Support NeoGAF

[Angry Fork]

Quick question about adding a new video card, I just want to know will my power supply and motherboard support Radeon HD 6870 2gb?

Mobo is FOXCONN A7GM-S 1.0, Power supply is Antec 500W. CPU is 3.2 ghz phenom 2 quad core.

Links to mobo/power supply:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186141
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

 

[OriginofHysteria]

Quick question about adding a new video card, I just want to know will my power supply and motherboard support Radeon HD 6870 2gb?

Mobo is FOXCONN A7GM-S 1.0, Power supply is Antec 500W. CPU is 3.2 ghz phenom 2 quad core.

Links to mobo/power supply:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186141
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

I believe the 6870 is fairly large so you might have some trouble with the card fitting in (it will fit but you might be on top of ports and stuff)

 

[AwesomeSauce]

Made everything complete stock in the bios and my temps on idle are now as follows:

30
35
31
33
36

You can try applying the thermal paste using this method.

Also did you check the minimum fan speed and temperature goal in the bios?

 

[Angry Fork]

I believe the 6870 is fairly large so you might have some trouble with the card fitting in (it will fit but you might be on top of ports and stuff)

That's fine there's nothing I use that it would block I'm more concerned if my PSU is unable to power all of it. I think it can but want to make sure first.

 

[clav]

Quick question about adding a new video card, I just want to know will my power supply and motherboard support Radeon HD 6870 2gb?

Mobo is FOXCONN A7GM-S 1.0, Power supply is Antec 500W. CPU is 3.2 ghz phenom 2 quad core.

Links to mobo/power supply:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186141
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

Your current power supply does 12V on two rails with each rail outputting 22 amps, but you won't know the efficiency unless you measured it yourself with a multimeter probe.

The HD6870 requires the 28 amps on a 12V rail.

With two PCi-E plugs, that probably means 14 amps for each from your power supply, which would leave 8 amps for each rail.

I think your power supply barely suffices, but I would rather use a power supply that does 12V on one rail.

What else is in your computer?

edit: Should be well more than enough.

 

[aznpxdd]

Finally almost finished with my new build...

i5 2500k + Coolermaster H212
G. Skill 16GB PC1600
Galaxy GTX570
Asus Xonar DX
Patriot TorqX 2 64GB SSD
WD Black 1TB
WD Green 2TB
Corsair GS700
Silverstone Raven03

The rig will be paired with:
Dell U2412M
Das Keyboard
Logitech G9

Really really loving the case, so much room to work with and putting the HDD behind the motherboard is genius.

 

[OriginofHysteria]

You can try applying the thermal paste using this method.

Also did you check the minimum fan speed and temperature goal in the bios?

i think those were all on auto, and the temp goal listed on auto was 70c.

EDIT: referring to my OC idle temps on the previous page, I did do some tweaking by changing the voltage to 1.28v and lowering my CPU PLL voltages did drop the temps by a couple c's, so I guess it's a small improvement

 

[Angry Fork]

Your current power supply does 12V on two rails with each rail outputting 22 amps, but you won't know the efficiency unless you measured it yourself with a multimeter probe.

The HD6870 requires the 28 amps on a 12V rail.

With two PCi-E plugs, that probably means 14 amps for each from your power supply, which would leave 8 amps for each rail.

I think your power supply barely suffices, but I would rather use a power supply that does 12V on one rail.

What else is in your computer?

The CPU I mentioned, I have 4gb ram right now but want to upgrade to 8gb if PSU will allow it I don't know much power ram takes.

My internal HDD is 1TB which I believe is this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151

Disc drive is Asus 24x DVDRW which is this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

That's it besides external usb stuff: 1 external hard drive, 2 ports for kb/mouse and 1 for headset. I hope the PSU will allow the video card I don't have the money for a new one =( and it would suck to have to get one JUST to run a video card when everything else works fine right now (have Radeon HD 5770 at the moment). Thanks for the reply btw.

 

[AwesomeSauce]

i think those were all on auto, and the temp goal listed on auto was 70c.

EDIT: referring to my OC idle temps on the previous page, I did do some tweaking by changing the voltage to 1.28v and lowering my CPU PLL voltages did drop the temps by a couple c's, so I guess it's a small improvement

Put the temp goal to around to at least 50c or lower and experiment with the minimum fan speed and see which works best for you.

 

[scogoth]

Some cheap Logitech speakers. Have a Corsair headset/mic for gaming though.

What games do you play? I see you on bf3 but rarely

 

[Smokey]

What games do you play? I see you on bf3 but rarely

BF3 mostly
Crysis 2 to mess around

Tens of Steam games I bought from last summer sale and haven't started

 

[OriginofHysteria]

Wow, re-applied the paste (again for like the billionth time), this time applied it to the heat sink (two line method as listed in the photo), and pressed it firmly against the CPU and kinda jiggled it to have it spread. I wound up with thermal paste completely covering the heatsink (when I took it off there was a small two blobs just covering it from the previous application) and the CPU as well. Here are new temps (without curing obviously since I just did it)

OLD idle temps OC

Core #0: 36c
Core #1: 41c
Core #2: 39c
Core #3: 39c
Package temp: 41c

NEW idle temps OC

Core #0: 32c
Core #1: 36c
Core #2: 34c
Core #3: 33c
Package temp: 36c

Edit: Now Prime 95 has my max temp at 68c. I'm pretty content now. Better than 80

 

[clav]

The CPU I mentioned, I have 4gb ram right now but want to upgrade to 8gb if PSU will allow it I don't know much power ram takes.

My internal HDD is 1TB which I believe is this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151

Disc drive is Asus 24x DVDRW which is this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

That's it besides external usb stuff: 1 external hard drive, 2 ports for kb/mouse and 1 for headset. I hope the PSU will allow the video card I don't have the money for a new one =( and it would suck to have to get one JUST to run a video card when everything else works fine right now (have Radeon HD 5770 at the moment). Thanks for the reply btw.

Hard drives and media drives don't use that much power. 0.5-0.8 Amps each over their 5v/12v rails.

I think your current setup will work. If you want a second opinion, hopefully someone else will chime in. I would upgrade the power supply from a cautionary standpoint, but if you can't, so be it as theoretically it should work.

The HD 6870 peaks at 151 watts as opposed to the HD 5770 which peaks at 108 watts.

 

[Milly79]

Alright so after trying out MW2 after the SWTOR problem, it's happening there as well. So, this leads me to ask, what is going wrong here?

Here's my setup:

Biostar P35D2-A7
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Asus EAH6870
4gb Ram
Thermaltake Purepower 500

Not enough wattage? Defective GPU?

How can I figure this out?

 

[clav]

Alright so after trying out MW2 after the SWTOR problem, it's happening there as well. So, this leads me to ask, what is going wrong here?

Here's my setup:

Biostar P35D2-A7
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Asus EAH6870
4gb Ram
Thermaltake Purepower 500

Not enough wattage? Defective GPU?

How can I figure this out?

Do you have another HD6870 or a backup power supply?

Alternatively, do you have another computer you can install the HD6870 to test?

edit: Just looked up your power supply.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153052

It's this one, right?

Damn it's weak. 29 amps total over two 12V rails. I would upgrade that considering what I just said to Angry Fork. Man, if the HD6870 runs on that, then he should have no problem.

 

[Milly79]

Actually, no for all.


And alright, recommend me one. I just hope it's that and nothing else.

Edit: Yes, it is.

 

[clav]

Well before we do that, what are the temperatures on your card?

Download GPU-Z.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/

Paste the screenshot of the "Sensors" tab.

You can take a picture of the first tab as well.

 

[Milly79]

Well before we do that, what are the temperatures on your card?

Download GPU-Z.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/

Paste the screenshot of the "Sensors" tab.

You can take a picture of the first tab as well.

 

[clav]

12.19 V on idle.

Temperatures seem OK, but this is on idle. Fan speed is 19%, so it's fine. I don't think you have a problem with temperatures as the system can keep itself cool.

Try running a game. What's the new voltage?

You can click on the numerical values to filter through the max, min, and average values recorded. Just be sure the program is running.

 

[Milly79]

12.06 then hops back to 12.19 on quit

 

[kennah]

How's this look, price and build wise? (In Canada)

Keepng existing 6850, hard drives, lian-li case.

 

[Milly79]

12.19 V on idle.

Temperatures seem OK, but this is on idle. Fan speed is 19%, so it's fine. I don't think you have a problem with temperatures as the system can keep itself cool.

Try running a game. What's the new voltage?

You can click on the numerical values to filter through the max, min, and average values recorded. Just be sure the program is running.

So, what's the conclusion here?

 

[clav]

So, what's the conclusion here?

Thinking. I don't want to give you the wrong answer.

If there's a power supply you can try, I would do that first.

I'll be looking up a few. I know Hazaro is going to jump in and recommend the Corsair CX430, but I don't think it's enough although it's certainly better to have the 12V rail amps on a single one.

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

Ok guys I need some help. Just got a asrock z68 extreme3 gen3. I installed windows just fine and everything seems to be running just fine but windows never detects my graphics card, 560 ti 448. Just onboard graphics for the monitor. Im running a 650w power supply, so im thinking that isnt the problem. Checking the UEFI, it states that the PCI Express is the primary vga controller.

HELP!

 

[clav]

Ok guys I need some help. Just got a asrock z68 extreme3 gen3. I installed windows just fine and everything seems to be running just fine but windows never detects my graphics card, 560 ti 448. Just onboard graphics for the monitor. Im running a 650w power supply, so im thinking that isnt the problem. Checking the UEFI, it states that the PCI Express is the primary vga controller.

HELP!

http://www.geforce.com/Drivers/Results/38916 (for Windows Vista/7 64-bit)

 

[Milly79]

Thinking. I don't want to give you the wrong answer.

If there's a power supply you can try, I would do that first.

I'll be looking up a few. I know Hazaro is going to jump in and recommend the Corsair CX430, but I don't think it's enough although it's certainly better to have the 12V rail amps on a single one.

There's really nothing I can do here. I got the setup from a buddy and he just got the GPU not too long ago. He spoke to his friend and he said the PSU wasn't enough.

 

[clav]

There's really nothing I can do here. I got the setup from a buddy and he just got the GPU not too long ago. He spoke to his friend and he said the PSU wasn't enough.

I would get this one if you have the money: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064XAJ30/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Should suit you very well. Seasonic internals. Single 12V rail.

Again, I'm not entirely sure if this would solve your problem, but it seems logical that it would.

Your current power supply is being pushed to the limit.

 

[Milly79]

Alright, I'll give that a go once I get my taxes back. Hopefully that fixes it, if not... Guess I'll be needing another GPU.

Thanks a bunch.

 

[See]

G'day PC gaf, I need a wee bit of advice/ help find the bottleneck of my system...

So my PC is definitely not top-of-the-line but it has served me well over the past couple years. I had a 4870 1gb, as much as I loved that card, I felt it couldn't keep up with the modern games as Human Revolution would stutter a lot and I couldn't play BF3 and Skyrim at 1080p with stable frame rates. I am still surprised how well the card has served me through the years. So I managed to get a XFX 6950 2gb for dirt cheap and the performance upgrade was good but I wasn't blown away.. BF3 still gets pretty choppy, about 20fps on ultra with 4xAA. About 30 without AA, but I need AA in my PC games! Also there isn't a huge difference between medium <-> ultra?! Surely there should be a better performance boost? At least I can play it in 1080p with DX11...

Anyway, here are my specs:
Motherboard:
MSI 790GX-G65
CPU:
AMD Phenom II X4 945
Graphics:
XFX 6950 2gb
Memory:
8gb DDR3
PSU:
Corsair 650W

I am planning on upgrading to a 1090t CPU (the best cpu I could fit into this motherboard) just to speed up my rendering times because I do a lot of 3D/VFX work.

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

http://www.geforce.com/Drivers/Results/38916 (for Windows Vista/7 64-bit)

Didnt work. It just says I have no compatible hardware. My graphics card is connected but only shows up as a standard vga graphics adapter.

 

[clav]

Didnt work. It just says I have no compatible hardware. My graphics card is connected but only shows up as a standard vga graphics adapter.

Ah, now I read your problem.

Is the monitor currently connected to the 560 Ti? It should display regardless if the driver is present.

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

Ah, now I read your problem.

Is the monitor currently connected to the 560 Ti?

Yup via hdmi except it doesnt do it at any reasonable resolution.

 

[clav]

G'day PC gaf, I need a wee bit of advice/ help find the bottleneck of my system...

So my PC is definitely not top-of-the-line but it has served me well over the past couple years. I had a 4870 1gb, as much as I loved that card, I felt it couldn't keep up with the modern games as Human Revolution would stutter a lot and I couldn't play BF3 and Skyrim at 1080p with stable frame rates. I am still surprised how well the card has served me through the years. So I managed to get a XFX 6950 2gb for dirt cheap and the performance upgrade was good but I wasn't blown away.. BF3 still gets pretty choppy, about 20fps on ultra with 4xAA. About 30 without AA, but I need AA in my PC games! Also there isn't a huge difference between medium <-> ultra?! Surely there should be a better performance boost? At least I can play it in 1080p with DX11...

Anyway, here are my specs:
Motherboard:
MSI 790GX-G65
CPU:
AMD Phenom II X4 945
Graphics:
XFX 6950 2gb
Memory:
8gb DDR3
PSU:
Corsair 650W

I am planning on upgrading to a 1090t CPU (the best cpu I could fit into this motherboard) just to speed up my rendering times because I do a lot of 3D/VFX work.

Battlefield games tend to be very CPU intensive.

Yup via hdmi.

Have you tried updating the UEFI (BIOS)?

Reading some posts. Some people got around the issue by changing the default card to PCI-E. Others reinserted the card with the power supply disconnected.

I would update the UEFI first.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=Z68 Extreme3 Gen3&o=BIOS

 

[Irnbru]

Hey so, I've got a 460 galaxy, and its loud as hell, wondering if I should get an aftermarket cooler or if I should just wait for kepler, any ideas?

 

[clav]

Hey so, I've got a 460 galaxy, and its loud as hell, wondering if I should get an aftermarket cooler or if I should just wait for kepler, any ideas?

What case do you have?

If you wait for Kepler, the cards will run cooler due to the smaller nm process.

Up to you. The most important part is what are the idle and load temperatures of the card?

If you really can't tolerate the noise, then post again.

 

[See]

Battlefield games tend to be very CPU intensive.

Ah right, that makes sense...Thanks! I was worried that my PSU would be under powering the GPU... Would an upgrade to a 6-core make a huge difference? (I will be getting one in a month or two anyway)

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

Battlefield games tend to be very CPU intensive.



Have you tried updating the UEFI (BIOS)?

Reading some posts. Some people got around the issue by changing the default card to PCI-E. Others reinserted the card with the power supply disconnected.

I would update the UEFI first.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=Z68 Extreme3 Gen3&o=BIOS

Ill try updating the bios. I already have it set to pci-e

 

[clav]

Ah right, that makes sense...Thanks! I was worried that my PSU would be under powering the GPU... Would an upgrade to a 6-core make a huge difference? (I will be getting one in a month or two anyway)

I read something about cores and their inefficiencies used in current version of Windows.

I forgot who posted it as that was quite a while ago.

Windows 8 supposedly will unlock more power to these cores, but I am not sure. My mind is hazy, but I vaguely recall that Microsoft was pushing an update to fix this in Windows 7. The update got pulled because it caused more issues.

edit: Ah, I think those inefficiencies were for Bulldozer, not for your CPU. NVM then.

 

[Agent Icebeezy]

All of the enthusiast build as been ordered. I'm so happy now!

Intel i7 2600K
ASUS P8Z68 PRO/GEN3
Corsair Vengeance 1600 (16GB)
Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB
Samsung Blu-Ray Combo Internal 12XReadable and DVD-Writable Drive with Lightscribe
Corsair AX850
Corsair 400R
CoolerMaster 212+ EVO
Xonar DG


I'm going to shop around for a HDD this weekend.

 

[See]

I read something about cores and their inefficiencies used in current version of Windows.

I forgot who posted it as that was quite a while ago.

Windows 8 supposedly will unlock more power to these cores, but I am not sure. My mind is hazy, but I vaguely recall that Microsoft was pushing an update to fix this in Windows 7. The update got pulled because it caused more issues.

edit: Ah, I think those inefficiencies were for Bulldozer, not for your CPU. NVM then.

I'll need to look up the benchmark for your CPU. One second.

Cheers for that mate, I really appreciate you help! I have been away from the PC master race for far too long to keep up with everything! Pretty gutted that my motherboard doesn't support bulldozer but then again, its not that surprising considering its a 3(4?) year old board. Still strange that the 1100t isn't supported though.

 

[clav]

Cheers for that mate, I really appreciate you help! I have been away from the PC master race for far too long to keep up with everything! Pretty gutted that my motherboard doesn't support bulldozer but then again, its not that surprising considering its a 3(4?) year old board. Still strange that the 1100t isn't supported though.

1090T is $180 USD although that depends if it's in stock. Much higher if it is no longer sold.

While the 1090T is an upgrade, it may be worthwhile just to get a new motherboard and upgrade to an Intel chip.

You can keep everything else including your RAM.

How much are you willing to spend?

 

[See]

1090T is $180.

While the 1090T is an upgrade, it may be worthwhile just to get a new motherboard and upgrade to an Intel chip.

You can keep everything else including your RAM.

How much are you willing to spend?

Well, my budget is pretty low these days, wan't planning on spending more than $200US, was hoping to keep this system for another two years before another upgrade! But it makes sense to go with an Intel chip!

 

[clav]

Well, my budget is pretty low these days, wan't planning on spending more than $200US, was hoping to keep this system for another two years before another upgrade! But it makes sense to go with an Intel chip!

If budget is important to you and you can find the 1090T for a reasonable price, then go that route.

Otherwise, the trend here is to buy a Intel i5-2500K processor, a Z68 motherboard, and a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ for overclocking (assuming the cooler fits). This will cost at least $340, so you will spend at least $140 more than you wanted to spend.

If that's where you want to go, then tell us what is the case you are currently using as we need to know if the Hyper 212+ fits.

Some people are going to say the i3-2100 upgrade is better than the 1090T upgrade for gaming, but you mentioned you do rendering applications, so a 1090T will help you there. I'll stick to these two suggestions.

 

[Smokey]

Intel i7 2600K
ASUS P8Z68 PRO/GEN3
Corsair Vengeance 1600 (16GB)
Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB
Samsung Blu-Ray Combo Internal 12XReadable and DVD-Writable Drive with Lightscribe
Corsair AX850
Corsair 400R
CoolerMaster 212+ EVO
Xonar DG


I'm going to shop around for a HDD this weekend.

That'll set ya straight. What type of monitor ya running?

 

[gokieks]

Sigh... bought a new videocard. Really wanted to wait for next-gen mid-level (<$300) cards to arrive, but a 560 Ti 448 for effectively $200 after MIR was too good to pass up.

 

[demigod]

Sigh... bought a new videocard. Really wanted to wait for next-gen mid-level (<$300) cards to arrive, but a 560 Ti 448 for effectively $200 after MIR was too good to pass up.

Where's one for $200, is it the Galaxy from Newegg?

 

[See]

If budget is important to you and you can find the 1090T for a reasonable price, then go that route.

Otherwise, the trend here is to buy a Intel i5-2500K processor, a Z68 motherboard, and a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ for overclocking (assuming the cooler fits). This will cost at least $340, so you will spend at least $140 more than you wanted to spend.

If that's where you want to go, then tell us what is the case you are currently using as we need to know if the Hyper 212+ fits.

Some people are going to say the i3-2100 upgrade is better than the 1090T upgrade for gaming, but you mentioned you do rendering applications, so a 1090T will help you there. I'll stick to these two suggestions.

I may have to stick with the 1090t, being a student with no stable job at the moment, I don't think I can afford the parts you recommend at the moment, like you said, it should help me with my rendering so I guess I can't loose there if I am looking at it in that perspective.

My case is a Cooler Master CM690, I think its pretty big enough to fit anything you throw at it! haha

Thanks for you help though! I now have a starting point to where I should take my next big upgrade in a couple years time!

 

[AwesomeSauce]

I may have to stick with the 1090t, being a student with no stable job at the moment, I don't think I can afford the parts you recommend at the moment, like you said, it should help me with my rendering so I guess I can't loose there if I am looking at it in that perspective.

My case is a Cooler Master CM690, I think its pretty big enough to fit anything you throw at it! haha

Thanks for you help though! I now have a starting point to where I should take my next big upgrade in a couple years time!

Have you oc'd the 945?

 

[54-46!]

I'm going to OC my Phenom II X4 955 3,2 to 3,8, adjusting only the multiplier and Vcore. Do I need to manually set my RAM values for this?

Bump

 

[See]

Have you oc'd the 945?

Nope, its not overclocked. I am pretty nervous to overclock it though, since I have no idea what to do! Its still using the stock fan and all! Would there be a big performance gain if it is oc'd?