Radeon HD 5850 + PSU

[heregono]

I have the opportunity to pick up a cheap Radeon HD 5850 and pass along my current GPU to a friend. However, I'm wondering if the HD 5850 would be fine on my current 500w PSU and if it's worth buying. The PSU has combined 40A on the 12v rails and is a Coolermaster Elite 500w.

At the moment it's powering a Phenom X6 1055T (125w version), 8GB of DDR3 memory (2GBx4), 2 7200rpm drives and a Geforce GTX 550Ti.

Is it worth buying over my 550Ti and if it is, could my PSU handle it?

Cheers

[HalloweenJack]

about a 50% performance increase and the 500w should be fine

[heregono]

about a 50% performance increase and the 500w should be fine

Thanks. One further question - Does the HD 5850 clock down when not in use?

[Dottorrent]

No. The Evergreen (HD 5000) series GPUs does not feature AMD's Zerocore technology, allowing the graphics card to use less energy while not in use.

[HalloweenJack]

yes, it does 157/300 I think


you overclocked your 1055 yet? mine did 3.2 on stock volts

[heregono]

Thanks guys - very helpful!

HalloweenJack: I've OC'ed it very slightly in the past and it does 3.2Ghz without any change to volts ect. Returned it to stock after a month and not done it since although as I have a decent aftermarket cooler too I really should look at OC'ing it for a bit more power!

[c12038]

yes, it does 157/300 I think


you overclocked your 1055 yet? mine did 3.2 on stock volts

yes your correct it uses Powerplay for the powersaving side lowers clocks when idle this then reduces power consumption to roughly 19w or 25w

[Eraovius]

You can stay relaxed 500W are more than you need for a 5850 and that GPU is really good in gaming

[munkey99]

You can stay relaxed 500W are more than you need for a 5850 and that GPU is really good in gaming

I had a 5850 running with a 95w CPU wuite happily on a budget 400w PSU without any glitches. They do have lower 2D clocks and drop their power requirements accordingly but the clock speeds and power demands vary by card manufacturer and bios.

[Eraovius]

I had a 5850 running with a 95w CPU wuite happily on a budget 400w PSU without any glitches. They do have lower 2D clocks and drop their power requirements accordingly but the clock speeds and power demands vary by card manufacturer and bios.

Of course clock speeds and power demands vary by card manufacturer and bios, but he can take it easy, there are not 100W difference between 5850 models

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Elite series PSUs are not that great though. The Elite Power 460W was actually a 400W PSU and based on an older design.

Would it would run an HD5850?? The HD5850 1GB does not consume a massive amount of power though,so you should in theory be able to get away with using your existing PSU IMHO, as a GTX550TI consumes about the same amount of power when running games.

[Eraovius]

The Elite series PSUs are not that great though. The Elite Power 460W was actually a 400W PSU and based on an older design.

Would it would run an HD5850?? The HD5850 1GB does not consume a massive amount of power though,so you should in theory be able to get away with using your existing PSU IMHO, as a GTX550TI consumes about the same amount of power when running games.

You're right, and i can't don't-quote-you (and i love your avatar). I put a link of AnandTechBench who shows that power consumption between 5850 and 550Ti is the same, more or less (less of 20w difference but 5850 has better performance). Full system power is about 300W, with a i7, with a Phenom2 we can say it's 50w higher in full load (just to be sure, i think difference in W is less than 50W).
BTW he got a 500W elite with 40A on +12 line I prefear to buy XFX PSUs generally, but with 500W i think he will be ok

sorry 4 my english, i know i always make many mistakes