GTX465 vs 5850

[SubFusion]

My question is for an AMD platform, will the GTX's support CrossfireX if i wanted to add another card in the future? Or because the card is set up for SLI, will it send mixed signals when it tries to put a crossfire signal through them.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I have a 650W and it's fine, though it's a high quality one (Antec EarthWatts 650W). Note that some cheaper/low quality power supplies may be rated by maximum peak power output and not continuous, this means that the rated number can be provided only for a short period (for instance, at start-up where all the devices suck down huge power to start up, especially motors on fans and hard disks). A good power supply is measured by continuous power output, which means that the rated number is the amount of power that can be provided for an unlimited time. The HD5870 has a continuous maximum power draw of 175W while fully loaded. Take your CPU as 150W (typically less, but it's a rough estimate), your motherboard probably draws another 50-100W depending on chipset and RAM, hard drive probably draws 50W or so, fans maybe 10. Add them up (175+150+100+50+10 = 485W) and you have some extra room for power spikes, CD drives (really only draw significant power when spinning/reading/writing a CD), and other accessories such as USB devices which draw power from the PC. I think your 550W should work for a single 5870 build, a 650 would probably run a build with 2 5870's in CrossFire, and a 700+ would allow for 2 5870's with some headroom for more hard drives or other upgrades.

No nVidia card supports CrossFire. CrossFire and CrossFireX are ATi technologies. SLi is nVidia's competing technology. While they serve the same purpose, they are different and must be treated as such. A CrossFire motherboard will not support SLi and an SLi motherboard will not support CrossFire. To have a choice, you must get a board that supports both, but I don't know if these are available for the AMD platform (Intel boards using the X58 chipset support both, though only one may be used at a time).

 

[SubFusion]

I knew that i couldnt run 2 or more, but would i have no problem running a single GTX on my AMD motherboard. And have just the one run proper?

 

[Poizen22]

a single gtx card will run fine on an amd motherboard that can use crossfire. you just wont be able to go sli, if you ever choose to go sli you would need to upgrade your mobo to one that supports sli. a single gtx card will run fine on a crossfire motherboard. this is also said for the vice versa. a single at icard will also run on a sli board. if your running card wether it be ati or nvidia all you have to worry about motherboard wise is that you have a slot to put it in( pci-e as an example). and most boards today will have pci-e. i would be suprised if there wasnt.

 

[SubFusion]

so whos a good company to get a GTX 465 from? im really digging the look of the Galaxy 465 but i dont know how their rep is. Asus i can always trust and i also like EVGA

im also looking at the sapphire 5850 toxic edition, what you think about that one, is sapphire any good?

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I'd go with the 5850 over the GTX465. Like I've said, ATi wins this round. The 5850 will beat the GTX465 and will use less power, the GTX4xx cards are power hungry. As for Sapphire, they are one of the best ATi brands around. I have read many excellent reviews for Sapphire cards and I would definitely buy one if it made sense. I purchased a Diamond brand 5870 because I didn't like the cooler on the Sapphire one, it looks as if Sapphire discontinued their reference card design 5870. I would advise you to stick with the reference card design if possible as they usually work better. The reference design is the one that AMD designs with the chips when they are presented to card manufacturers. The Toxic edition does not seem to use a reference cooler, reference designs can be identified by the AMD logo above the PCI Express connector. However, if the Toxic edition is really the one you want it doesn't look like a bad cooler design, I just prefer the reference one.

 

[SubFusion]

i know the reference designs are suited better for cooling... but ive built a few systems for friends and ive had enormous success with their Vapor-x technology. anyone have good/bad experience with that?

 

[Apokalipse]

well, the pwersupply isnt just for the graphics card, its for everything. some processors use 130 wats, depending on how many fans you have that can be up to another 10 wats, then ur hard drive, optic drive, ram and motherboard all get power from the PSU ( go figure haha ) so id reccoemend a minnimum of 700W powersupply for a 5870.

A 5870 and Phenom II 965 could run on a Corsair VX450
A 750W PSU would be more than capable of crossfiring 5870's. That's if it's not a cheap "750W" PSU that fails to actually be able to deliver 750W.

 

[Yami]

A 5870 and Phenom II 965 could run on a Corsair VX450

No it couldn't The VX450 only has one PCI-E 6-pin, of which the 5870 needs two. But from a wattage standpoint, it potentially could, I guess.

 

[Apokalipse]

They come with molex adapters.
Anyway, a complete system with a 965 + 5870 would use about 300-350W under load I'd say.