Scan.co.uk is selling XFX 5870s for £234 inc VAT. Great price if anyone is looking for a second to xfire before the 69xx's are released (mid December)
You'll need a recommended 600w PSU for two of these (from the XFX site....)
Keen ATi Prices......
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Joshrandom
- Posts: 5602
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:00 am
A good find. :shock:
I guess it will be interesting to see whether the arrival of the 69xx cards pushes the price of the 58xx/59xx's down, or whether their prices will actually go up as they become harder to find. :?
Oh, and just to be on the safe side, I think I'd want something a little beefier than a mere 600w PSU if I were thinking of running two such cards in one system.
I guess it will be interesting to see whether the arrival of the 69xx cards pushes the price of the 58xx/59xx's down, or whether their prices will actually go up as they become harder to find. :?
Oh, and just to be on the safe side, I think I'd want something a little beefier than a mere 600w PSU if I were thinking of running two such cards in one system.
This has ended up more wordy wordy than I had intended, sorry, but PSUs and their issues are real important, often understated or ignored, and often the reason why users upgrading their systems find they either don't work, or give poor performance.
Definitely more than 600w, the latter is on the edge for two of those beasts, and with power, its always a good principle to have 30% in reserve for future hardware changes, peak power draw etc. It'll probably work - just - on 600w, but you'll do yourself no favours, the limitations will quickly become apparent, initially it will step down the voltages as it reaches its power draw limit. For two of those beasts I'd settle for nothing less than 800/850w PSU.
Another key aspect of PSUs is efficiency level, and its very common to get caught out by this as the temptation is to blindly take the manufacturers figures as a self excuse not to go one level up in PSU to save money for a better CPU = don't, thats fatal. The efficiency level is critical in choosing a power supply. The practicalities are as stark as they are simple. To oversimplify as an illustration - a cheap 600w PSU that runs at 70% efficiency rating (fairly typical) will actually only supply around 420w.
Or to put another way in another oversimplification, to supply 600w, it needs to pull 860w from the socket. The calculation does not work like that in practice for both examples, but those two simplistic examples gets across the principle, the problem, and the motivator to get a decent power supply. If you factor in the cost of electricity, a PSU at an efficiency rating of 85-90%, will pay for itself over the life of the PSU as overall less power is wasted. At the other end of the piece, an individual buying a cheap PSU thats just on the mark for theoretical power needs, can end up wondering why their system constantly bluescreens or just plain refuses to boot.
Finally, look at it this way, the PSU is at worst the second most important part of a system, I believe its the number one component for without a decent one it, your stuffed whatever you want to do. It makes no sense to shell out £500-£3,000 on a system, and then not spend an extra £40-50 for a quality PSU to protect your investment, and to make sure it will actually work, and over the life of the machine you'll get that additional spend back in consuming less power. Frankly its a no brainer, get a quality PSU with 30% power reserves.
A logo to watch for is the Gold, Silver, and Bronze ratings adopted by the industry to head off the sharks selling dodgy PSUs, and there are lots of the latter feeding off peoples ignorance of the above issues. Those ratings are solid and give practical reassurance you are getting whats on the label. I personally would recommend going Enermax's latest Revolution 85+ series of PSUs, they are superb and will last for ever and a day. I recently retired an old Enermax 350W in an old system that had been ticking away for well over ten years. Enermax certainly are not the only quality manufacturer of PSUs, but they rank up there in the top three, and I personally rate them as the best. I run a Enermax Revolution 850W in my main box, and a Enermax Modu87 Plus 600W in my second machine.
A couple of detailed Guru3d PSU reviews to read to get the whole picture, and anyone who was previously unaware, or in practice a little shaky about whats really happening with a PSU, please please read them if you are up for a new PSU, or were previously unaware that PSUs can be "sexy" rofl
, and that there are important practical issues to take note of, you will not regret it.
Enermax 600W
Enermax 850W
Enermax 1050W
Regards
Zy
Definitely more than 600w, the latter is on the edge for two of those beasts, and with power, its always a good principle to have 30% in reserve for future hardware changes, peak power draw etc. It'll probably work - just - on 600w, but you'll do yourself no favours, the limitations will quickly become apparent, initially it will step down the voltages as it reaches its power draw limit. For two of those beasts I'd settle for nothing less than 800/850w PSU.
Another key aspect of PSUs is efficiency level, and its very common to get caught out by this as the temptation is to blindly take the manufacturers figures as a self excuse not to go one level up in PSU to save money for a better CPU = don't, thats fatal. The efficiency level is critical in choosing a power supply. The practicalities are as stark as they are simple. To oversimplify as an illustration - a cheap 600w PSU that runs at 70% efficiency rating (fairly typical) will actually only supply around 420w.
Or to put another way in another oversimplification, to supply 600w, it needs to pull 860w from the socket. The calculation does not work like that in practice for both examples, but those two simplistic examples gets across the principle, the problem, and the motivator to get a decent power supply. If you factor in the cost of electricity, a PSU at an efficiency rating of 85-90%, will pay for itself over the life of the PSU as overall less power is wasted. At the other end of the piece, an individual buying a cheap PSU thats just on the mark for theoretical power needs, can end up wondering why their system constantly bluescreens or just plain refuses to boot.
Finally, look at it this way, the PSU is at worst the second most important part of a system, I believe its the number one component for without a decent one it, your stuffed whatever you want to do. It makes no sense to shell out £500-£3,000 on a system, and then not spend an extra £40-50 for a quality PSU to protect your investment, and to make sure it will actually work, and over the life of the machine you'll get that additional spend back in consuming less power. Frankly its a no brainer, get a quality PSU with 30% power reserves.
A logo to watch for is the Gold, Silver, and Bronze ratings adopted by the industry to head off the sharks selling dodgy PSUs, and there are lots of the latter feeding off peoples ignorance of the above issues. Those ratings are solid and give practical reassurance you are getting whats on the label. I personally would recommend going Enermax's latest Revolution 85+ series of PSUs, they are superb and will last for ever and a day. I recently retired an old Enermax 350W in an old system that had been ticking away for well over ten years. Enermax certainly are not the only quality manufacturer of PSUs, but they rank up there in the top three, and I personally rate them as the best. I run a Enermax Revolution 850W in my main box, and a Enermax Modu87 Plus 600W in my second machine.
A couple of detailed Guru3d PSU reviews to read to get the whole picture, and anyone who was previously unaware, or in practice a little shaky about whats really happening with a PSU, please please read them if you are up for a new PSU, or were previously unaware that PSUs can be "sexy" rofl
, and that there are important practical issues to take note of, you will not regret it.Enermax 600W
Enermax 850W
Enermax 1050W
Regards
Zy
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Joshrandom
- Posts: 5602
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:00 am
Well I've no doubt that you know more about this sort of thing than most of us Localizer (and after a couple of bad experiences myself, I can definitely agree that budget PSUs are anything but), but I still feel that the less experienced amongst us (myself included) who read this topic and are tempted to upgrade their systems in the near future could do a lot worse than take Zydor's points into consideration first.Localizer wrote:.... 600w works for me - although I would suggest a good PSU rather than a budget one. The figure is actually lifted from the XFX website system requirements section.
There is another key aspect to the PSU debate - a debate that always surfaces from time to time. In this aspect I focus on purely the Cruncher end of computing, clearly there are many other uses for PC beasts, kinda obvious, but in our world here we can at times lose sight of the fact that many machines crunching do have other other uses - crunching is not its primary reason for existence.
The aspect below, whilst always has been true, has only really surfaced recently as the logic is now stark and clear to most people, when you think in a different direction with no prejudices. Crunching has traditionally revolved around CPUs, for obvious reasons. No more, the results obtained from an average GPU - let alone a high end one - will easily outclass, and more, the CPU output of (say) a top range i7. Therefore it no longer makes sense to aquire box after box of (say) i7's, and only put in one or two GPU cards. Clearly motivations differ, and it may well be that the cruncher needs to crunch a CPU only project for personal reasons, no problem there. The number of projects that do not have a GPU app in development are getting fewer and fewer, so plan ahead. But to maximise the credit output for individual cash outlay, if thats a person's motivator, a different approach to focusing on mega cpu and treating GPUs almost as an add on only, is now needed.
There are - broadly - three limitators to a PC build and its longevity - the Case design, the motherboard design, and the power supply. Provided quality components are purchased in those three areas, the world of great flexibility opens up in terms of upgrading and incremental purchases. To relate that to the above re crunching machine. Focus on a new approach, buy quality in the three areas mentioned, then over time add the GPU card(s), particularly the dual GPU cards. AMD cpu design philosophy helps enormously here, as their cpu sockets last for a very long time, and they will ensure at least one cpu version backwards compatibility. A mega high end CPU is not required to service GPUs.
Therefore sit back and visualise a possible current approach used by many of (say) four i7s each with 2x5870s in them. Total up the costs of that. Now visualise two boxes, with 1090Ts, each with 2x5970s (totaling 8 gpus as before), and cost that. the latter is vastly cheaper by a massive amount. If you took one mega box with water cooled 4 x 5970s, even more so.
This kind of setup does not suit all of course, everyones situation is different, however despite the 5-10% edge 2 x 5780s have over 1 x 5970 due to internal crossfire overhead, the outcome verges on a no brainer. The capital cost can of course be prohibitive for some as its a lot to lay out in one go. However, back to the three critical components for a PC build longevity - case, motherboard, PSU - get those three sorted out with quality components, and over a five to ten year view slowly add the high end cards as money becomes available, and you quickly hit a very cost effective solution that will in the end always outperform separate boxes, with a massively less power bill outlay, and a very big cash saving.
It will not be a popular solution in some quarters, thats expected we all have individual needs, wants and desires, but in terms of bang for your buck, a huge power maintenance saving, and ability to quickly shift to latest components as needed, its hard to beat. Now view quality PSUs with reserves in that light, as well as a standalone proposition, and it becomes even more a no brainer. Horses for courses of course, but think carefully about it on a macro scale, and get out the calculator, you'll be surprised at the result. However, scimp on case, psu and motherboard, and you don't get past first base.
Regards
Zy
The aspect below, whilst always has been true, has only really surfaced recently as the logic is now stark and clear to most people, when you think in a different direction with no prejudices. Crunching has traditionally revolved around CPUs, for obvious reasons. No more, the results obtained from an average GPU - let alone a high end one - will easily outclass, and more, the CPU output of (say) a top range i7. Therefore it no longer makes sense to aquire box after box of (say) i7's, and only put in one or two GPU cards. Clearly motivations differ, and it may well be that the cruncher needs to crunch a CPU only project for personal reasons, no problem there. The number of projects that do not have a GPU app in development are getting fewer and fewer, so plan ahead. But to maximise the credit output for individual cash outlay, if thats a person's motivator, a different approach to focusing on mega cpu and treating GPUs almost as an add on only, is now needed.
There are - broadly - three limitators to a PC build and its longevity - the Case design, the motherboard design, and the power supply. Provided quality components are purchased in those three areas, the world of great flexibility opens up in terms of upgrading and incremental purchases. To relate that to the above re crunching machine. Focus on a new approach, buy quality in the three areas mentioned, then over time add the GPU card(s), particularly the dual GPU cards. AMD cpu design philosophy helps enormously here, as their cpu sockets last for a very long time, and they will ensure at least one cpu version backwards compatibility. A mega high end CPU is not required to service GPUs.
Therefore sit back and visualise a possible current approach used by many of (say) four i7s each with 2x5870s in them. Total up the costs of that. Now visualise two boxes, with 1090Ts, each with 2x5970s (totaling 8 gpus as before), and cost that. the latter is vastly cheaper by a massive amount. If you took one mega box with water cooled 4 x 5970s, even more so.
This kind of setup does not suit all of course, everyones situation is different, however despite the 5-10% edge 2 x 5780s have over 1 x 5970 due to internal crossfire overhead, the outcome verges on a no brainer. The capital cost can of course be prohibitive for some as its a lot to lay out in one go. However, back to the three critical components for a PC build longevity - case, motherboard, PSU - get those three sorted out with quality components, and over a five to ten year view slowly add the high end cards as money becomes available, and you quickly hit a very cost effective solution that will in the end always outperform separate boxes, with a massively less power bill outlay, and a very big cash saving.
It will not be a popular solution in some quarters, thats expected we all have individual needs, wants and desires, but in terms of bang for your buck, a huge power maintenance saving, and ability to quickly shift to latest components as needed, its hard to beat. Now view quality PSUs with reserves in that light, as well as a standalone proposition, and it becomes even more a no brainer. Horses for courses of course, but think carefully about it on a macro scale, and get out the calculator, you'll be surprised at the result. However, scimp on case, psu and motherboard, and you don't get past first base.
Regards
Zy
...... At the risk of restating the obvious - 5870s still cheap at Scan - £217 today.
PSUs have their place - but I don't have time or inclination to write a short answer to Zydor's lengthy tome.
Manufacturers state - 600w is fine for a pair of 5870s - I advise you to get a branded product rather than a budget one - won't be writing anymore on this subject!!
PSUs have their place - but I don't have time or inclination to write a short answer to Zydor's lengthy tome.
Manufacturers state - 600w is fine for a pair of 5870s - I advise you to get a branded product rather than a budget one - won't be writing anymore on this subject!!
Hi BenBen wrote:What puts me off a bit is the sound my HD4850x2 makes when running. Similar to the Harrier jump jet on takeoff! :roll:
I have an HD5870 in a computer sat on my left as I type this, its running DNETC.
I can barely hear it. It's at 98% activity, fan speed is 31% and it's 75C.
Of course, any noise could be being drowned out by the 2 Nvidia carded machines sat on my right but I'm fairly sure that if I turned off the nvidia machines (shock horror) then I would still barely hear it.
You could play with manually setting the fan speed in CCC, I do that with the GPUs in my office so we can't hear them, otherwise they scream a tad.
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UBT - mickyb69
- Posts: 1655
- Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:00 am
Wow ...Buy it ...chuck it in and if it blows up buy a new PSU