Will my 450W Corsair PSU support the 6870?

[mihirkula]

Hi guys its good to be back here after such a long time

I have a Corsair 450VX PSU which runs a 8800GT, an Intel E6750, 4GB DDR, one Seagate Hard Disk, one DVD burner and CRT monitor.

My query is, 1) will my PSU run the Radeon 6870 with the same hardware (minus the 8800GT of course) ?

2) Also, will my CPU bottleneck the 6870 in any way? --> Edit: Does bottleneck mean i would not see ANY improvement in frame rates with a 6870 compared to my current 8800GT?

Thanks in advance

 

[Guest]

Officially ati amd recommends 500 watts psu:

http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/DESKTOP/GRAPHICS/AMD-RADEON-HD-6000/HD-6870/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6870-overview.aspx#3

This also is the site with the psu and the test they made:

http://support.amd.com/us/certified/power-supplies/Pages/listing.aspx

I overclock my Q6600 to 3.30 in order to run fine a HD5770 overclocked in 950Mhz GPU and 1350Mhz GDDR5 now it plays better.

 

[purple stain]

It's possible you could run it on that PSU.It's 33 Amps on the 12/v.As for the bottleneck, have you O/C your prosscecor at all? or is it at the stock of 2.66GHz.If it is at stock it might give you a lilttle bottleneck.Only thing i really worry about here is your crt monitor, everything else looks fine.That PSU is quality 80 plus certified i tihnk you will be fine, but lets get some more opinions to this matter i don't always know what i;m talking about.

 

[mihirkula]

Thanks for your replies, guys, much appreciated

I don't overclock at all, so it will run at 2.66ghz.

So there is no way my 450W Corsair would support the rig with a 6870?

 

[Guest]

There is chance in theory that can be done Ati-Amd doesn’t risk for you to return a card back but the reality in PSU theory may be allot of different you can read about here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareuk.inc&cat=15&post=302494&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

I didn’t have the time to make it with graph of PSUs, etc but it can give you an idea. You goanna play it at the edge leaving small amount of energy in the rest of the devices and you speaking for a card with big energy needs. If the watts are enough to spear around even if the psu is not ‘good’ enough with a 2 Molex to pci-e the job can be done as you may read in here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareuk.inc&cat=15&post=301374&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

I also try to help a case here:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareuk.inc&cat=15&post=300059&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

With also big energy needs and bigger psu he has more hopes from you understand? Also the other friend is right you will see your performance not be as expected and you will OC your cpu.

In the end you hold the dice you can roll it i wish for you the best.

 

[mihirkula]

Thank you very much for your detailed reply, Giatrakis. So it does look like i need to buy a 550W PSU as well. Since there would be a bottleneck I would have to overclock my CPU to get a good performance, which again needs more Wattage.

However: Would i really need to overclock to play on a 1440/1280x768 resolution? HOW MUCH bottleneck can i expect when i do get a 6870? Would getting a 6870 be a waste of money then?

 

[yesitsmario]

You'll be fine. The 6870 doesn't go above 300W during furmark benching and that's with an overclocked i7 cpu. The Corsair 450w is really an under labeled 500w psu.

Also, your cpu would bottleneck the card. And for your resolution, even a 6850 would be an overkill. Consider an hd 5770.

 

[purple stain]

i would agree,anything over a 5770 would start getting bottlenecked.A 5770 would be better for you in this situtaion and it is lighter on power than the 6850,70's.
If money is an issue for you that i would suggest this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161338&cm_re=radeon_hd_5770-_-14-161-338-_-Product


If it is not i would suggest this....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127490&cm_re=radeon_hd_5770-_-14-127-490-_-Product

The 5770 is a 2 slot card and i don't remember you saying what type of case you have but if you don't have enough room here is a 5770 shrunk down to a 1 slot card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131330&cm_re=radeon_hd_5770-_-14-131-330-_-Product.

The 5770 is much cheaper than the newer 6850,6870's and it consumes less power aand for you i think your best choice would be the 5770 although power isn't the issue it is your porsscecor anything higher would be bottlenecked by your CPU.

Goodluck i hope this helped you.

 

[mihirkula]

Thanks for the reccos, now the problems are:

1) What performance improvement would a Radeon 5770 give over a 8800GT at 1440 resolution?

2) HOW MUCH bottleneck would i see with a Radeon 6870 on my E6750 2.66ghz? --> Does bottleneck mean i would not see ANY improvement in games' frame rates with a 6870 compared to my current 8800GT?

Hope you guys can clear those two points, Thanks in advance

 

[purple stain]

I'm pretty sure they stopped making the 8800gt but i'm not sure on that.The biggiest diffiernece i can see is that the 5770 has DDR5 and the 8800gt is DDR3,the 5770 is newer and faster.I would go with the 5770 just because i am a fan of ATI's overclocking tool,they make it simple and at 1440 running a 5770 i think you'd get 50+FPS almost maxed out in Crysis.And with the second question,you would see a slight improvement but what the bottleneck means is that your not goign to get the 6870's full potential with the proccesor your running.Basicly with a faster card like the 6870 it's going so fast that your computer can't keep up with it thus slowing it down and what i mean by not being able to unleash it's full potential.

 

[Guest]

The other friends are right for that resolution you go with the 68xx family i was in 3Ghz and when i moved to 3.30Ghz i've seen +30 Fps more even i play the card in stock speed!? The problem is i have 65nm cpu and i can't go above i need 45nm CPU or 32nm CPU.

With 68xx you will have and more frames and less heat for sure is a 40nm GPU.

Here you can see a prime95 4096 minimal fft, 4Gbytes ram test and the furmark 1.8 extreme test but the HD5770 at stock speed:

http://admins.bnb.gr/~giatrakis/Prime95-toruture-4Gbytes-Furmak%20extreme-HD5770-stock.jpg

As you can see i see no difference in furmark with the stock speed in the card and the watts are not blown away! Only in some benchmarks I see some +2-10 Fps when I overclock the card but the temperature I get in stock speed is never above 63 C the cooling I have is very good. The near to 60 C in getting in 2 of the 4 cores is the highest and really big Temperature with NH-D14 cpu cooler. Above that I will damage the cpu once and for all, more volts to need it.
I mean a 45nm cpu and 32nm with the same cooling system never breaks the 40C is a must.

This ther idle after the test it took some time to cool it:
http://admins.bnb.gr/~giatrakis/idle-HD5770-stock.jpg
finaly the +10C i'm getting and the aditional watts HD5770 OCed woth it? I think you will agree is not.

HD5770 OCed :
AvP D3D11 Benchmark Report
==========================

**************************************************
* Report Created: 2010-11-09 @ 14:31:45
**************************************************
* Executable Build: V1.03, Apr 19 2010
**************************************************

*DX11 Hardware Detected*

Using Default Video Settings:

Resolution: 1280 x 1024
Texture Quality: 2
Shadow Quality: 3
Anisotropic Filtering: 16
SSAO: ON
Vertical Sync: OFF
DX11 Tessellation: ON
DX11 Advanced Shadows: ON
DX11 MSAA Samples: 1


Benchmark Summary:

Number of frames: 5041
Average Frame Time: 20.8ms
Average FPS: 48.1

HD5770 stock:
AvP D3D11 Benchmark Report
==========================

**************************************************
* Report Created: 2010-11-11 @ 15:22:59
**************************************************
* Executable Build: V1.03, Apr 19 2010
**************************************************

*DX11 Hardware Detected*

Using Default Video Settings:

Resolution: 1280 x 1024
Texture Quality: 2
Shadow Quality: 3
Anisotropic Filtering: 16
SSAO: ON
Vertical Sync: OFF
DX11 Tessellation: ON
DX11 Advanced Shadows: ON
DX11 MSAA Samples: 1


Benchmark Summary:

Number of frames: 4566
Average Frame Time: 23.0ms
Average FPS: 43.6


Use command-line option '-logframetime' to report performance frame-by-frame.

5 FPS only....

 

[plastichairball]

Let's break it down simply. If you want to see an improvement over a 8800 GT you will need the following cards: GTX 260, GTX 275, GTX 280, GTX 460, 4870, HD 5770, HD 4890, HD 5830.

All of the above perform significantly better than a 8800GT, but with the exception of the 5770 require quite a bit of power. Some of them you could get working on your current PSU, but there are so many factors limiting you at the moment (PSU, CPU, Monitor) that if you want to break into the graphics big leagues and not waste your money, I suggest getting a new system. If I were in your position I'd sell my current system and since it's not too bad I'd get enough money towards my new system that it wouldn't hurt the wallet too much. When you're choosing a new system then you can design it with a high-end card in mind and get the MAXIMUM bang for buck that you're looking for!

Otherwise you face the prospect of sticking in a card that would use up A LOT of your juice (perhaps producing instability, but perhaps not), and that would give you....5? 10 more FPS? When it could really be giving you 20 more if it were in a better system?

I know the position you're in is not easy, but the best road is to upgrade your system. It has to happen sooner rather than later, and I'd do it while I still can get some decent cash back for my old system.

 

[mosox]

The VX 450 can definitely run a HD 6870 but for your resolution that card is overkill. You can get a HD 6850 it's not much more than a HD 5770.

 

[mihirkula]

Thanks for all the replies, guys, but This really is frustrating - two years ago i faced the exact same situation - just to upgrade to the 8800GT i had to buy a new CPU and mobo because of CPU bottlenecking.

And now that i want to upgrade from 8800GT to 6870 again i have to buy a new CPU, Mobo.

Is there a way around this? What if i overclock my CPU, and get a new 550 VX PSU to power the overclocked CPU and 6870? Would i see better frame rates in games or would there STILL be bottleneck?

PS: i would be getting a new LCD soon, so the playing resolution would definitely increase, hence the 6870.

 

[plastichairball]

Which LCD monitor do you have your eye on?

 

[mihirkula]

24" Samsung/LG .. sometime in Feb.

 

[Guest]

We did our best to help you 6870 consumes less energy than a GF470 here is a case with an old motherboard like yours and 650 watts PSU much better than you think you will buy:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareuk.inc&cat=15&post=300059&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

If I manage to make it play in his motherboard then is possible to play and in yours.

 

[mosox]

- Your PSU is fine, leave it alone, it's a 500W Seasonic actually.

- Some games run better on more cores
http://www.grandtheftpc.com/2010/03/list-of-quad-core-optimized-games.html
For the rest your CPU is fine but that doesn't mean you can play the ones in the list on it.

- For 1920x1080 the HD 6850 is fine.

 

[purple stain]

I'm sure, without to much risk, you could OC your CPU to 3.0. And you would be fine with a 6850 or 70.Maybe 2G more of RAM too. But all of these upgrades require more power, so you could just do some tweaking and still be able to get the 6850.What games were you trying to play?How demanding are they?

 

[mihirkula]

Thanks very much for your help guys, really appreciate it.

I guess i will wait till March and get a new CPU, PSU and monitor and then get the GPU. No point upgrading to 6870 without upgrading CPU and others. Moreover the new Radeon 6000 parts would arrive in February, so i could get one of them.

 

[lucas1024]

I want to second @mosox: you PSU is fine. I didn't know that it was a relabeled one, but many quality PSU can provide much more power than what they are officially sold as. Also, CPU bottlenecking will definitely depend on the game you are playing, so any arbitrary rules like "such and such CPU will bottleneck such and such GPU" are simply rubbish.

Your resolution is not that high right now, but what happens when you buy a new monitor (and a new CPU) down the line? My advice would be to plan and get components that you can use in a new machine, when you upgrade (within your power limits and budget).

 

[mihirkula]

Best answer selected by mihirkula.

 

[Maziar]

This topic has been closed by Maziar