P45 mobo no good for xfire?

[Scrubydoo]

I hope someone can give me some insight as to which chipset I should be looking at.

I'm planning to upgrade my old games computer (agp graphics slot!) to be able to cope with new games (Age of Conan is torture to play at the moment!).

For now I'm stuck between the P45 and X48 chipset motherboards (I tend to prefer Gigabyte boards with dual BIOS to avoid bricking the board when upgrading the BIOS) and a 6600 quad CPU. I'm leaning towards the P45 since they're cheaper and money is tight - I doubt that I could afford more than £150 for a graphics card (probably a 1Mb 4850) at the moment. However I'd be able to afford another graphic card in about 6 months time - so I could go for a crossfire set-up.

However - would the second graphics card be neutered with the P45's x8/x8 PCI-e slots? Should I go for the more expensive x48 and get a cheaper graphic card or less memory?

I use a 22" widescreen monitor at the moment (LG227WT), and I can't see myself getting a bigger moniter for some considerable time - so that limits my resolution ceiling somewhat.

Any advice would be appreciated - thanks.

 

[BUFF]

it's x8+x8 but PCI-E 2.0 - that's the same bandwidth as x16+x16 PCI-E 1.x.
Should be more than fine for what you have outlined.

 

[MagicBoy]

As above. I find a single 4850 (E6750/P35) handles pretty much anything I can throw at it in 1680x1050 standard use. I'm sure the ultra quality 16x AA lot will disagree but - Meh!

 

[Roeg1]

it's x8+x8 but PCI-E 2.0 - that's the same bandwidth as x16+x16 PCI-E 1.x.
Should be more than fine for what you have outlined.

I didn't realise that, so pcie 1.x only as half the bandwidth of pci-e 2.0 am i reading that right ?

 

[HeX]

I didn't realise that, so pcie 1.x only as half the bandwidth of pci-e 2.0 am i reading that right ?

Yes that is right.

And P45 is more than capable of HD48X0 series crossfire.