Crossfire motherboards: WHEN WHEN WHEN!?

[tyborg]

anyone know when? I know the DFI boards were released for a while, but then they got taken away due to "stocking problems" (my guess is they were released before they were supposed to be) but anyone know when these boards are going to be officially released? I'm personally looking forward to Asus's A8R-MVP, since I have an X850 and don't want to buy an NF4 Board and buy both a new MB and a master card later on when I wanna upgrade the video. Although, if I have to wait too much longer, that looks like the path I'll be leaning toward...

 

[Jayczar]

Newegg has the DFI in stock, not sure about the others.

 

[tyborg]

Does NO ONE know when on th rest?

 

[Skott]

Heard rumors of around mid-November they start becoming availble.

 

[Mem]

The ABIT AT8 looks nice,would be my first choice,however we will have to wait for reviews.


Link.

 

[HendrixFan]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Sapphire.html

 

[vailr]

ABIT AT8 Socket 939 ATI RD480 Radeon Xpress 200 Chipset ATX AMD Motherboard
This product will be in stock on Wednesday November 30, 2005.

 

[Mem]

MSI RD480 Neo2 info

 

[tyborg]

crap... a whole month off... oh well, could be worse

 

[Mem]

MSI model looks disappointing,ALC880 rather then the newer ALC 882,also using older ULi M1573 chipset ,only SATA 150 support not SATA2.

 

[Mem]

I really like the specs on the Abit AT8 board,ALC882D onboard sound,SATA 2 etc....knowing Abit the board will be very competive price wise as well.

 

[tyborg]

it's down to the Abit, the Gigabyte (depending on features with that) or the ASUS board, or maybe a sapphire, depending on reviews. And whether or not the Gigabyte has MOSFET cooling so I can up the voltage a tad and still get it to POST a week later.

 

[imported_killuminati]

no SATA2 in the DFI , thats suxs .

Peace & caio !!!

 

[Nirach]

People seem very concerned about SATA II.

It MAY be able to take 3gb/s data transfer, or whatever the speeds are, but you all seem to be forgetting that the drive just can't cough it out that fast, because they just don't have that capacity yet, and won't do for some time.

Moving on. My Sapphire Crossfire PURE Advantage board should be arriving today, it's the one from Overclockers.co.uk (Linked above) without SATA II

Will see what I can do about posting a basic review, I don't have the time or knowledge to get into too much detail

 

[Mem]

It MAY be able to take 3gb/s data transfer, or whatever the speeds are, but you all seem to be forgetting that the drive just can't cough it out that fast, because they just don't have that capacity yet, and won't do for some time.

It's not just that, but remember burst rates have been known to go over 150mb/sec depending on setup of HD/models etc... yes I know it is not sustained and average is about 70mb/sec or so for top models.

Abit has a nicer layout,no fan(uses heatpipe) so great plus point,nice LED diagnostic display like their other models which is good for new builders.

 

[Nirach]

I'm not a fan of their heatpipe design, to be honest.

It doesn't make sense to link the two parts together, I forget if it was mosfets and northbridge or northbridge and southbridge, to me. It does look like a nice motherboard on paper, but the heat pipe put me off just long enough for the crossfire boards to be up for preorder

 

[tyborg]

I realize that about the SATA 3.0GB, but I do plan on getting a SATA 2.5 7200.9 Seagate drive, which at least makes some use out of the SATA 2 bus. As for the heatpipe, it'd work better with a fan on it at one end. We'll see what the reviews say though.

 

[zephyrprime]

Why is it necessary to have a special MB to support crossfire? Why can't a board with just 2 x16 slots work?

 

[tyborg]

because of the drivers. Electrically, it would work, which is why there was so much trouble around the DFI NF4 Ultra-D. Also, other than the two or three SLIx16 boards, SLI and Crossfire are 2x8, not 2x16.

 

[INM8]

The abit board does look nice. The specs are good too. Im glad to finally see an S939 mobo with decent onboard audio.

But did anyone have a look at the picture:

http://www2.abit.com.tw/upload/products/at8_top_500.jpg

Their implimation of the heatpipe\silent OTES seems rushed. Look how everything is squashed up in that Area. The OTES this is crooked, and becuase they've tryed to squeeze that size heatsink in that tiny area about the cpu the first optical output is at a considerable angle too. I have always liked the sound of ABIT boards on paper...infact they all sound perfect on paper, but their build quality seems to be a bit dogey sometimes.

Hopefully the retail boards dont come looking like that

 

[Mem]

Their implimation of the heatpipe\silent OTES seems rushed. Look how everything is squashed up in that Area. The OTES this is crooked, and becuase they've tryed to squeeze that size heatsink in that tiny area about the cpu the first optical output is at a considerable angle too.

Actually way I look at it, is it leaves free space around the PCI Express slots for the video cards,only thing there is the small heatsink on southbridge,matter of perspective .

 

[imaheadcase]

ASUS A8R-MVP just delayed or something? quite a few places list it as backordered or coming soon. According to the review here at anandtech they should of already been showing up retail now. I hate predictions i want hard numbers!

 

[tyborg]

same here. Mad at that, along with the Seagate SATA 300GB 7200.9s that have been on preorder at ZZF for about a month and a half now.

 

[KeepItRed]

All I know is that DFI's are in stock, and Sapphire boards are shipping in December '05.