computer upgrade time

A few things.  I'm looking to get this video card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102813

It's basically two Radeon 4850s slapped together via crossfire, uses 1 PCI slot.  I've heard nothing but great things about this card, but I'm worried that my measly 500W power supply can't handle such a beastly card.  Any ideas?

For anyone interested, the other upgrades include adding the final gig of ram that my comp will support.  Possibly replacing all my DDR2 800 with DDR3 1333.

Another thing, when I bought my case I didn't realize the huge cooling issues that can arise with a poorly designed, $30 case.  Thus, I feel if I am getting an even more powerful card (I have an 8800GT), with the cooling problems I already have, I should get a better case.  Currently looking at this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144202

Thoughts?

Edited by WGP guy2 - 29 May 2009 at 4:10pm

Check out Silverstone, OCZ or PCP&C (technically the same thing, but OCZ still uses PCP&C as their high end line) for a PSU. Personally, I recommend this.

DDR3 is fantastic memory, however to get the performance from it, you should be running
i7, otherwise you wont be able to take advantage of the triple channel ram.

As for cases, all personal preference. Personally, I prefer cases with just horizontal airflow, but side vents blowing in can be good for your add-on cards. It all depends on your configuration.  If this is a case you will have for a while, Aluminum is the way to go, especially if you are shipping it a ways.  If you like a nicer case, Silverstone is one of the best for high end cases.

You may be able to remedy your cooling situation a bit with some good fans.  If you want silent and solid airflow, check out Yate Loons (Only buy them from Petra's, many other stores carry fakes). If you want the most powerful fans you can buy, Deltas are the way to go.  When I was looking for fans, I picked up a bunch of Silverstone FM121 fans and they were plenty powerful for me, so you may want to check them out as well.  Just by properly pinning back/sleeving your cables, clearing out dust and adding some better airflow your temps will drop drastically.

Always a smart choice, especially if it means when you do buy you can afford the top of the line.

In the mean time, you may want to consider OCing that card if you haven't already. The process is all software these days and poses almost no risk. Assuming you don't pour water on it or physically damage the card(such as overvolting or any thing like that), most manufacturers will replace a card destroyed by OCing. 880GTs have been getting some good clocks.

Darur wrote: Check out Silverstone, OCZ or PCP&C (technically the same thing, but OCZ still uses PCP&C as their high end line) for a PSU. Personally, I recommend this. DDR3 is fantastic memory, however to get the performance from it, you should be running i7, otherwise you wont be able to take advantage of the triple channel ram. ...

I'll second the power supply suggestion. Also, I just read up on DDR3 compared to DDR2 and, at current speeds, it's not really worth the money. You can get some performance out of it but it's very small in most cases. Basically, don't spend a lot of money on the RAM because it won't pay off.

I keep this under my graphics card. It really moves a lot of air.

Darur wrote: Personally, I disagree with all the flak DDR3 is getting. Even last year it was solid RAM and there were noticeable gains from using it over DDR2.  Many users resent it because of the higher timings, the same way DDR2 bothered many DDR fans.  There was a fabulous article on my old forum discussing the benefits that everyone glosses over but I can't find it. There are very nice benefits to DDR3, but right now I will agree the cost to performance ratio isn't the best. If you can afford it though, I say go for it.

I didn't mean to say DDR3 was bad in any way. As you said, it's just like when DDR2 first came out. The first batch of DDR3 isn't a tremendous leap over DDR2 but eventually that will change and prices will drop more. You can get some cheap DDR3 now and you can pay a premium for the top of the line stuff but the performance gain isn't proportional to the price difference (in the opinion of most people, this is subjective though). The point I was trying to make is exactly what you said in the last sentence there. The top end stuff just isn't worth the high price tag in my opinion because the performance gained isn't an awful lot in most cases. But if you're the type that needs the best of everything and you have the money, go ahead and do it. My opinion is based on some tests that were done in the last issue of MaximumPC where they did a big comparison of DDR2 vs DDR3. They compared quantity, clock/bandwidth ratings, and DDR2 against DDR3 to see which gave the most benefit.

Bottom line: you can't lose with DDR3, it will never perform worse than DDR2 and will sometimes do better. If the price is good enough for you, there's no reason not to get it.