HD7870 (Tahiti LE) on a 520w psu? Possible?

[subucni]

Seriously tempted in going for one of these http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...age=3&rqcType= but not sure if my old Corsair HX520 will handle it?

What do you reckon?

Will be going in a build with:

• Asus P8Z68-V LX Board
• Intel i3 2120 CPU
• 2 sticks of DDR3 but will being going up to 4.
• 1x SSD
• 2-3x HDDs
• DVD writer (probably upgrade to a Blu Ray drive eventually too.
• Few USB devices and a handful of case fans.

I don't think i've left anything out. Just worried, i might be cutting it a little fine with the HX520.
Cheers.

[Biscuit]

Seriously tempted in going for one of these http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...age=3&rqcType= but not sure if my old Corsair HX520 will handle it?

What do you reckon?

Will be going in a build with:

• Asus P8Z68-V LX Board
• Intel i3 2120 CPU
• 2 sticks of DDR3 but will being going up to 4.
• 1x SSD
• 2-3x HDDs
• DVD writer (probably upgrade to a Blu Ray drive eventually too.
• Few USB devices and a handful of case fans.

I don't think i've left anything out. Just worried, i might be cutting it a little fine with the HX520.
Cheers.

You will be well within capacity mate

[Agent]

520W is an overkill for that system, never mind being possible

[grayg1]

I wouldn't be as certain as everyone else due to PSU components aging and reducing maximum output and it's not like you're running a bare system there. A tahiti 7870 is like running a 7950 so it's pretty hungry, If you run into stability issues just remember to start taking away non critical components.

The main thing is that you have x2 PCI-E 6 pin cables available to attach to the PSU and if you don't ask Corsair to send you some.

[subucni]

Really? sweet! Was just unsure about it under full load with the amount of HDDs. Figured it was better to get opinions than find out the hard way.

:Edit: Yeah, i've got the cables already, corsair sent me a couple 6+2s a while back. cheers for the input.

[grayg1]

You could try http://www.extreme.outervision.com/p...ulatorlite.jsp for a rough guide as to how much you'll be drawing under 90% load (you can change it to 100% but it's not realistic), but add 20%-30% to capacitor aging as it says.

[subucni]

Yeah, i tried that before posting and was around 514w, thats why i thought i better check.

I'm not sure how the rest of my old system compares but i never had a problem running a 512mb 4870 before it died on me, and http://www.hwcompare.com/12276/radeo...adeon-hd-7870/ and http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...-tahiti-le/19/ suggest the 7870 uses about 20-25w more.

Anyone got any idea how the power consumption of an i3 2120 compares to an Athlon X2 64 4800+ (socket 939), or how an Asus P8Z68-V LX compares to an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe?

[kalniel]

You could try http://www.extreme.outervision.com/p...ulatorlite.jsp for a rough guide as to how much you'll be drawing under 90% load

Don't. It'll be wrong.

[kompukare]

Or you could take a reading like this:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/g...-tahiti-le/11/

Where the total system load was 342W. Their test system is a Asus P8Z77-V with a i7-3770K clocked to 4.5GHz. So a bit more power hungry than your i3.

Or Hexus's 7870LE review:
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...0-myst/?page=9
Max total system draw 251W. A bit less than computerbase's but then their i7-3770K is not overclocked.

Or Wizard's review over at TPU:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...iti_LE/26.html

GPU only was max 175W. I'd say you'll be fine. The HX520 got reviews from the PSU guru too:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...Story2&reid=18

[subucni]

Or you could take a reading like this:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/g...-tahiti-le/11/

Where the total system load was 342W. Their test system is a Asus P8Z77-V with a i7-3770K clocked to 4.5GHz. So a bit more power hungry than your i3.

Cheers all, why didn't i just think about it like that in the first place, that make a perfect argument for why it shouldn't have a problem.
Thanks a lot.

If it's 250mm like Aria say it should fit in my case fine, finding it very hard to find a good reason not to buy it now, especially as Aria have said they have been chucking in Tomb raider in with it too.

[Agent]

You could try http://www.extreme.outervision.com/p...ulatorlite.jsp for a rough guide as to how much you'll be drawing under 90% load (you can change it to 100% but it's not realistic), but add 20%-30% to capacitor aging as it says.

Not really any point doing this: The figures are usually wrong and not even close in a lot of cases.

Even with ageing, that PSU should be more than enough to power it. It's the efficiency of the PSU that tends to change more over time (drawing more than previously) than the total output. Given that most peoples PSU, enthusiasts included, are vastly overpowered for their needs these days it's really not something to worry about.

All that to one side, what they are saying about modern capacitors is infuriating. "Electrolytic capacitor aging....We recommend you add 10-20% if you plan to keep your PSU for more than 1 year, or 20-30% for 24/7 usage and 1+ years." It makes my brain hurt and angers me to sites like this still get used with such bad information. There is an old thread on here somewhere where multiple people explain why you shouldn't use this site in particular, worth checking out if you're interested.

Temperature (operating and ambient) is one of the most important factors when calculating life of capacitors. Without this value, you can't really calculate much.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Seriously tempted in going for one of these http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...age=3&rqcType= but not sure if my old Corsair HX520 will handle it?

What do you reckon?

Will be going in a build with:

• Asus P8Z68-V LX Board
• Intel i3 2120 CPU
• 2 sticks of DDR3 but will being going up to 4.
• 1x SSD
• 2-3x HDDs
• DVD writer (probably upgrade to a Blu Ray drive eventually too.
• Few USB devices and a handful of case fans.

I don't think i've left anything out. Just worried, i might be cutting it a little fine with the HX520.
Cheers.

I would either go with a FX6300 or a low end Core i5.

What is your total budget for the CPU,motherboard,RAM and graphics card??

[subucni]

Cheers for the suggestions Cat but i bought the board, CPU, and ram ages ago. Just had all sorts of hdd and laptop issues crop up at the time so it got put on the back burner until I was sure all data was recovered. Then I just never got around to building it.

Recently my 4870 started giving me artifacts and crashes so back onto a 6800gs atm. Was going to wait for 8000 series but as they are delayed have been keeping an eye out for a 7850 bargain. £180 for the 7870 is a bit more than I'd like to spend but I'm figuring that it may give me a bit longer future proofing (providing it doesn't die on me). I'd quite like to play tomb raider and bioshock infinite too, not overly excited by the others but may play them or sell the codes to offset the price a little.

[subucni]

Anyone have any idea how long this card is? Aria say 250mm approx. But it looks the same as the Powercolor Myst and the Club3d Joker XT, which are both 267mm. Which is right on the limit of fitting inside my case http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/landing/scout/faq.php Anything over and it wont fit.

Also any other suggestions or reasons why i shouldn't buy?

:Edit: Just found this, the Club3d and vtx3d are the same size http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...1&postcount=18

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Apart from the Sapphire HD7870LE/XT the other cards are the same design made by TUL.

[subucni]

Cheers all. managed to order last night now. Bit expensive but hopefully a great late night purchase.