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Best board for Crossfire 4850s??

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g0dM@n

Inactive Moderator
Joined
Sep 27, 2003
I have a DFI T2R P35 board that I'm using right now. I'm feeling inclined to swap it out with a brand new Abit IX38 QuadGT that sits in my closet. I've also got an Abit IP35 Pro I could use, but I know the IX38 romps it when it comes to crossfire.

Any other chipsets other than X38 that are good? Any other boards I should consider that aren't $300+?

I've no idea how good P45 is and X48 and whatnot, that's why I ask... I don't even know what the advantage of X48 over P45 is. Yes, I'm a loser now with no serious knowledge in OCing. Who are the newcomers here that can help me this time around? :)
 
I'd use the QuadGT board you already have pretty hard to justify the output cost to replace something that will gain you nothing in performance.
 
ya, why do you want to switch it out? how does it stomp it in Xfire?

is the p35 dual 16x lanes?
 
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I have done x-fire with 2 x 4850's and they run just fine at 1920x1200 even though the board does not have dual 16x lanes, if you go up to 4870's then I would say go for a X38/X48, in that case my favorite would be the Asus Rampage Formula or Maximus Formula

The P35 boards are suffocated by the 4850's in x-fire due to the lack of adequate bandwidth on the 2nd lane
 
The only downside I see to the Quad GT is the onboard lan is PCI based and not PCI-E not sure if that matters to you or not.
 
The only downside I see to the Quad GT is the onboard lan is PCI based and not PCI-E not sure if that matters to you or not.

crap. that does sorta matter i guess... i'm going to be running gigabit LAN at the place i moved into... i guess i could always buy a pci-e gigabit card IF I TRULY FEEL THE NEED. how bad is gigabit over pci anyway? i will be using my X-fi card with the pci slot too, so i dunno how it will be affected.

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thx for all of the posts guys. i've heard the x38 truly makes a difference over p35 that's why i want to switch out my dfi t2r board for the abit quadgt. but... my next question was regarding p45 and x48... are those next gen and better? i don't even know the diff between the "p" chipsets and the "x" chipsets... like i said i know the x38 is much better than p35 for crossfire, but is the x38 just as good as the p45 and x48 chipsets?

i don't want to open up and use the quadgt if i feel the need to go with one of the other chipsets. it's not really about using a brand new board... it's really about me HATING to change motherboards as it takes me HOURS (several!!) to swap out a motherboard, undo my watercooling, neaten up my wiring... i do a superb job with my case (not to sound conceited), but it takes a whole crapload of time and i like things done right from the start. i don't like to take down my entire system more than 2x a yr. it's easy to change CPUs and RAM and hard drives, but the bigger stuff i hate to do. i also plan to use this OCZ 1000w PSU (I hope it's good enough) :)
 
my favorite would be the Asus Rampage Formula

After really messing around with the Rampage the last few days...All I can say is...This is the BEST board I have ever had...

The main key point...its voltage does NOT drop one bit...the only downside so far is...it tends to OV the DIMMS by .03v...which can be good and bad...

I had quite a few people try to talk me out of buying this board and I am glad I didnt listen to any of them...

I also couldnt believe the performance it offers over the p5kc I RMAed last month...

This board is definetly putting me back on the right track for some serious OCing now...now to just get a new CPU then I will be very happy...

GM..if you want a good upgrade over the t2r...definetly give the rampage a serious looking at...and go with a native rampage...dont do the flash over...been reading on some memory issues doing the flash over...I have yet to run into any of those issues...

One other key point about this board...memory control is unreal...yet its so easy even with all of the extra settings...it has the ballistixs running at 1300Mhz (15-5-5-5) at 2.53v with no issues...

I could go on and on about this board...especially the core voltage not even thinking about dropping under full loads...

Once again, if you want a great DDR2 X-48 that will do just what you want plus more...then give the rampage a serious looking into...
 
My picks:
Dfi http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136042
Rampage http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131284
Foxconn http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186144

Personally, I'd fire up that Abit and give it run.. The x38 is good for cf'ing. I like my dfi.. I wouldn't do the p45 for cf.

wow those are all expensive. what's the advantage of x48 over x38 anyway and p45 over p35? may just have to do the quadgt
 
You've already got a X38 board? Use that, silly. X48 boards are just expensive. P45 boards are good but only has 8x/8x PCIe 2.0 lanes, which would matter if you were Crossfiring some 4870s, but probably not 4850s.
 
gigabyte on PCI is fine it has 133mb of bandwidth to use and i doubt any game you play would saturate a 100mb card on pci even.
 
i would use the IX38 since you have that now... any board sporting 16/16 is going to be best for CF mode. P45 is 16/8, P35 16/4, at certian res's 16/8 on P45 is more then enoght, up to 1920x1200 anything higher you watn 16/16. X48 is higher binned X38 for ocing, in the extreme ocing area... i cant tell you to buy a new board when you have one for your needs. i dought you will notice issues with gigabit over PCI vs PCIE. if you really need it though, why not just buy a addon card to make things cheaper? either that or just put some stuff up for sale, LOL :)
 
i would use the IX38 since you have that now... any board sporting 16/16 is going to be best for CF mode. P45 is 16/8, P35 16/4, at certian res's 16/8 on P45 is more then enoght, up to 1920x1200 anything higher you watn 16/16. X48 is higher binned X38 for ocing, in the extreme ocing area... i cant tell you to buy a new board when you have one for your needs. i dought you will notice issues with gigabit over PCI vs PCIE. if you really need it though, why not just buy a addon card to make things cheaper? either that or just put some stuff up for sale, LOL :)

what add-on card? you mean a gigabit pci-e? i guess a gigabit over pci isn't bad, but we'll see.

gigabyte on PCI is fine it has 133mb of bandwidth to use and i doubt any game you play would saturate a 100mb card on pci even.
not for gaming. for LAN. my file-server is on the LAN and gigabit was what i wanted to try out...
 
well it would be the chip they choose to use, prolly only works on pci buss...maybe it was cheaper to get vs the PCIE one at the time. no telling why they went that route....
 
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