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Power requirements of 4890?

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Tophinater

Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Location
Rochester, MI
I'm debating whether or not to get a new PSU with my 4890 vga card. I currently have a Rosewill Stallion Series RD500-2DB 500W power supply which has worked fantastically for the past four years. AMDs website says that the minimum PSU requirement for this card is 500W, but nothing about the amp requirements for each rail. My PSU has a combined 31A on the +12V but only 16A on the +5V which has me a little worried. Which rail has the greatest current draw for cards like this? I would assume 3.3V because that would be used for TTL voltage but I'm not familiar with GPU architecture at all.
 
The higher the amps on the 12v rail the better. If you are not ocing the card, your psu should handle it.

There are alot of good quality psus out there in the 650-750w range. I got my 750 for about $100 awhile back, it is probably cheaper now.
 
it might be a bit risky.. considering the age and brand of the psu, i couldnt recommend puting that monster gpu on it

try posting in the psu section and see what you get
 
what other hardware do you have on your pc? you should post your specs in your sig and are you heavily oc'd? i wouldnt trust such a big card with a psu of that wattage and age....
 
what other hardware do you have on your pc? you should post your specs in your sig and are you heavily oc'd? i wouldnt trust such a big card with a psu of that wattage and age....

My current build is in my signature which for some reason isn't showing anymore. I'm only doing some mild OCing. I've a got a E6600 with 2GB of RAM and 2 hard disks. Right now my power consumption is rather low as I'm running a 7900GT. I will get a new PSU eventually, but just wanted to know if I could wait a while before buying one.
 
My current build is in my signature which for some reason isn't showing anymore. I'm only doing some mild OCing. I've a got a E6600 with 2GB of RAM and 2 hard disks. Right now my power consumption is rather low as I'm running a 7900GT. I will get a new PSU eventually, but just wanted to know if I could wait a while before buying one.

I wouldn't wait too long to get a new one if you are dead set on getting a 4890 (which we recommend lol). Just save and buy them at the same time. May even get a combo deal on them that way through the Egg.
 
considering the age and brand of the psu, i couldnt recommend puting that monster gpu on it

The brand? Rosewill PSUs have the best ratings in most price breaks on newegg. What's wrong with the brand, I always loved them?

I wouldn't wait too long to get a new one if you are dead set on getting a 4890 (which we recommend lol). Just save and buy them at the same time. May even get a combo deal on them that way through the Egg.

Well, I already bought the card from one of eWiz's special promotions. I see that newegg is having $10 on almost all supplies so maybe I'll just order one now I guess. What wattage should I go with if I want to put 2 of these in crossfire (thinking of future build)?
 
Dont trust new egg reviews. Get a good brand like Corsair, Antec, FPS, Or Silverstone. Theres other good ones out too but rosewill is very generic and I wouldnt trust it much.
 
Dont trust new egg reviews. Get a good brand like Corsair, Antec, FPS, Or Silverstone. Theres other good ones out too but rosewill is very generic and I wouldnt trust it much.

How can you say not to trust newegg reviews? What better testimonial can a product have other than people that buy and use the product? I've cracked open my Rosewill power supply and the quality seems pretty good. A well laid out PCB, caps rated for double their operating voltages, and ICs from big name semiconductor companies. What else could you want?

Are there specific features I should be looking for in a PSU? For a crossfire setup, does the PSU need to be "crossfire ready" as I noticed some are. The active power factor correction is a nice feature on that Corsair, but the pf where I live is already pretty good. I don't know if its worth paying the extra $30 for such features over similar spec'd PSUs.
 
The brand? Rosewill PSUs have the best ratings in most price breaks on newegg. What's wrong with the brand, I always loved them?

They are on the lower end of the spectrum. I have two Rosewill 500 watt PSU's sitting next to me that I have taken apart. Both have some bulging capacitors. One is 4 years old and the other is 3. Each were only in use for a little over 1 year. The internals are pretty sparse just like the rest of the bottom end PSU's I have collected. They work OK but they are far from top shelf PSU's.
 
They are on the lower end of the spectrum. I have two Rosewill 500 watt PSU's sitting next to me that I have taken apart. Both have some bulging capacitors. One is 4 years old and the other is 3. Each were only in use for a little over 1 year. The internals are pretty sparse just like the rest of the bottom end PSU's I have collected. They work OK but they are far from top shelf PSU's.

Really? I think I'll check my PSU for signs of failure this weekend before I put my new card in. Maybe even through it on the o-scope.

Here's a quote from Craxbax's link.
The Rosewill RP500-2 is a real eye opener. Here we have this much maligned PSU brand that everyone automatically writes off as sheer crapola that is actually kicking *** and taking names.

This is why I stick to reviews. You can't always tell the quality of a product by its brand name alone (Antec comes to my mind also) and it helps to get some feedback from people that own and use the product not to mention reviews from johnnyguru.com.

By my calculations, I should have an extra ~140 watts to spare under peak load or only about a 72% maximum loading with amps to spare on the 12v and 5v rails. Not really even stressing the PSU at all really. As long as my PSU checks out this weekend I think I'll stick with it until I do my next round of upgrades or a good deal comes my way.
 
Anyway, if it makes you feel any better I just ordered an HD 4890 and I have 33 amps on my 12 volt rail and I am not worried about it at all.
 
The brand? Rosewill PSUs have the best ratings in most price breaks on newegg. What's wrong with the brand, I always loved them?

Newegg reviews can be written by anyone without any experience at all. Rosewill is certainly not a great brand-name they're usually the cheaper alternative to quality PSU's like corsairs or Enermax, or Silverstone, or Thermaltake etc.

Also, even if a brand is good, doesn't mean that model is good. Thermaltake for example has some really crappy and some really good PSUs.
 
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