AM3 Sli?

poobert · 19 Aug 2010 at 19:44

Just a quick question.

What is the extent of choice when it comes to AM3 motherboards that are SLI ready?

Whenever I read product descriptions of am3 boards, they always say crossfire ready... is it possible to use sli on one of these things or do you need to get a board that specifically mentions it?

cmndr_andi · 19 Aug 2010 at 19:53

I'm pretty sure none of the AMD chipset AM3 boards officially support SLI. Therefore, you will either need to look for a Nvidia chipset board, hack an AMD chipset board to work with SLI, settle to use crossfire instead (with AMD cards) or jump ship and get an intel system.

mattjd · 19 Aug 2010 at 20:06

What your looking for is this type of motherboard:

nForce 980a SLI

I would suggest an MSI NF980-G65 Motherboard AM3 nForce 980A - You can get it for 129.99 at a competitor.

poobert · 19 Aug 2010 at 21:04

Ahh great stuff. I knew they must exist somewhere. Any idea about overclocking with them?

Boozebeard · 19 Aug 2010 at 21:08

Everything I have heard about nvidia chipsets has been bad. Am I wrong?

Frozennova · 19 Aug 2010 at 21:15

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-398-AS

Crosshair IV formula is a great clocking board along with SLi, it does carry a price premium though

cmndr_andi · 19 Aug 2010 at 21:21

frozennova said:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-398-AS

Crosshair IV formula is a great clocking board along with SLi, it does carry a price premium though

I can't seem to find where it says the Crosshair IV does SLI.

Frozennova · 19 Aug 2010 at 21:26

cmndr_andi said:
I can't seem to find where it says the Crosshair IV does SLI.

My bad thought I'd read that it was getting SLi support.

mattjd · 19 Aug 2010 at 22:28

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/nf980-g65/8.html

Apparently a bit more awkward to get a stable overclock and a bit more work and effort is needed but it ends with the same result a decent overclock. This si with the MSI baord I recommended.

braveheart · 22 Aug 2010 at 20:30

ASUS Crosshair IV dont support SLI but the new version with Exterme that has new Lucid chipset which can let you use Xfire or SLi but it too costly to buy motherboard - Nvidia stopped making chipset for AMD and Intel as AMD is the only still making chipset for AM3 with Xfire version so the last one is 980a SLi (Asus M4N82 or M4N98) can let you 2 or 3 SLi -- I used M4N82 motherboard but sold out as Im now Crosshair IV Formula that quite good with Xfire.

gt_junkie · 22 Aug 2010 at 21:06

Yeah, not much choice about besides 980a (essentially 780a spec like the board in my sig) or that pricy Crosshair board with the Lucid chip.

Your best choice (as others have mentioned) might be an Intel board.

Best my M3N-HT can manage is around 3.6ghz with the 720BE tri core in sig.

Not tried it with anything else but i'd be amazed if i couldn't manage 3.8ghz (perhaps even close to 4ghz) with something like a 965BE.

They're not as good as AMD boards for clocking but if you want an AMD cpu and SLi these are virtually your only options. I've been very happy with mine and it's GTX260's.

I'll repeat though - Intel might be the best/simplest move for guaranteed performance and SLi.

gt

kylew · 22 Aug 2010 at 21:33

Boozebeard said:
Everything I have heard about nvidia chipsets has been bad. Am I wrong?

You're not wrong, they really declined after nForce II.