crossfire question

N

newbs

Gawd
Joined
Jul 7, 2010
Messages
735
Does anyone know if you can run 2 3870x2's and a single 3870 all crossfired? There are enough physical crossfire connectors.
 
Hopefully your motherboard can properly support Tri-fire, and your PSU is good enough.

Honestly you should upgrade to a new card. Heat and power consumption would go down A LOT.
 
yeah but I have like 4 spare 3870x2 and 6 3870 and I have blown most of my upgrade budget for awhile and this will be part of upgrading my wife's pc. She already running a 3870x2 and 3870 on a tagan 1000 watt power supply with a i7 860 with 12gb going to a i7 950 with 12 or 15gb of ram. I've got a bfg ex1000 or a silver stone 1k if the tagan is not up to it as well as stepping her up to water cooling. As for heat our computer room has a dedicated AC unit so heat is not to much of an issue. As for power consumption it's not as bad as everyone seems to think my gameing pc draws a little over 600watt during hardcore gameing including my monitors.
 
You may still be able to get $30 to $50 a piece for the X2 cards, and perhaps $15 to $20 for the others. It sounds like a pittance, and it is, but with 10 cards to sell, it should add up to enough for decent mid range card. There is still a shit ton of gaming performance to be had in the $200 to $300 range.
 
The wife does not need anything more performance wise then what she has,the most intense game she plays is borderlands and she will get an upgrade when I get around to upgradeing mine again. I would put in some 4870 1gig's but they are just heaters and one of them is the same performance wise as one of the 3870x2. Eventually she will either get my 2xgtx465 or 3xgtx470.
 
man i totally misread your post. you can't CF more than 4. i thought you meant a single X2 + another 3870.... no, you cannot have 2 3870 x2's + another 3870.
 
What the last 2 people said, I also thought it was a single x2, my bad

Up to 4 cards will work though. Frankly....at that point though....do you just not have to pay the power bill where you live?! 5x 3870s is like.....a 5850 in performance.
 
No I pay for power but like I said before the computers don't use that much power and we don't leave them on 24/7 my gameing computer with tri sli 3 monitors multiple hard drives etc and it only sucks 600 to 650 under full on gameing. Just trying to use what I have to the best, maybe I should use the two 4870 1gigs I have they just seem so hot and power hungry.
 
The 3870x2s almost definitely use more power than a 4870

And that 600-650 figure is maybe the computer itself, no way that includes monitors haha.
 
newbs said:
No I pay for power but like I said before the computers don't use that much power and we don't leave them on 24/7 my gameing computer with tri sli 3 monitors multiple hard drives etc and it only sucks 600 to 650 under full on gameing. Just trying to use what I have to the best, maybe I should use the two 4870 1gigs I have they just seem so hot and power hungry.
Click to expand...

you are worried about heat and power from 2 4870s, but are running 3 470s in another PC? :eek: lol
 
scook9 said:
The 3870x2s almost definitely use more power than a 4870

And that 600-650 figure is maybe the computer itself, no way that includes monitors haha.
Click to expand...

Nope it includes the lcd's all going thru a killawatt meter at idle it's a little under 400watts. My cpu does not use much power since it's a 32nm es overclocked it does not even break 39c. I just remember running my 4870 1gigs in crossfire being really hot and her current setup of the 3870x2 and 3870(single slot)being cooler. Not worried about the power tho not sure how that came across,but want to keep it under the needs of a 1000watt power supply. My tri 470's don't get to hot but they get a little noisy when gameing but not enough to ntice and I'll be adding a 200mm fan blowing right on them to keep there temp lower and noise down since it is only 19dba.
 
Heat != power consumed

If you have an efficient cooler then you can have a chip run cool while consuming more power than a less efficiently cooled one
 
newbs said:
stock 920 cooler with voltage at 1.4 and heatsink is barely warm
Click to expand...

i7 920 at 1.4? Dude lower that, you shouldn't go past 1.35. I don't even know why you have it that high. I can get 4ghz at 1.275. Who cares about heat at that point there's a limit to the amount of current you can push through a electrical component.
 
maybe warm at idle....put it under load and you WILL overheat and force the processor to shut down
 
it's not a 920 cpu it's a 920 heatsink and fan it's an es hex core running at 16x200
 
sorry it's been running like that for months no problem gameing for hours on end
 
these 32nm 80watt 1366 cpu's run so cool it's not funny, I'm trying to get a hold of one of the 33 watt xeons but just no luck yet
 
King Icewind said:
i7 920 at 1.4? Dude lower that, you shouldn't go past 1.35. I don't even know why you have it that high. I can get 4ghz at 1.275. Who cares about heat at that point there's a limit to the amount of current you can push through a electrical component.
Click to expand...

run a 920 for 2 years at 4ghz with 1.45v no issue.
new i7 950 runs at 1.3v 4ghz.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top