Will I be able to cross fire or dule

Solution
From what I can tell, no. That is not the motherboard you want to buy. The reason why is pretty simple:

It has two PCIe-x16 PHYSICAL slots, but the top one is wired x16, the second is wired for x4 ONLY. The rest of the PCIe slots are x1 only for small devices.

Putting the GTX970 (pretty decent card btw) in the top slot will run it at full speed. The problem is, to run a secondary card in SLI (for Nvidia cards) requires (REQUIRES!!!) at least two physical PCIe-x16 slots wired in at least x8 mode.

If you were to go AMD, they have more flexibility as they will allow their cards to run in as low as wired x4 mode for Crossfire mode, but performance might be a bit hit or miss. If you want to do potential SLI/Crossfire correctly...

Rookie_MIB

Distinguished
From what I can tell, no. That is not the motherboard you want to buy. The reason why is pretty simple:

It has two PCIe-x16 PHYSICAL slots, but the top one is wired x16, the second is wired for x4 ONLY. The rest of the PCIe slots are x1 only for small devices.

Putting the GTX970 (pretty decent card btw) in the top slot will run it at full speed. The problem is, to run a secondary card in SLI (for Nvidia cards) requires (REQUIRES!!!) at least two physical PCIe-x16 slots wired in at least x8 mode.

If you were to go AMD, they have more flexibility as they will allow their cards to run in as low as wired x4 mode for Crossfire mode, but performance might be a bit hit or miss. If you want to do potential SLI/Crossfire correctly, you'll need to step up one notch in the MSI set (if you prefer MSI) to the Z97 G45 Gaming - that motherboard is SLI/Crossfire certified so you can drop in a second card if you choose.

Just a quick note, SLI and Crossfire in certain situations can scale fairly well (ie adding a second GPU can add significant performance) but not always at a 1:1 ratio. So, adding a secondary card can add 90% more performance in certain situations, but usually the best option is to buy the best GPU you can afford the first time around. The GTX970 IS a good card - it's great for 1080p gaming for sure and great on power usage, so don't worry there. You'll have a solid base for a gaming machine as it stands.

The only thing I would do - adding a second GTX970 down the road means your PSU might be a little light. You might want to step up to a 750/800w unit to avoid having to sell the used PSU at a lower price only to buy a new PSU if/when you go SLI. 750/800w would more than cover twin GTX970s and everything else and still run in your sweet spot for PSU efficiency.

In other words, better to plan ahead and buy once, than to skimp a little now and buy twice.
 
Solution

Rookie_MIB

Distinguished


I'm not disputing the fact that 620w is enough. It is:

2x 150w GPU = 300
1x 90w CPU = 90
motherboard/ram = 80w
drives/fans = 50w
rough total = 520w.

I'm just pointing out that he's running about 85% of the rated power load. Efficiency sweet spot is 45-75% load, and going up slightly on the PSU now makes sure that he will run nice and cool and quiet down the road...


 


Efficiency? The PSU I'm using was bought in 2006 and has been running balls to the wall since day one, that's efficiency! :lol: