A friend of mine just told me that he unlocked both hes 6950''s to 6970's and they only pull 340 watts at max power. So long as you are not running a bunch of lights,fans,HDD,overclocks and whatnot I see no reason why the 525 cant run the crossfire. And like I said if it cant just buy the booster.
EDIT: He is running a 650watt psu btw with a 4.1 cpu overclock and both cards are overclocked.
What I do not know is what power supply (525w or 875w) you will receive if you configure the Aurora with only one video card at the point of sale. You will need the 875w for dual video cards.
The 6850 uses two 6-pins and in crossfire at max watt only pulls 329 watts. They do say 500watt for a single card and add another 150watt per card added to the system but in crossfire they still only pull 329 watts. Thats only about 75watts more then a single GTX 480.
In this review they say 500watt for a single and add 150watt per card but as you can see on their test system with both cards stressed only reached 473 watts.
If it was me I would try it no matter if I had the 525 or the 875 but thats me :P If it doesn't work you can buy a booster for $80 that will then allow you to SLI any card on the market.
Here is a video of a guy running 6950 crossfire and crysis on high settings with a 560w PSU. Go to Youtube and read hes comments if you want hes full system specs.: [View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7raBe0KSROM]
The R3's come with the 875watt PSU. They all do or they should anyway. The PSU would not have any trouble running the 6950's in crossfire, The Dell rep posted something on here about the PSU's and what it can support. Have a scroll around in the forums and you should find it. I am pretty sure that the 6950's that come with the R3 is not an OEM unit as I was able to flash it to the 6970 BIOS (unlocked shaders and clocks) and use the drivers from AMD directly.
The only thing is adding another card would be a tight fit in the case, you may have to re-run some of the wires elsewhere but let me know how you go with the crossfire as I am planning to buy another 6950 in a few months.
FYI if you decide to unlock to 6970 use modded BIOS. I do not recommend using 6970 BIOS. The 6970 BIOS have a higher memory voltage and different timings that has caused damage over time and GSODs to SOME cards(It might work for you but why risk it). I suggest getting the custom BIOS that have only unlocked shaders then you set to 6970 clocks. It gives the same peformance with zero risk. Just do a quick Google search and you should find it! Here is just ONE of many posts reporting issues with fully unlocked 6950's.
I tried the 6950 to 6970 thing and it just wasn't worth it.
Frame rate improved some but nothing that made a significant difference. What I did notice was a significant increase in wattage and a very significant increase in heat.
I found that just turning down the quality of a few settings increased performace while not having any noticeable affect.
When the card ran with full 6970 bios and shaders, the fan ran very hard and the noise difference was distracting. The fan sound also seemed to constantly change at that high a speed.
I went back to the stock settings but kept the extra shaders.
If you choose to go 6970 this site shows you how. It doesn't explain every step in detail and you will need to reference the pictures as well while following the directions to make sure you are on the right page.
How did you measure the difference in wattage? I didn't notice a difference in heat (maxes out at around 70c playing Crisis for 2 hours) but I have my fan running at 50% while gaming.
I monitored the wattage difference using the APC Power Chute software. It displays the wattage the battery backup system is providing. I don't recall the actual difference but it was double digits at idle.
There was a significant heat increase. I use a custom fan / temp scale using MSI After burner. I set it a bit high to start with to keep things cool so when the temps climbed using the 6970 setup the fans were screaming.
morblore
2 Intern
•
2.4K Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 14:00
Depends on if the OEM 6950 is a stock card or if Dell did some mods to it. If they did then you would need to buy the 2nd card from Dell.
The 6950 doesn't use much power so other then that you should be fine.
morblore
2 Intern
•
2.4K Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 15:00
A friend of mine just told me that he unlocked both hes 6950''s to 6970's and they only pull 340 watts at max power. So long as you are not running a bunch of lights,fans,HDD,overclocks and whatnot I see no reason why the 525 cant run the crossfire. And like I said if it cant just buy the booster.
EDIT: He is running a 650watt psu btw with a 4.1 cpu overclock and both cards are overclocked.
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
•
56.9K Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 15:00
My advice would be to use the Dell OEM video card and bridge -
4VDWW AMD Radeon HD6950
XX781 Longer AMD Radeon X-Fire Bridge
-or-
PJG49 Shorter AMD Radeon X-Fire Bridge
What I do not know is what power supply (525w or 875w) you will receive if you configure the Aurora with only one video card at the point of sale. You will need the 875w for dual video cards.
morblore
2 Intern
•
2.4K Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 15:00
The 6850 uses two 6-pins and in crossfire at max watt only pulls 329 watts. They do say 500watt for a single card and add another 150watt per card added to the system but in crossfire they still only pull 329 watts. Thats only about 75watts more then a single GTX 480.
In this review they say 500watt for a single and add 150watt per card but as you can see on their test system with both cards stressed only reached 473 watts.
If it was me I would try it no matter if I had the 525 or the 875 but thats me :P If it doesn't work you can buy a booster for $80 that will then allow you to SLI any card on the market.
Radeon HD 6950 CrossfireX review from Gurou3D: www.guru3d.com/.../14
Measured power consumption
morblore
2 Intern
•
2.4K Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 16:00
Here is a video of a guy running 6950 crossfire and crysis on high settings with a 560w PSU. Go to Youtube and read hes comments if you want hes full system specs.: [View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7raBe0KSROM]
Frandaman
24 Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 17:00
The R3's come with the 875watt PSU. They all do or they should anyway. The PSU would not have any trouble running the 6950's in crossfire, The Dell rep posted something on here about the PSU's and what it can support. Have a scroll around in the forums and you should find it. I am pretty sure that the 6950's that come with the R3 is not an OEM unit as I was able to flash it to the 6970 BIOS (unlocked shaders and clocks) and use the drivers from AMD directly.
The only thing is adding another card would be a tight fit in the case, you may have to re-run some of the wires elsewhere but let me know how you go with the crossfire as I am planning to buy another 6950 in a few months.
C_ronic
431 Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 17:00
FYI if you decide to unlock to 6970 use modded BIOS. I do not recommend using 6970 BIOS. The 6970 BIOS have a higher memory voltage and different timings that has caused damage over time and GSODs to SOME cards(It might work for you but why risk it). I suggest getting the custom BIOS that have only unlocked shaders then you set to 6970 clocks. It gives the same peformance with zero risk. Just do a quick Google search and you should find it! Here is just ONE of many posts reporting issues with fully unlocked 6950's.
www.overclock.net/.../909086-6950-shaders-unlocked-vs-full-unlocked.html
AAA737flyer
2 Intern
•
757 Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 19:00
I tried the 6950 to 6970 thing and it just wasn't worth it.
Frame rate improved some but nothing that made a significant difference. What I did notice was a significant increase in wattage and a very significant increase in heat.
I found that just turning down the quality of a few settings increased performace while not having any noticeable affect.
When the card ran with full 6970 bios and shaders, the fan ran very hard and the noise difference was distracting. The fan sound also seemed to constantly change at that high a speed.
I went back to the stock settings but kept the extra shaders.
If you choose to go 6970 this site shows you how. It doesn't explain every step in detail and you will need to reference the pictures as well while following the directions to make sure you are on the right page.
www.legitreviews.com/.../1
Frandaman
24 Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 19:00
How did you measure the difference in wattage? I didn't notice a difference in heat (maxes out at around 70c playing Crisis for 2 hours) but I have my fan running at 50% while gaming.
AAA737flyer
2 Intern
•
757 Posts
0
July 19th, 2011 21:00
I monitored the wattage difference using the APC Power Chute software. It displays the wattage the battery backup system is providing. I don't recall the actual difference but it was double digits at idle.
There was a significant heat increase. I use a custom fan / temp scale using MSI After burner. I set it a bit high to start with to keep things cool so when the temps climbed using the 6970 setup the fans were screaming.
Frandaman
24 Posts
0
July 20th, 2011 05:00
cool. I'll try and see what mine does.