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| Thread ID: 121663 | 2011-11-05 02:47:00 | PSU check (and suggestions for parts, 2k budget) | icow (15313) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1241991 | 2011-11-05 02:47:00 | OK my friend is going to by a new computer soon . He has $2000 to spend. At the moment he is looking at: i5 2500k 2x6950's CF Gigabyte UD3 NZXT Phantom (3 fans) Corsair 950w PSU Windows 7 64bit Corsair Vengance RAM (8gb) whatever hdd he can get and potentially a 7.1 asus xonar sound card or creative equiv and a SSD (these parts are not included in the 2k build). First question: Is 950w enough to run this (consider the ssd and sound card). If not what is (I guessed around 1000w, well a psu calculator did does 1kw seem abit high?). Second question: Is there any hardware you would change? if so what? (Note some of the parts listed are coming from amazon. That is why it may seem hard to get all of those parts from nz stores. You can suggest parts from overseas retailers as long as they ship to NZ and please provide a link). Thanks in advance. |
icow (15313) | ||
| 1241992 | 2011-11-05 04:10:00 | Hell yes. I'd get a single card - 2 isn't worth the increase. |
pctek (84) | ||
| 1241993 | 2011-11-05 04:29:00 | So for $600 what would you suggest? A 580GTX is going up into the $800 GPU range, and the 570GTX is only around $450. | icow (15313) | ||
| 1241994 | 2011-11-05 19:01:00 | What's wrong with 1 x 6950? It's enough........... | pctek (84) | ||
| 1241995 | 2011-11-05 19:49:00 | True. I'm guessing that because one 6950 is high end anyway he will get around 60fps on most games and any higher it won't matter (or will barely matter) because of the refresh rate of screens. | icow (15313) | ||
| 1241996 | 2011-11-06 05:05:00 | You can flash the 6970 bios onto a 6950, apparently works a treat, some manuf even have a bios switch for 6970/6950 mode | Netsukeninja (13296) | ||
| 1241997 | 2011-11-06 18:42:00 | Ok, thanks for your input. He is now looking at getting a single 6950 and getting another one (or similar card) at a later date if he feels he needs the speed. PSU will most likely be this: www.playtech.co.nz And just out of interest what would be faster (irrelevant): 1x6990 or 2x6950's both unlocked to be 6970's? |
icow (15313) | ||
| 1241998 | 2011-11-06 18:58:00 | I have an 850W and consider it overkill, the PSU calculators I tried had my old 650W silverstone strider as marginal. extreme.outervision.com reccomends around 620W for the hardware you mention so unless there's something serious I missed you are way overshooting with that PSU. (there are many websites around using this same calculator). I also don't recommend crossfire / sli unless you have a multi-monitor setup and have a real need for it. A single GTX 560Ti / 6950 or GTX570 / 6970 will give excellent 1080P performance in any current title and a GTX 580 or 5970 would be awesome. Maybe it would make more sense to get one 6950 and try it, then buy a second one if there are any games that require more horsepower. Funny thing though, I used to take this approach and by the time the card started to struggle it was always a better option to replace it with a newer model than try and find a matching one. I have a pair of GTX460's in SLI and although it is working nicely I have had a lot of issues along the way that make me wish I'd just got a GTX480 like I was planning at the time (price wasn't much different either way). If you do go crossfire consider this: 1. Heat - get cards that vent to the rear not the ones with mid mounted fans, or if not ensure the card spacing on the motherboard has at least two empty slots between cards (good Idea anyway unless you plan on tri-sli) 2. Do the games you play actually support / benefit from crossfire (some do, some don't, some run worse) Also if you use windowed mode SLI doesn't work, dunno about crossfire. 3. Power - 2 cards use a lot of power, more than one high end card 4. Stability - I don't see this mentioned much but for me at least my system is rock solid with a single card but has occasional crashes with SLI enabled (WoW in particular, really doesn't seem to like SLI) 5. Overkill - what resolution are you planning to game at and is crossfire even needed to achieve it?? 6. Micro stuttering - some people report this, particular using the cheaper cards, which effectively makes real world performance lower than benchmarks would suggest google it if you want to know more. check this article out www.tomshardware.com for a good comparison of single graphics cards. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1241999 | 2011-11-06 23:47:00 | Hell yes. I'd get a single card - 2 isn't worth the increase. +1 A 650w corsair/silverstone is plenty for a single 560Ti And I would go for nvidia over AMD cards, but I'm biest :P |
jareemon (5207) | ||
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