Questions regarding PCI Express and AMD Crossfire X technology

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bbgun

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Jul 30, 2013
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I'm building a computer and am getting a bundle that includes

  • ■ MSI Z87-G43 LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/S USB 3.0 ATX High Performance CF Gaming Intel Motherboard
    ■ CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V V2.31/ EPS12V V2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply
    ■ Intel Core I5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I54670K
    ■ G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 X 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

I've never built a computer before so I'm a little overwhelmed and am just looking at reviews and forums to try to find the remaining parts. I'm looking at AMD Radeon graphics cards but don't know if I should get one with PCI Express 2.0, 2.1, or 3.0.

Also, the motherboard has AMD Crossfire X technology. Is it essential that I get a graphics card that supports that? or does it not make a huge difference?

I'm trying to save as much money as possible. The difference here is about $50-60 between the graphics cards that I'm looking at.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
Solution
getochkn
Crossfire is running two video cards together to give extra power, or allow you to extend your current graphics card. Say you buy a AMD card today, play games for a year and in a year, new games come out and your card isn't cutting it. You spent $500 on the card and new ones are out and your card is down to $250. You can buy another new card for $500+ to get a bit of a boost for new games, or spent $250 and add a second card to get you a boost.

Crossfire (or SLI, which is the Nvidia equal) doesn't usually give double the performance. Some games don't work with it, some get stutter issues, it needs more power from the power supply, more cooling because of two cards, running, etc.

Myself, I've never bothered. When my graphics get...
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getochkn

getochkn

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Jul 2, 2006
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Crossfire is running two video cards together to give extra power, or allow you to extend your current graphics card. Say you buy a AMD card today, play games for a year and in a year, new games come out and your card isn't cutting it. You spent $500 on the card and new ones are out and your card is down to $250. You can buy another new card for $500+ to get a bit of a boost for new games, or spent $250 and add a second card to get you a boost.

Crossfire (or SLI, which is the Nvidia equal) doesn't usually give double the performance. Some games don't work with it, some get stutter issues, it needs more power from the power supply, more cooling because of two cards, running, etc.

Myself, I've never bothered. When my graphics get laggy, I get a new card and pass my current one down. With 11+ PC's in my house though, using old parts is never a problem. If you're a big gamer and want the most juice out of your system and the coolest looking PC, etc, then people like to Crossfire/SLI.

If you don't plan on ever doing it, you can get a cheap motherboard that doesn't support it.
 
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Solution
Jaxem

Jaxem

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Jul 22, 2013
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The crossfire doesn't matter, you can get a card that will CF or not, both will work . Crossfire is when you put a second graphics card in another slot and bridge them together to share the load, it's very buggy currently, and most people will say a single high power card is better anyway.

The PCIE spec doesn't matter either, a 3.0 card is backwards compatible with a 2.0 slot, and current cards aren't even close to saturating 2.0 bandwidth, so there's no actual benefit to 3.0 yet. If you get a decent mid to high end card though, it will probably be 3.0 anyways.
 
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