X58 board for 5970 crossfire

grumpybeard · 9 Dec 2009 at 13:47

Hey folks,

Been slogging my guts out at work all year. Santa is well aware of this and I know he has a 5970 in his sack for me, along with most other parts for a new gaming rig.

Plan is that eventually I'll stick a second ATI 5970 in - yes I know Im getting my eyeballs pulled out for the cost of one now so the second will be when reality has been re-established!

Held off on choosing the X58 motherboard, mainly cause Im unsure about suitable spacings between PCI-E slots for these monster GPU's.

Already have an Asus RIIE and it would seem the gaps between slots a little tight, especially for the 4890 vapour X in it at the mo.

Currently considering the Asus P6T/P6TD. Any suggestions welcome! Merry Xmas!

BigBruiserAl · 9 Dec 2009 at 14:07

Not really a massve help mate but UD5 is terrible spacing if you want to rule it out.

cmndr_andi · 9 Dec 2009 at 15:04

I believe the spacing on the Asus P6TD is better than on the RIIE, so it should be a bit better for crossfire.

But to be fair, by the time a game comes out that even challenges a 5970 we will likely all be using X78 boards and you won't want to put a smelly old 40nm graphics card in your machine. I got a GTX 295, with the vague hope to SLI it at some point in the future, but with HD 5xxx and Nvidia Fermi - I would have to be mad.

psychas · 9 Dec 2009 at 17:12

if u going for 5970 cf u definitely need a custom water setup

Geek. · 9 Dec 2009 at 17:33

I believe the spacing on the Asus P6TD is better than on the RIIE, so it should be a bit better for crossfire.

i agree with cmndr_andi i would go with the asus P6TD motherboard

Josh P · 9 Dec 2009 at 17:43

The P6TD would've been my suggestion too.

balth_dire · 9 Dec 2009 at 19:07

I'd go with the above too (P6td).

It's pretty much the only choice you have if you want to leave one slot free in between the two cards.

Nearly every other board (from Asus, Gigabyte and others) does not allow for this as each of their full length x16 pci-e slots (physical and electrical) is only seperated by one other slot, to allow for triple and quad card setups.

If ATI's partners started including longer crossfire bridges with their cards, it would be a great help :rolleyes:

.

I'm in need of a couple right now as it happens...