Which motherboard for CF

[darkxknight]

ive been thinking it over and wanted to get a CF setup later on after the initial build. currently, im aiming for HD3870 and maybe a year or 2 down the road, CF it up and get another 3870 or better card. i am also putting in C2D into the machine so my choices for MB are limited. which should i get.

 

[Aluvus]

CF = CrossFire?

 

[Heidfirst]

something X38 based

 

[darkxknight]

Originally posted by: Aluvus
CF = CrossFire?

yea, CF is crossfire

the x38 is quite expensive. is there anything cheaper?

 

[Heidfirst]

what C2D are you fitting?
975X does CF at x8+x8 but is older & may not support some CPUs.
P35 usually does CF at x16+x4 (Asus Blitz doe x8+x8 but costs as much/more than X38)

 

[darkxknight]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
what C2D are you fitting?
975X does CF at x8+x8 but is older & may not support some CPUs.
P35 usually does CF at x16+x4 (Asus Blitz doe x8+x8 but costs as much/more than X38)

im thinkin of the E6750, upgrading to penryns in a year or so. getting one 3870 first, then CFing it later on.

ive decided to shell out a extra bucks for a top quality MB. been looking at this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131219

looks like a excellent MB with no bad reviews and has everything i want.

 

[Jevon]

I aggree that you'll need to cough up the $ for an X38 if you want to take full advantage of CrossFire down the road; it's the only Intel-based chipset that lets you use 2 cards at full 16x speeds. The P5E you linked is probably the best value for X38, a step up from that in price/performance I would say is the Maximus.

Your only other option is to go with AMD's 790FX chipset, which lets you do 4x CrossFireX at full speeds down the road. The best board here is the MSI K9A2 Platinum which is cheaper than any X38. I would love to do this option myself if the damn Phenoms were on par with the Q6600, or at least OC'd better since CPU isn't as much of a bottle neck as GPUs are.. and I'd love to have a decent Quad @ ~3.0GHz and keep adding GPUs (up to four) over time, but stupid damn Phenoms crapped on my parade cuz right now it looks like a 10% OC is all they're handling stably w/o superior cooling ><

I thought about grabbing a 6400 for a 790FX for the time being and waiting to see what AMD does with their chips later 2008/2009.. but I dunno if I have the balls to wait it out with them when X38 + Q6600 is available now and Penryn just around the corner..

 

[darkxknight]

actually, i found out that they are discontinuing the x38 and introducing the new x48s soon so i might wait for that

 

[BoboKatt]

Currently on my second system I have a Q6600 G0 on an Asus P5K-E/wifi - 4 GB or Patriot PC26400 RAM and 1 ATI X1950XTX Crossfire mother card and x1900XT secondary card in Crossfire.

The Asus P5K-E/wifi cost me $139 Canadian a while back. It's a great board... rock stable with my Q6600 at 3 GHz on stock voltage. The two cards in crossfire, I was CERTAIN when I did the build I would run into issues... like I had previously in my AMD x2 4800+ crossfire boards where at times the crossfire would work and then at times it would not.

With this board I have yet to experience any hang-ups with the crossfire.

Even though the Asus P5KE/wifi has two PCI-e slots and only one is full speed and the other is not... I really have NOT noted any loss in performance. I bought into the whole ?must have 2 full speed PCI express slots? before and again I never really noted much if any performance gain over simpler boards.

The X38 or newer chips might be able to provide two full speed PCI-e slots but honestly you don't need it and the prices are high. The X48? again too expensive. If you are in a jam and need a board that supports crossfire now? get a P35 board and enjoy the fun now.

 

[darkxknight]

Originally posted by: BoboKatt
Currently on my second system I have a Q6600 G0 on an Asus P5K-E/wifi - 4 GB or Patriot PC26400 RAM and 1 ATI X1950XTX Crossfire mother card and x1900XT secondary card in Crossfire.

The Asus P5K-E/wifi cost me $139 Canadian a while back. It's a great board... rock stable with my Q6600 at 3 GHz on stock voltage. The two cards in crossfire, I was CERTAIN when I did the build I would run into issues... like I had previously in my AMD x2 4800+ crossfire boards where at times the crossfire would work and then at times it would not.

With this board I have yet to experience any hang-ups with the crossfire.

Even though the Asus P5KE/wifi has two PCI-e slots and only one is full speed and the other is not... I really have NOT noted any loss in performance. I bought into the whole ?must have 2 full speed PCI express slots? before and again I never really noted much if any performance gain over simpler boards.

The X38 or newer chips might be able to provide two full speed PCI-e slots but honestly you don't need it and the prices are high. The X48? again too expensive. If you are in a jam and need a board that supports crossfire now? get a P35 board and enjoy the fun now.

well im not crossfiring now. im thinking May or something i upgrade to penryn and crossfire and adding 2 additional gb of ram.