Good intel X-fire board

fizzy

fizzy

fizzy

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by my pc. :D
Hi,

After various testing of my xfire 3870XT rig, I found a lot of my performance issues seem to be cpu bottleneck related (with my Amd X2 @ 2.8Ghz :eek:).

Looking to upgrade the cpu/board. Board is a socket 939 so no majorly faster cpu's currently available. :(

Anyhow, considering my first intel system in years. Would like a good quality board that has pcie2.0 crossfire, and will allow an aftermarket cooler such as the Tuniq tower. As it is mainly for gaming was considering the newer dual cores.

As I'm not up to date on intel stuff, any suggestions as to a good board for this?
 
You could try one of the X38 or X48 chipset boards. Fairly pricey, but they do come with true dual x16 PCIe 2.0 graphics card slots. They're also rated for an insanely high FSB, so you'll be able to overclock your CPU very well.
 
Thanks - looking through ocuk's selection now. Whats with all the variants of Asus boards? Confused as to how they all fit in their range. :confused: Especially as some seem to be discounted/price cuts.
 
asus maximus

I just got a ASUS Maximus X38. Seemed to have all the bits and bobs I wanted. It will be in a Antec 900 case.

Anyone know if a GTX280 can fit inside an Antec 900 case without having to remove any hard disk cages and fans? I really dont want to remove any cages, and I dont want to unpack this case only to find the GTX280 does not fit.
 
ih8modem said:
I just got a ASUS Maximus X38. Seemed to have all the bits and bobs I wanted. It will be in a Antec 900 case.

Anyone know if a GTX280 can fit inside an Antec 900 case without having to remove any hard disk cages and fans? I really dont want to remove any cages, and I dont want to unpack this case only to find the GTX280 does not fit.
Click to expand...

Get a better case,

The Antec 900 sucks.

And the case should not dictate your components.
 
Asus Rampage Formula All the way;)

I got one of these babys with a q6600 running at 3.6GHz :D
And in my opinion its 'THE DOGS DANGLY BITS'
Bit expensive but its X48 chipset , ddr2 , pcie 2.0 and supports crossfire and worth every penny :cool:
 
Recommend the Asus P5E. Its got an X38 chipset, which is just as capable as the excellent Asus Rampage in terms of overclockability, and there is almost no difference between an X38 and an X48. And best of all, its much cheaper than the Rampage.
 
I have a Gigabyte X48 DS4 arriving this morning. Hard to find anything close to a review on it, and never had a Gigabyte board before, but it's packed with features, and based the decision on constantly reading good things about their boards. Hoping to get 4GHz on an E8500.
 
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I have the Gigabyte X48-DQ6, the DFI LT-X48-T2R and two of the J&W JW-X48D2-Extreme. Out of the box ie. non-overclocked or messed with the J&W is fastest by some margin. The DFI is the slowest of the three and has the most confusing/best BIOS depending on your point of view ie. if you really want to adjust 40 things about your RAM, it's the best board by a mile!

You can check out the results I got with the J&W in the official thread here.

I haven't tried the Rampage, but people who have say it's good.

All the non-ASUS X48 boards are pretty much the Intel reference design, and they all use the same Intel drivers.

I do like the J&W - but any of them will not disappoint as they're all essentially the same. If the price is right an X38 board is basically the same thing, just not with a cherry picked chipset. I've searched and searched, but I can't find what was 'cherry picked' about X48 - it seems to be mainly marketing spiel.
 
I was planning on getting a P5E since I was so pleased with my P5K-E but managed to snag a Gigabyte X38-DQ6 for £67 so I'll be destroying that instead :D

The JW X48 would've been my ideal board out of the lot, but I really can't justify the price of it when I still need to fill up the 2nd PCI-E slot and preferably get a Wolfdale to make the most of it.
 
Skyboat said:
I was planning on getting a P5E since I was so pleased with my P5K-E but managed to snag a Gigabyte X38-DQ6 for £67 so I'll be destroying that instead :D

The JW X48 would've been my ideal board out of the lot, but I really can't justify the price of it when I still need to fill up the 2nd PCI-E slot and preferably get a Wolfdale to make the most of it.
Click to expand...

Economising on the motherboard is a carp idea, but the X38-DQ6 isn't economising, that's just a good deal, and it should do as well as any X48 board for you.
 
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