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Advice needed: Crossfire X16x4, x8x8

  • 30-01-2011 3:58pm
    #1
    brasher
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 208 ✭✭


    I am building my first PC in a long time. I could never justify the money before but it's become surprisingly expensive to build something decent.
    Here's the spec:
    Mobo:MSI 870A-G54
    Processor: Phenom II X2 555 BE
    Ram: 4 X 2GB 10600 DDR3
    Graphics: Sapphire 5770 1GB X2

    And here's the questions. Have I bought the wrong motherboard? Apparently it will only run crossfire in x16x4, which gives you about a 15% hit vs x16x16. Will pushing the 5770's core speeds compensate for the lack of x16 or will it highlight the bottleneck it represents? I'm not too clear on how much bandwidth these cards actually need.
    However it is apparently very easy to open up the two extra cores on the phenom and OC it up to 3.9Ghz without much fuss.
    This mobo also only does dual channel.
    • Will the x16x4 hit make a big difference to the crossfire performance, in your opinion?
    • Are you better to run 3 X 2gb ddr3 in a triple channel configuration OR 4 X 2gb in dual channel? (I have 4 2GB 10600 DDr3 sticks)
    • If so, can someone recommend a suitably budget mobo that can do x16x16, has usb3, triple channel DDR3 support and can unlock cores/oc without too much messing about?
    Tagged:


Comments

  • #2
    deconduo
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 4,282 Mod ✭✭✭✭deconduo


    Generally for xfire you would go for x8/x8. x4 just restricts it a bit too much to be useful, and the difference between x8/x8 and x16/x16 is pretty small.

    Only certain i7 chips use triple channel, for your build you'd have to use dual.

    Any particular reason you are going for 2 5770s? I'd recommend getting a single 6870 or 6950 instead. You might have slightly less performance over all, but you save money on your motherboard, PSU and ESB bill. You also have less problems with heat and noise, not to mention that xfire/sli still have some bugs with certain applications.

    Btw, posting in Building + Upgrading would get more responses.


  • #3
    brasher
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 208 ✭✭brasher


    This entire thing is based on budget really, how much can I get out of what I have. I am buying a mobo & cpu. Through various trades I have ended up with 2 5770's, a decent case/cpu and some ram. So I wanted to see what the was the best performance I could could squeeze out of the least money.

    Thanks for the advice on the triple channel, at least that's off the list. At the moment I am thinking I will setup the current system, do some benchmarking and see how far off I am on the reference systems. If it's substantial I'll see if I can off load the mobo and pick up something with x8x8 at least.

    Any chance of a move to building and upgrading? Thanks again


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