My first build: Setting up Crossfire?

[Otymnestra]

So, I'm a noob.

I am trying to build my first gaming rig cheap as possible, and my strategy has been to buy older gear you guys are casting off as you get newest and latest. I think of this as building a classic car.

My question is about setting up the Crossfire graphics on my MOBO. I have a Radeon ATI Crossfire 512MB Video Graphics Card X1950XTX for the master PCIx16. I also have a Crossfire ready Visiontek X1300 256Mb, which will not fit into the PCIx16 slot that (from what info I can find) is designated as the slave slot. Instead, it fits the smaller PCI slot.

My questions are:

1) However antiquated and antediluvian, *can* the Visiontek serve as the slave card?

2) Will a y-dongle and DVI/VGA adapter allow my old VGA monitor to work with this system?

3) Since there aren't onboard graphics with my MOBO, will the Crossfire cards work--however rudimentary--well enough to install BIOS and OS?

I appreciate it!

 

[charles1]

Wow man thats some old GPU's, well first off what games are you trying to run that require cross fire? Second if your going to say Crysis or any high end game released after 2010 those cards you mention will not cut it. You will take a huge hit on your FPS(frames per second). So I see your a grad student then you must not be too broke to buy some entry level hardware.

Look my advise to you is to get 2 4870 gpu's and get your game on. Look around on the forums here and others. ther are people letting their cards go for 100 for 2 4870 gpus. Not bad. For 100 bucks you can get your crossfire set up and truly enjoy your games.

back on point try this
http://superuser.com/questions/2643...-video-card-crossfire-rig-to-a-single-monitor

then just use the adapter you need for your monitor.

so if your master card is only dvi out then you will need a dvi to vga out adpater.