New motherboard and two new graphics cards

[DKRON]

I used to run a Gigabyte X58 UD9 Motherboard and 2x HIS 5850's with extra cooling features, i broke a few things on that motherboard and blew up one of the 5850's lol

So i am buying a new Gigabyte G1 Sniper motherboard and 2 new ASUS Radeon 6970 DirectCU II 2GB, will my 850w power supply still be enough?

 

[dividebyzero]

If you're still planning on OC'ing the CPU -and presumeably the cards...then probably depends on the power efficiency of the PSU and age...and how much power in reserve you're comfortable with. You were talking about taking the 950 to 4GHz...that's pushing into the 180-200w zone. Crossfired cards will likely take you to ~550w. Overclocking the cards to any reasonable extent could add another 100w - say 650w system total.

850w PSU @ 85% efficiency = 723w. Anything less than 85% might be pushing it.

 

[DKRON]

don't need to overclock the GPU's they are already stock overclocked, thanks for that link, shows overclocking the CPU pretty simple, was just abit worried because crossfire 6970's from what i've heard use 596w http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1488/18/ and then thats only the stock card as well

 

[dividebyzero]

don't need to overclock the GPU's they are already stock overclocked

Ah, the power of marketing !
Stock 6970 = 880M Core/ 5500M effective memory...
DCII 6970 = 890M Core/ 5500M effective memory.

While a 1.1% core OC is overclocked by the letter of the law, I'm not entirely certain it qualifies in spirit...if you know what I mean.

was just abit worried because crossfire 6970's from what i've heard use 596w http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1488/18/ and then thats only the stock card as well

What were you worried about then? Legit's bench rig was using a 850w Corsair PSU...albeit using a stock clocked CPU.

If you were looking for a Nehalem overclocking guide, this one at OCN is probably better than most.

 

[DKRON]

haha true i do get what you mean, but they still give a average of a 15% boost in fps in all the tests i've read so it must do something. i am 90% sure it should be ok but they might be using a different CPU and motherboard and also im running alot of cooling stuff like the V10 and all the big fans.

The G1 Sniper uses more power then normal boards because of its Network killer card and DTS audio built in

 

[dividebyzero]

Stock vs OC ( All D0 step 920/930/950/960 are in the same ballpark regarding power consumption)

[Source: Bit-tech] - just realised you probably didn't realize the graph was the link.

You may want to factor in the difference between OC and stock into your 596w figure.

 

[DKRON]

the 596w was only for the 2 6970's

thats why i was abit worried, because then i have to add the cpu and motherboard

 

[dividebyzero]

C'mon fella, keep up.

From the article:

For load numbers we measured the peak wattage used by the system while running the OpenGL benchmark FurMark 1.8.2 at 1280x1024 resolution.

If 596w were for two cards only it means each was pulling close to 300w. HD 6970 at stock don't roll like that.

 

[DKRON]

im tired atm lol, oh thanks for that haha, im much happier now

 

[DKRON]

that wasn't my brightest moment