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crossfire sometimes stupid idea?

A

aweusx2

Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2010
Messages
527
well i have a few of each cards, few 4850 few 4890 and some x48 and p45 dfi motherboards with quad cores and 8gb ram, im wondering if i can use crossfire sometimes and most the time just unplug the power from the card / pull the card out or will i need to reinstall drivers each time? I know crossfire doesnt help much with some games and i dont gave often so seems like waste (of electricity etc) to have it running at all times on all computers
 
I think crossfire 4890's should be fast in just about any game, only you are stuck with DX10. You would want to completely pull the card if you don't want the power draw, but the drivers will pick up automatically, then only need one reboot after.

What's your question again? Why not just sell one of the other cards to make up for a years worth of extra power draw and then not worry about it?
 
lol i have 4890s crossfired. It can play anything out right now with it all cranked and everything. Give it a shot. The power isn't that significant and people say. At idle both cards aren't wasting much power. 4890 is more power efficient than a 4870. Its when you get into 3d mode that it wastes more power depending on how much load the cards have also. It all depends though on how long you play the games mostly. I wouldn't worry about it that much. If you disconnect a card it will give you a screen saying to plug in a power connector so theres no point in that. Do a trifire 4890 :) You can always disable crossfire in the drivers and have only 1 card running in 3d mode so you won't really waste any power on those extra cards as they aren't being ran in 3d mode. It'll be like they are idling.
 
They don't really run all the time. When you're in desktop, the 2nd card get its power underclocked...CF isn't really a bad idea. It gives you so many other options when you have that possibility.
 
The cards power down when not in use to a much slower clock speed and lower voltages, the idle power of video card now a days, even when considered over the span of months is negligable, it's honestly not worth worrying about.
 
Ok Thanks for replies, My little boy will leave games running all the time so if i alt tab back to desktop will it still draw a lot of power? What happens if i dont take the card out and just yank the power? I guess i will find out thanks
 
aweusx2 said:
Ok Thanks for replies, My little boy will leave games running all the time so if i alt tab back to desktop will it still draw a lot of power? What happens if i dont take the card out and just yank the power? I guess i will find out thanks
Click to expand...

If you alt-tab to desktop, the card will go back to idle. Don't bother yanking the power, the extra draw of the card will mean nothing much more than leaving a single lightbulb on in the house, about 60 watts.
 
Don't go a-yankin' anything, just leave it alone. The cost of the power it requires is really not worth worrying about.
 
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