I currently have this 600 watt PSU. http://www.ultraproducts.com/produ [...] ductID=518 it has dual railing, not sure how much that helps if at all.

I am about to get a second 4870 ATi card to Crossfire them.

My computer specs are as follows....

Nautilus 500 Water cooler
DVD burner
1X IDE HDD
3X SATA drives RAID 0
1X FDD
P5w DH Deluxe Mobo
Sound Blaster Xfi Card
E6600 @ 3.0 Gig OC'ed
1X 4870 for now looking for the second one...

Any help would be rad, I would love to not lose performance due to my PSU not being strong enough.

i think your power supply will be good enough if it's efficient enough and the link you have given says it's efficent enough.but this overclocking could cause a problem.

Your PSU has a combined 35A on the 12v circuit.

Read this:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/rade [...] -force3d/4

You should have 32A for a single HD 4870 and 40A for Crossfire, for a normal system. Yours has an overclocked CPU and the water cooler and a lot of hard disks, so get some more power for those too.

I suggest you get yourself an Antec TPQ-850 or at least a 750TX.

Thanks a lot for the speedy responses!

I'm getting a great deal on the 2nd card, so I'm going to have to wait till I get paid next to get a new PSU, think if I take my cpu back to 2.4 (stock) It will work till I can get another Power supply?

No I don't think that PSU will cut the mustard. aevm has some good recommendations, especially the Corsair TX750. A PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 would be another great choice.

double post sorry.

It might work, but I doubt it. In any case it doesn't even have enough PEG connectors, so you'll need some adapters and lots of free molex connectors. Sounds like a recipe for disaster

I have plenty free molex connectors and each card comes with extra adapters for power. Incase people have older 500 wat PSU's for single card.

Also... I linked the wrong PSU!

This is the actual one I have, Is it any better??

http://www.ultraproducts.com/produ [...] ductID=388

I think that your power supply is fine for one 4870 but I wouldn't even think about trying to run 2 in crossfire. I wouldn't take the risk of damaging my system.

Any quality brand PSU with =/>750watts and solid 12V rails should do the trick. Good examples by aevm.

That one also has 420W on the 12V, i.e. 35A. It's fine for one HD 4870. It might work with two, but I wouldn't risk it. Well, OK, if you really can't wait until the next pay and the new PSU, go ahead and try it. Guru3D's article lists a few symptoms that can tell you if the PSU is overloaded:

* bad 3D performance
* crashing games
* spontaneous reset or imminent shutdown of the PC
* freezes during gameplay
* PSU overload can cause it to break down

Thanks a lot for the advice, I really appreciate it!

What part of my system could I damage if I overload it? Just the PSU? Or could it be even worse than that?

+1 for the PP&C 750 and the Corsair 750TX

Yes, it could damage the motherboard too. Some PSUs are very nice when they die and don't take other parts with them, but some aren't.

It could be worse than that, but if the PSU is any good at all it shouldn't take anything with it when it dies. Actually it should switch off when it is overloaded, but that doesn't always happen... http://corsair.com/cinema/movie.aspx?id=622747

LOL, I loved the movie, thanks.

haha, that movie was rad. I'm hoping Ultra power supplies are not as cheaply made as in the video!

Thanks again for the input. I might just wait it out and stare at my second video card till I get a new PSU. (Torture!) But I'll do it.

Yeah, that's smart.

On the other hand, if you do try it, and it blows up really nicely, and you capture it with a camcorder, you might be able to sell the movie for $10K to OCZ or Seasonic for their own Web site.

Good idea, and I doubt you'll be disappointed by *only* a single 4870

Anandtech has HD4870 CF taking 421.5W under load.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=22

If all that power was going to 12V line, that's 35A.

The real trouble is that Ultra makes lower quality power supplies. A good 600W power supply is sufficient. The real question is why do you want 2 HD4870? Is 1 HD4870 not performing sufficiently for you?

10k sounds pretty good right about now..

1 4870 is working out fine actually. But 2 would be even better. The only reason I'm going for a second one is because I have a friend who works for vivendi games, and has a extra 4870 to sell for 150$. I figured that is a steal, so I might as well make it happen.


I'm still waiting back from him though to make sure it's the same brand that I currently have, which is Vision Tek. Other than that, 1 4870 is pretty nice. But if I were to have 2? I could play every game full settings with out a stutter except Crysis on DX10 with AA up. lol


I'll most likely grab one of those corsair power supplies. They look like they are of great quality.