SOLVED Is a Seasonic M12II 520 Bronze Enough For Another HD6850 in XFire?

[neo668]

I'm thinking of getting another HD6850 for my son's rig to Crossfire with his existing XFX Radeon HD-685X-ZDFC GPU. His present rig specs are as follows:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2GHz
CPU Cooler: Standard AMD
MB: Magic-Pro MP-BA500PRO1 (AMD 890GX + SB850 Chipset)
Graphic: XFX Radeon HD-685X-ZDFC
Ram: ADATA PC3-10700 (667MHz) (DDR3 1333) 2x4GB
PSU: Seasonic M12II 520 Bronze
HD: 1 x Vertex 2 90GB + 1 X Seagate HDD 300GB + 1 X WD Green HDD 2TB
OS: Win 7 x64

I'm wondering if the PSU is sufficient or not? Thanks.

 

[>HyperlogiK<]

As long as he doesn't either want to overclock or plug in a ton of USB HDDs simultaneously that should be sufficient. However it is fairly close to the maximum that the PSU can handle so while you shouldn't worry too much, keep this in mind before he does any future upgrades.

 

[neo668]

Thanks Hyper.

He gives me hell whenever his system becomes unstable. So I don't bother to overclock his rig. Besides another HD6850 I don't intend to add any new hardware. What he has now should last him a while.

 

[Bobnova]

6850 is ~130w, that CPU is 95w I believe. I figure 100w for Other to give tons of room for fans and HDDs. That gives us 455w. He'll be fine.

 

[neo668]

Thanks Bob. Will go shopping today.

Now my only worry is whether the CPU (AMD 840) will be a bottleneck. If that happens I can always swap my 1090T with my son.

Thank you everyone.

 

[>HyperlogiK<]

If he's mainly playing games then a 970 or 980 might be a better choice.

 

[neo668]

I assume you mean the HD6970/HD6980. My son is more a console gamer so I'm thinking 2 x HD6850 in Crossfire would be sufficient until the XBox 720 comes out. Since he already has a HD6850, just getting another one wouldn't be too expensive. And I'm pretty sure that 2 x HD6850 Crossfired should be able to play almost any game currently available.

 

[rescuetoaster]

I assume you mean the HD6970/HD6980. My son is more a console gamer so I'm thinking 2 x HD6850 in Crossfire would be sufficient until the XBox 720 comes out. Since he already has a HD6850, just getting another one wouldn't be too expensive. And I'm pretty sure that 2 x HD6850 Crossfired should be able to play almost any game currently available.

Not to shoot myself in the foot (I'm selling my 6850 on ebay), but keep in mind that you are still at the 1 GB limit for VRAM in crossfire. That is one reason why I opted to get a 7850 over a second 6850 (that, and it's wicked awesome in every other aspect as well).

 

[>HyperlogiK<]

That's only really a big deal for high levels of AA or resolutions above 1080p though. My dual 6870s are fine for all of the games I play, sure I cant do 4x FSAA in BF 3 but I can run it at high settings.

 

[neo668]

Not to shoot myself in the foot (I'm selling my 6850 on ebay), but keep in mind that you are still at the 1 GB limit for VRAM in crossfire. That is one reason why I opted to get a 7850 over a second 6850 (that, and it's wicked awesome in every other aspect as well).

I'm aware of the 1GB VRAM limit in Crossfire. As long as he's able to play the games he has now he is happy. Games like Diablo, The Amazing Spider-Man and other online games. The next game he wants to play on the PC is Assassin's Creed III which comes out in November. Evidently he is not a hard-core PC gamer. In fact he is more excited about the launch of Halo 4 for the XBox 360 in November. So getting a high-end card like the 7850 would be a waste on him.

 

[neo668]

I apologise for resurrecting this thread. But I have a follow-up question.

So I got my son another HD6850 - a HIS IceQX. Assassin's Creed 3 still lags a bit, though I know this problem seems to be inherent in the AC series rather than the hardware they are played on. My son now wants to swap CPU with me - his P2 X4 840 for my P2 x6 1090T. I'm thinking of switching all the internals with him, mobo+CPU+All, except the HDDs, PSU and graphic cards.

Will this be a problem? Thank you for any advice.

 

[Knufire]

125W ea for the 6850,120W for the CPU, you should be fine, even with overclocking.

 

[neo668]

Thank you Knufire.