ASRock MB-970EX4 Mining Rig to Gaming Rig Conversion. Need some help!

Status
Not open for further replies.

sednal

Honorable
Jun 5, 2013
29
0
10,530
I have a mining rig in a cool master, HAF XB. ASRock MB-970EX4 with 3 7950's, There is a junk processor a sempron and the ram is junk also because you really dont need that for mining. I do have a decent SSD installed but its kinda small but i only play a few certain games at once.

On the asrock website: http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/970%20Extreme4/?cat=VGA&c=2 7950's are not listed as crossfire compatible, i am wondering if they actually are?? And if not what mobo would be a good replacement for this for the 7950 cards i have to run in a 3-way crossfire. I Also would like recommendations on a CPU and Memory for this mobo if it is compatible with the 3-way crossfire or one that is.

Thanks for your time in advance and if any more info is needed just ask! I am also open to adding liq cooling to the cpu but i also have 2 custom very nice fans with dimmer switches rigged up on the front to fan ports of the case to cool the sucker down as it is and has been a mining rig.

Edit:Used sli/crossfire as the same term :(
 
Solution
AMD cards run in Crossfire; nVidia cards run in SLI. In any case, there are currently driver issues (which AMD has acknowledged) making Crossfire generally not worthwhile most of the time. A single HD7950 is easily powerful enough to play almost every game out there at 1920x1080 with most settings maxed, and nothing less than "very high."
For the CPU, check out a FX-6300. Get a decent air cooler like a Xigmatek Gaia so you can overclock it at least a little.
Eight gigabytes of DDR3-1600 with CAS9 or CAS8 should be sufficient for the RAM.
AMD cards run in Crossfire; nVidia cards run in SLI. In any case, there are currently driver issues (which AMD has acknowledged) making Crossfire generally not worthwhile most of the time. A single HD7950 is easily powerful enough to play almost every game out there at 1920x1080 with most settings maxed, and nothing less than "very high."
For the CPU, check out a FX-6300. Get a decent air cooler like a Xigmatek Gaia so you can overclock it at least a little.
Eight gigabytes of DDR3-1600 with CAS9 or CAS8 should be sufficient for the RAM.
 
Solution

sednal

Honorable
Jun 5, 2013
29
0
10,530
Thankyou for your response Onus, i just figured since i have the cards i can use them i did not realize there were serious issues with running them in Crossfire. My current gaming machine is liq cooled with a single 6950, runs everything great but lags abit on some newer games with everything on max like Arma3 or Wargame, and with the diff of BTC where it is i figured id turn my one possibly capable mining rig into a very nice gaming rig?
 
Yeah, I don't see mining with my HD7970 much longer than another month or so, but I'm still getting around .03 BTC every day out of it (plus a HD7770). Less power usage, it's still marginally worthwhile.

Anyway, swap out the HD6950 for one of the HD7950s to give your gamer a kick in the pants.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.