Seeking (crossfire) motherboard with 3 pciex16 v2.0 and 2-3 pciex1?

2004 Views 5 Replies 3 Participants Last post by markm75, Jun 10, 2008

markm75

Discussion Starter · Jun 10, 2008

I'm trying to find a motherboard (hopefully ASUS or Gigabyte) that have say the x38 or x48 chipset, support crossfire.. have at least dual pciex16 v2.0 and at least one pciex8 with a few pciex1 and 1 pci..

or better yet.. three pciex16 v2.0 and a 2-3 pciex1 and 1 pci slot..

So far i havent had much luck in finding this..

My main reasoning is that i will use an 8 port addon raid card that is pciex8.. which would need that slot or a x16 slot, along with two video cards and a pciex1 and pci card.

If only they made a crossfire and sli combo board .. this would be even better...

As of now I was probably just going to stick with the Asus P5E board with sli (two independent ati cards most likely, once the 4850 comes out)..

It was this or go with the the Asus P5E3 premium board.. but it requires DDR3.. I didnt want to go that route just yet.. i have 4GB of DDR2 still usable. It also appears that the 3rd pciex16 slot on this board is only cable of x4, not to mention this board is rather pricey (limit = $280 or so).

Any thoughts out there?
Thanks

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Banscare

· #2 · Jun 10, 2008

I know Asus make boards with 3 pciex16 slots but they average around $300

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markm75

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jun 10, 2008

Banscare said:
I know Asus make boards with 3 pciex16 slots but they average around $300

I could stretch to $300 if i could find one (6 sata ideally).

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markm75

Discussion Starter · #4 · Jun 10, 2008 (Edited)

Re: Seeking (crossfire) motherboard with 3 pciex16 v2.0 and 2-3 pciex1?Areca vs rraid

markm75 said:
I could stretch to $300 if i could find one (6 sata ideally).

From what i have seen.. at least with Asus.. the 3rd pciex16 slot becomes x4 maximum.. so that rules out virtually all of Asus's crossfire boards, unless they had one with 2 pciex16 v2.0 and 1 dedicated pciex8 slot.

This is the controller card i was going with.. as its true hardware capable:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816131004

But requires pciex8.

The alternative was a highpoint one.. but it seems to be mainly software.. relying on CPU utilization:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115026 Its not bad for the price, and would work in a crossfire board where the 3rd port became pciex4.. but i fear this board will be inferior compared to the areca?

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dai

· #5 · Jun 10, 2008

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ogle-_-Motherboards+-+Intel-_-ASUS-_-13131235

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markm75

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jun 10, 2008

dai said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ogle-_-Motherboards+-+Intel-_-ASUS-_-13131235

Ah there we go.. dont know how i missed it.. it appears it has a full x16 on the third slot..

Downside is the memory is DDR3.. which was what I was avoiding and a steeper price.

I guess it all wouldn't matter if i knew if i will want to crossfire two 4870 or 4850's when i get them...

Does anyone know on crossfire.. if it the same as SLI, where when you are in crossfire mode, you only get one usuable video outport at a time.. and can crossfire be turned off via a software script like Nvidia can?

Cheers

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