Another Mobo recommendation thread (sry)

Magnum_Force · 6 Feb 2008 at 19:51

I need help choosing a mobo for an Q6600 and 2 HD3850 graphics cards, so it must support crossfire.

Which motherboard is the best Bang for buck.

I don't mind having a Choice between a few boards, but there are so many, I don't know where too start.

I'll also want to overclock my Q6600 (obviously), so it must be able to facilitate this. Also (wrong section I know), what ram is best for this set up.

Are boards still picky about what Brand of Ram you use nowadays??

WJA96 · 6 Feb 2008 at 20:10

J&W IP35-Pro is pretty much exactly what you're after.

Magnum_Force · 6 Feb 2008 at 20:20

Is that a P35 board?? I thought they could only do 16x/4x crossfire (I've done some reading). So, I guess I'm after a X38 board, but they all seem woefully expensive

jbloggs · 6 Feb 2008 at 20:29

This is the cheapest (at the moment) X38 board, when the OcUK (value) X38 board come along it should be a good bit cheaper.

As regards (graphics) performance difference between P35 and X38 boards, there really is not much (if any) I would think.

this_is_gav · 6 Feb 2008 at 21:39

jbloggs said:
As regards (graphics) performance difference between P35 and X38 boards, there really is not much (if any) I would think.

I'd imagine there would be if you stuck 1 card in a 4x PCIe slot though.

WJA96 · 7 Feb 2008 at 04:32

this_is_gav said:
I'd imagine there would be if you stuck 1 card in a 4x PCIe slot though.

It doesn't work like that. The two cards share 20 channels between them. If the first card has 16 channels allocated to it, the second card has only 4. The Crossfire bridges actually move the key data between the cards so the slots are not as important as you might think. The key is the fact that you are sharing 1 card's worth of graphics between 2 cards. Otherwise how could they do an X2 Crossfire card on 1 PCIe slot.

Don't get mugged by marketing.

BUFF · 7 Feb 2008 at 06:29

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/PCI-Express-2-0-Crossfire,review-29948.html

hedgey · 7 Feb 2008 at 17:28

jbloggs said:
This is the cheapest (at the moment) X38 board, when the OcUK (value) X38 board come along it should be a good bit cheaper.

As regards (graphics) performance difference between P35 and X38 boards, there really is not much (if any) I would think.

got a ds5 for £107 today. all sold out pretty fast

square_imp · 7 Feb 2008 at 17:44

apparently an average increase of 12-15% when going from (x16 x4) to (x16 x16) with crossfire setups so I would say it was worth it going for an x38 over a P35