will my corsair 400w support a HD 4870?

[Capiech]

Hi guys,

I've been buying parts for a new computer over the last couple of months, and left the graphics card till last (I wanted a working computer but didn't have the money for the whole lot) and now my computers up and running, albeit with an old graphics card, and i've run into around £90 it's time to look at graphics cards.

The main purpose would be to play games such as MW2 or Just Cause 2 at 1980x1080 at 'hopefully' moderate - max settings. I am looking for the best graphics card under £100 and saw a 'XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card' for £90 and wondered if my computer could support it (mainly if the PSU could handle it).

My current AM3 setup is:

Enermax Pandora case,
MSI 770-C45 mainboard
AMD athlon x2 250 3ghz (with stock heatsink/fan)
Corsair cx400w psu (30A on a single 12v rail)
2x2GB G.Skill Ripjaw DDR3 1,600 Mhz (4GB total)
Nvidia Geforce 8600GT (this is what I want to replace)
Windows 7 - 64bit

The cards I was looking at originaly were GT 240s and HD 4670s and HD 5850s but closer to £100 I can get either a GT 250 or a HD 5870. The HD 5870 aparently requires a minumum of 450w with 2 6pin PCIe plugs.

My question is could my system support such a card (will my Corsair 400w be able to run it). I would have to use a 4pin molex to 6pin PCIe adapter I think because I have only 1 on my PSU. Would it be a case of my system would run it but barely or would it keep freezing or going black?

Any input would be aprecciated, especially if anyone has a similer setup themselves. I would like to think the minumum 450w value on XFXs website is exagerated for the purpose of covering rubbish/unbranded PSUs and that my Corsair one should be able to do the job.

If not, would you suggest something a little less powerfull like the GT250 or HD 5850 perhaps? Also if I had to use the 4pin molex to 6pin PCIe adapter, would I have to use 2 instead of 1 and 1 actual PCIe lead fromt he PSU to make the power more even between the 2 plugs (sorry if that question is nooby, im not overly sure on this topic)

Thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you

 

[Muffin Man]

in the parts you wrote 5850 and 5870, i think you made a mistake and meant to put 4850 and 4870, which would make more sense.

anyway, yes the corsair 400w would be able to run a 4870, it is a quality psu. you would just need to use a pci-e adapter, which you should get in the package with the gfx card.

although, you should consider a 5770, it should be around the same price as a 4870. it offers similar performance while consuming less power, and only requires one 6 pin pci-e cable which your corsair has already. plus it will also run cooler, and it support dx11.

 

[95BlackGA]

in the parts you wrote 5850 and 5870, i think you made a mistake and meant to put 4850 and 4870, which would make more sense.

anyway, yes the corsair 400w would be able to run a 4870, it is a quality psu. you would just need to use a pci-e adapter, which you should get in the package with the gfx card.

although, you should consider a 5770, it should be around the same price as a 4870. it offers similar performance while consuming less power, and only requires one 6 pin pci-e cable which your corsair has already. plus it will also run cooler, and it support dx11.

I fully agree, yet again! I had my Sapphire 4870 on a Antec BP-350 with a CPU and memory overclock, running fully stable. I could play all games, I could do any benchmarks, and still have no problems with voltages. My 12V rails on that, only totaled 23amps, so you'll be fine.