PSU Question

Forum CPU & Components : Power Supplies, Cases & Mods PSU Question

Hello everyone,
I've just built my first PC.

My current specs are:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 960T 3.4GHz Black Edition
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper-212 Plus CPU Cooler
Motherboard: ASUS M5A97
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 X 4GB DDR3)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue SATA III 7200rpm
Video Card: Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 6950 1GB Video Card
Case: Cooler Master HAF X
Power Supply: Corsair 650w TX Series 80 Plus
Optical Drive: Lite-On Lightscribe SATA DVD+/-RW Dual Layer

I am wanting to try my hand at the PC version of Battlefield 3, however, according to www.systemrequirementslab.com, I cannot run the game on high settings because I am short on Video Ram.

My question is this:
If I were to buy another Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 6950, how many watts would my power supply need to support both cards?

Additional Note:
I did the watt calculator on Cooler Master's website, and it claimed that I would need 624 watts. However, Amazon and New Egg have the card listed as requiring 500 watts.

Any help would be gladly appreciated in my quest to build a solid gaming PC. Thank you to everyone in advance.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to therealsquizz

Adding a second card whether it be SLi/Crossfire will not double vram. I have run both crossfire and Sli and would suggest getting a 800w psu because it is better to get more power than is needed. I have 1GB vram on my current Sli system and can run an average of mid 50's on high in BF3 at 1920x1080. Having two cards does scale better at higher resolutions.

Message edited by fondz on 02-11-2012 at 12:21:18 PM

Reply to fondz

therealsquizz wrote :

However, Amazon and New Egg have the card listed as requiring 500 watts.

That's the full system power requirement for a single GPU system - not the video card alone.

Have you run the game yet?

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Reply to WR2

For a system using two Radeon HD 6950 graphics cards in 2-way CrossFireX mode AMD specifies a minimum of a 700 Watt or greater power supply. The power supply should also have a combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 46 Amps or greater and have at least four 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connectors.

Your Corsair Enthusiast Series TX650 (CMPSU-650TX), with its +12 Volt continuous current rating of 52 Amps, should be able to power a system with two Radeon HD 6950 in CrossFireX (2-way) mode. You will have to use a couple of dual 4-pin Molex peripheral to 6-pin PCIe adapter cables though (usually they're included in the graphics card package).

Total Power Supply Wattage is NOT a crucial factor in power supply selection!!! Total Continuous Amperage Available on the +12V Rail(s) is the most important.

Message edited by ko888 on 02-11-2012 at 08:28:27 PM

Reply to ko888

Thank you for the responses and the help, everyone.

@WR2 - No, I have not ran the game yet. I'm very new to PC gaming, and the thought of the game not running well moade me shy away from buying it.

If two cards will in fact not double my VRAM, can someone suggest a strong card with 2GB of VRAM in the same price range as my current one?

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to therealsquizz

therealsquizz wrote :

MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II 2GD5/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card for $269.99 ($249.99 after mail-in rebate card)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127608

XFX HD-695X-CNFC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity for $269.99 ($254.99 after mail-in rebate card)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150530

Reply to ko888