I’m starting to check prices on parts for my new computer. I’m going back and forth on if I want to go with ATI or NVidia. Right now, I’m leaning toward an ATI X1900. If that’s what I decide to go with, I won’t be getting two of them at first to run in CrossFire mode. But that’s what I plan on doing eventually.
Now, the motherboard I plan on getting is the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe. Is this motherboard CrossFire compatible? Or are all SLI motherboards CrossFire compatible? I would think they would be, considering multiple PCI express slots.
This may ultimately decide which video chipset I go with, because if I can’t run two ATI cards on that board, I’ll be going with NVidia.
Also, would a 600 watt power supply be sufficient for:
SLI is not the same thing as Crossfire, and that motherboard will defintitely not work with dual Crossfire cards. (The connections on Crossifre and SLI cards is completely different, and they use entirely different chipsets.)
Crossfire motherboard pickins are still pretty slim, and they’re rolling out a new chipset sometime this month or next month, from what I’ve read.
Here’s reviews to a couple of Crossfire motherboards currently out, but frankly, I don’t think I’d go with Crossfire at least until the new chipset boards come out and have been reviewed. (And I’m saying this as an ATI fan, and owner of a 9800 Pro)
Save yourself the money and forget about a SLI/CF setup. The performance boost is nowhere near twice what it is for one card (at best 40% improvement) and that 40% occurs only in specific circumstances. Indeed, SLI/CF can actually be slower than a single card. Considering these setups can cost $1,000+ they really are little more than expensive bragging rights. The problem is there simply is not enough software that can take advanatge of this and even then the bottleneck can be somewhere else like the CPU.
There are some very narrow circumstances where a SLI/CF setup would make sense such as havinf a 30" monitor at something higher than 1600x1200 resolution.
If you are set on a SLI or CF setup I’d personally go with the SLI as I think the mobo offerings for SLI are better than those for Crossfire (at least today…things can change of course). The nForce4 boards have better support for things like RAID and built-in gigabit ethernet and the like.
I would think 600 watts would be enough to run the system you listed but pay attention to cooling. That is likely to be one toasty system. I have a 9800 Pro and dual SATA 10k drives with an AMD CPU and it heats my room to the point of having to open the window when doing heavy loads like extended gaming.
I don’t have any intentions of running two video cards right now. I was just looking at that for in the future when it’s actually used/needed.
As for the cooling, that is always my biggest concern. I was really worried about whether or not Tiggrkitty’s computer would have enough, and it’s running cool as a cucumber. She’s running an AMD X2 with a 7800GTX and a single hard drive with only the processor heatsink/fan and the two case fans that came with the case.
Anyway, thanks again for the info. It’s greatly appreciated.
