Hi i was wondering if my power supply can handle 2 ati 4770 in crossfire my specs are
q6600 b3
gigabyte x48 ds4
4 gigs of ram
dvd/dvd rw combo drive
500 gig sata hdd and my case is the haf 392 so it has a few fans
and my power supply is thermaltake 430 watt power supply i have a adapter for the extra 6 pin but im not sure if the power supply would be enuff on the thermaltake website calculator it says 386 watts for everything at 100% system load what do you guys think i should do ?
Yes, you can run 2x 4770s of a 430W PSU but that Thermaltake 430W PSU is not of good quality and may not be stable enough to push 2x 4770s and is just rated 65% efficiency => Very low quality...
But if it would have been a Antec EA 430W or Corsair 450VX, then there would be no problem...
The general rule of thumb is that a high quality 500 to 550 watt power supply with sufficient current (amps) on the 12 volt rail(s) can easily handle any video card made. A high quality 700 to 750 watt power supply with sufficient current (amps) on the 12 volt rail(s) can easily handle two video cards operating in dual mode.
With the ATI Radeon HD 4770 graphics card the rules change because the cards are energy efficient. They do not use very much power. Tom's Hardware recently published an article about using two 4770 cards in Crossfire mode. The cards were tested in an Intel Core i7 system. The power consumption was measured at the wall outlet. That means the results included power for all the system components, not just the video cards. The system used a grand total of 190 watts at idle and 252 watts at load. Pretty impressive.
Your power supply is not all that great and it is not very efficient. Here is a link to a technical review:
I suggest you upgrade to a high quality power supply. Corsair, PC Power & Cooling, and Seasonic are brands with reputations for high quality psu's that are stable and reliable. If you are on a budget, then an Antec Earthwatts psu would be a good alternative.
alrite thx for the quick replies the only reason why i didnt want to upgrade the power supply was becouse i just bought the power supply and the 4770 2 months ago because the 4890 wouldnt fit my old tower and just 2 weeks ago i had a bad flash with my old bios and i had to buy a new motherboard and tower so now i think im just not crossfire the 4770 anymore and mite just wait till the 5000 series cards come out and just get a new power supply and one of those
We may wind up seeing new graphics cards and cpu's that are even more energy efficient. I think the 4770 is just the beginning. The big boys have jumped on the green bandwagon. We may even see a move from 45nm technology down to 32nm technology. Intel, AMD, and other manufacturers are in a race to see who can bring the 32nm technology to market first. It looks promising.