870 will require 600w. not sure if thats recommended or minimum.
If you pop out the connector you might get the "No power to VGA" message when turning on your computer. As for heat, my two cards are currently idling at: 4850: 48 degrees, 50% fan. 4870: 63 degrees, 20% fan. Please note that the upper card is the 4850 which will run cooler and therefore does not need the same amount of space in the case to dissipate heat to. It would be a wise idea to clean the fan, on some models you can pop the fan off without taking the heatsink off and then just give it a good clean with a hoover. With some models you have to remove the entire heatsink - this will also allow you to put on a new layer of TIM. I am running a Corsair HX650 PSU which is regarded as a very good modular PSU.
Nop it is definitely not recommended to do any overclocking. Keep it at stock or invest in a GTX 560 Ti instead. That will be my next upgrade path, simply for the better noise, heat and electricity consumption of it.
