DQ965GF and Radeon 5850

[wolfram23]

Hello,
I'm wondering if I can use a Radeon 5850 GPU on my DQ965GF motherboard with a 2.6ghz dual core processor. I intend to upgrade the board and CPU but not for a few months, while I need a GPU now.

 

[wolfram23]

Yea, I will need to buy a power supply. Any recomendations? I was just going to pick something in the 600W area for a decent price.

 

[flyinfinni]

As long as your PSU can handle it, the motherboard should be just fine. If you have a crappy PSU though, you could have some pretty big problems.

 

[flyinfinni]

Even a 450W from Corsair would probably be sufficient, but a 500W+ would probably be a generally better buy. I might even go for a larger one to give yourself a little more upgradable headroom for crossfire or whatever in the future, if thats something that you might eventually consider.

 

[wolfram23]

Thanks for all the replies!

When I do upgrade the motherboard, I will definitely get 2 PCIe slots and that way I think I could potentially crossfire a 2nd 5850 when a single one is no longer sufficient, although I have zero experience in that sort of thing.

At the local place I'm looking for all these parts, for PSUs, they have Enermax, Antec, and Coolmaster. I was looking at the ANTEC BASIQ BP550 PLUS 550W ATX12V 2.2 because it's only $80

 

[flyinfinni]

That PSU should be fine, though you can do much better if you are willing to shop online. You can get a solid 750W PSU for around that price from a site like newegg.com

 

[wolfram23]

Ah well unfortunately it doesn't appear that Newegg ships to Canada. Which is too bad, they have lots of good stuff.

 

[flyinfinni]

Ahh right- Canada Good thing Newegg has a canadian part of the site! Sadly, the prices in Canada aren't as good as the US, but yeah- I guess thats pretty typical of prices in Canada for many things.

 

[wolfram23]

Hey guys thanks again lots of good info. I guess I'll pick up that power source on newegg.ca, the OCZ one. Looks like good quality.

As to the video card, I saw a lot of different ones on newegg apparently they're "pre O.C.ed". And example being the Sapphire Toxic edition. Is there really any point to buying these more expensive models, or can I O.C. it myself in the BIOS and save at least $30? Looks like they got the memory speed up from 1000mhz to 4500mhz which seems like a huge boost, and I don't know how they managed that although I'm willing to learn.

 

[flyinfinni]

Exactly CT1615. OC on your own and save the cash.
BTW- the memory at "4500 Mhz" is really clocked at 1125 MHz. The 4500 is the "effective speed" of GDDR5 when clocked at 1125MHz. So really, they've got it OCed from 1000 MHz (effective 4000MHz) to 1125 (effective 4500). so its still a pretty big step, but not quite as big as it looks like

 

[wolfram23]

Perfect! You guys rock.

 

[flyinfinni]

Have fun with it

 

[wolfram23]

I'm sure I will, but I'll also be back asking for OCing help haha. But I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

 

[flyinfinni]

Sounds good. Let us know if you run into any problems