Hey,
So it's that time for a rebuild again, and as always I like to pick up a few bargains in the just-out-of-date hardware.
Particularly with this build I want to be future proof which requires the motherboard to have USB3, SATA 3.0, DDR3 to at least 1600mhz. I have already picked up a GTX 460 768MB for about £30 and a stick of CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10B. However I want to avoid picking up a motherboard that wont allow me to connect in SLI as I intend to pick up another graphics card and an extra stick of RAM in the future.
Very simply, will they say in the specifications "SLI ready"? Silly question I know, but I assume CrossFire ready motherboards would not work without a bit of extra fiddling? Would I see any performance hit to get a 1-x16 PCIe and 1-x8 PCEi motherboard? Can any motherboard with the required slots be used to house two GTX 460s or must they be designed-for-purpose (thus requiring me to pay out an extra bit of moneys).
Also looking to stick with AMD CPUs. I believe the best chipset for my purpose is the AM3+? The FX-6xxx series are starting to become quite nicely affordable but I wonder is AM3+ compatible with AM3 CPUs? As (a little confusingly for me) it seems that some of the Phenom II x6's are outperforming the FX- series cards in the benchmark tests I've been looking at.
And finally, related to me build but not to motherboards. Would a two graphics card set-up require a power supply with four 6pin PCIe connectors? Assuming so, why do so many 800-900W PSUs around with a zillion amps across the 12V rails come with only 1PCe and and a handful of others... Can the 4pin molex's be split using splitters/adaptors safely so long as the PSU has enough power, or could this cause problems.
Many questions here I know, but thanks to anyone who spares the time to help out here. Just bear in mind with any suggestions that I'm looking to keep this build cost loooow.
J
So it's that time for a rebuild again, and as always I like to pick up a few bargains in the just-out-of-date hardware.
Particularly with this build I want to be future proof which requires the motherboard to have USB3, SATA 3.0, DDR3 to at least 1600mhz. I have already picked up a GTX 460 768MB for about £30 and a stick of CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10B. However I want to avoid picking up a motherboard that wont allow me to connect in SLI as I intend to pick up another graphics card and an extra stick of RAM in the future.
Very simply, will they say in the specifications "SLI ready"? Silly question I know, but I assume CrossFire ready motherboards would not work without a bit of extra fiddling? Would I see any performance hit to get a 1-x16 PCIe and 1-x8 PCEi motherboard? Can any motherboard with the required slots be used to house two GTX 460s or must they be designed-for-purpose (thus requiring me to pay out an extra bit of moneys).
Also looking to stick with AMD CPUs. I believe the best chipset for my purpose is the AM3+? The FX-6xxx series are starting to become quite nicely affordable but I wonder is AM3+ compatible with AM3 CPUs? As (a little confusingly for me) it seems that some of the Phenom II x6's are outperforming the FX- series cards in the benchmark tests I've been looking at.
And finally, related to me build but not to motherboards. Would a two graphics card set-up require a power supply with four 6pin PCIe connectors? Assuming so, why do so many 800-900W PSUs around with a zillion amps across the 12V rails come with only 1PCe and and a handful of others... Can the 4pin molex's be split using splitters/adaptors safely so long as the PSU has enough power, or could this cause problems.
Many questions here I know, but thanks to anyone who spares the time to help out here. Just bear in mind with any suggestions that I'm looking to keep this build cost loooow.
J
). I'm thinking I like the look of the Gigabyte-9x0 AM3+ range as they seem to be quite reasonably priced and come with all the features I want.
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