4850 Quad Crossfire Not Possible With 1100 Watt Power Supply?

[Robert-The-Rambler]

Well, I got my new Apevia Warlock power supply yesterday and after exhausting every option available it appears that even an 1100 watt power supply with 4 30 amp 12 volt rails can't power 4 Radeon 4850s. Here is my current setup for my main gaming oriented rig.

HP LP3065 30" Monitor with 2560 * 1600 resolution

Apevia Warlock 1100 watt power supply

Antec 900 gaming case: It has a huge 200mm fan that blows upward out of the case (After some gaming 24 degrees Celcius System Temp and 29 degree CPU)

MSI K9A2 Platinum: AMD 790FX Chipset with 4 PCI Express Slots for graphics cards

AMD X2 5600 watercooled with a Nautilus 500 external watercooling unit

3 Radeon 4850s in triple crossfire

Soundblaster X-Fi

8 gigs of DDR2 800 RAM (Only 4 active due to 32 bit operating system)

2 500 gig Seagate SATA 2 Hard Drives (My 3rd one was damaged when a piece snapped off the SATA power connection) Unfortunately that was my main boot drive resulting in having to reload Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit)

SATA power cables and their connectors are such a pain where the sun doesn't shine. If space is limited then good luck. The pressure from twisting those cables is ridiculous.

I've tried everything. I connected one component at a time to see what would cause the problem. Everything worked until the 4th video card. The power supply shuts off immediately when you add the 4th card and connect the PCI Express 6 pin cable to it. It actually will power up without the 4th 6 pin connector attached but once you connect that 4th card it just doesn't work. Its a lot like a grounding issue but that would happen before getting all the way to the 4th card.

Any suggestions?

P.S Even with "just" 3 4850s COD4 gets over 100 FPS much of the time without VSYNC.

[BaneNWN]

You might be better off sticking with 2 cards i just read a review with a crossfire setup like you have and it seems the more cards you use from 2 to 4 cards you actually get a decrease in performance.you score higher in 3d marks but in gaming it goes down hill after 2 cards.heres the review here and i wish i could help you with your problem hoever i never had anything close to what you have but id think that power supply could launch a space shuttle lol.anyways read the review here if you ever want to get rid of one of those 4850's let me know ill buy one from ya for what u paid for it.review here http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1475/11/four_radeon_hd_4850s_in_crossfirex/index.html

[Robert-The-Rambler]

You might be better off sticking with 2 cards i just read a review with a crossfire setup like you have and it seems the more cards you use from 2 to 4 cards you actually get a decrease in performance.you score higher in 3d marks but in gaming it goes down hill after 2 cards.heres the review here and i wish i could help you with your problem hoever i never had anything close to what you have but id think that power supply could launch a space shuttle lol.anyways read the review here if you ever want to get rid of one of those 4850's let me know ill buy one from ya for what u paid for it.review here http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1475/11/four_radeon_hd_4850s_in_crossfirex/index.html

Thanks, Bane.

I'll see how the drivers shape up over the next few months. Right now I'm using drivers that don't even mention the 4800s at all. Catalyst 8,6 only goes up to the 3800 series officially. Anyhow performance is largely good but some bugaboos are coming up like not being able to run Hellgate London at all and Frontlines not running at all with crossfire. Anyway, Happy 4th everybody!!!!

[Mochan]

And that is why I am going with a single card solution. ;)

[BaneNWN]

And that is why I am going with a single card solution. ;)

ya most id ever try would be a 2 card sli configuration even with that your not getting much bang for the buck.I agree 1 card is plenty.I might try sli one day if they can tell me it gets 50% more performance then a signle card till that happens ill probably just stick with 1

[Robert-The-Rambler]

ya most id ever try would be a 2 card sli configuration even with that your not getting much bang for the buck.I agree 1 card is plenty.I might try sli one day if they can tell me it gets 50% more performance then a signle card till that happens ill probably just stick with 1

I just tried the 4th 4850 in my other PC and guess what; it shorts out that power supply (BFG 650 Watt with 2 20 AMP 12v rails) too, even though it is the only video card. I'm convinced the video card is defective!!!! I've never been more excited about that. I will not give up on Quad. I will make it happen yet.

I'm going run my arse over to Bestbuy and exchange this mofo and fingers crossed I'm hoping to get this baby going. I will report more later.

[BaneNWN]

RTR if you have halflife lost cost they have a graphics card test in there menu to.I tried it lastnight and with everything set to max with 4x AA and 8x AF 1600x1200 yes my monitor goes that high only problem is about 1/2 inch of picture doesnt show on screen.well anyways i averaged 180 FPS they really got that graphics engine optimized not only that lost coast is argueably the best looking game even today.I think its up there with crysis if not better

[Robert-The-Rambler]

RTR if you have halflife lost cost they have a graphics card test in there menu to.I tried it lastnight and with everything set to max with 4x AA and 8x AF 1600x1200 yes my monitor goes that high only problem is about 1/2 inch of picture doesnt show on screen.well anyways i averaged 180 FPS they really got that graphics engine optimized not only that lost coast is argueably the best looking game even today.I think its up there with crysis if not better

The Quad Crossfire Numbers are with everything maxed included 16x anisotropic filtering and 6X FSAA I averaged 129.29 fps.

[BaneNWN]

ok i had some corrupted files that i fixed now with 1600x1200 res with 16x AF and 6X FSAA i average 197 fps in the lost coast stress test.

[Robert-The-Rambler]

ok i had some corrupted files that i fixed now with 1600x1200 res with 16x AF and 6X FSAA i average 197 fps in the lost coast stress test.

It sure is fast.