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Building Home PC - Mobo/GPU questions!

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crazyphucker   03-15-2006 at 10:29:04 PM

Okay, so I'm building a PC, eh, and I'm not really to sure what I want to be doing at the moment. I've already ordered my motherboard, processor, and graphics card. I've sort've reached an unfortunate dilemma, too. :( I realized that my graphics card (an HIS Radeon X800 GTO - 256 MB DDR3 PCI-E) supports CrossFire, where as my motherboard does NOT. I have a convenient way for me to actually get a CrossFire motherboard (it won't cost me anything, really), but I'm wondering, is it worth it? Will my single card do me enough service for now, or will my experience be that much better CrossFiring two cards?

I have an income tax return coming, so I was thinking of spending that cash on getting the second graphics card. It's just, CrossFire motherboards seem few and far between, and I'm not too sure if I'll encounter many problems with them. I read reviews on sites like newegg and even here, but they're skeptical and mixed.

I'm just pretty confused about what I should do, that's all. Here's what I've ordered thus far... customer reviews on these products have been great, that's why I ordered them. The mixed reviews on the CrossFire boards concern me, that's all. Any opinions or suggestions would be great:

ASUS A8N5X Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131569

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz HT 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103535

HIS X800GTO 256MB PCIe
http://www.hisdigital.com/html/pro [...] 7&view=yes

Thanks in advance for any advice. And yeah, I'm a newbie. :P

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zyzplasmaz   03-16-2006 at 02:06:08 AM
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i would recommend you stick with the x800gto which is still a great card and wait for the next release from ati/nvidia.
the x800 crossfire wont see that much of a performance increase(as a note, not even sure if x800gto's support crossfire since there is no x800gto master card AND you can get the new Crossfire Xpress 3200 which should support it without a master card)
BUT is all that hassle really worth it? for the amount of a x800gto and a new motherboard(unless you use you "free" ) one, it's probably the cost of a x1800xt which is around $300 which probably offers better perfromance in most games then the gto in crossfire and it's 1 card versus 2.
Also, you would need to reinstall the OS since you have a new motherboard(or at least it's recommend to reinstall the OS) and all that jaz. the amount of time spent might not be worth it but it's your call

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shadowduck   03-16-2006 at 06:46:32 AM
- 0 +

Quote :

i would recommend you stick with the x800gto which is still a great card and wait for the next release from ati/nvidia.
the x800 crossfire wont see that much of a performance increase(as a note, not even sure if x800gto's support crossfire since there is no x800gto master card AND you can get the new Crossfire Xpress 3200 which should support it without a master card)
BUT is all that hassle really worth it? for the amount of a x800gto and a new motherboard(unless you use you "free" ) one, it's probably the cost of a x1800xt which is around $300 which probably offers better perfromance in most games then the gto in crossfire and it's 1 card versus 2.
Also, you would need to reinstall the OS since you have a new motherboard(or at least it's recommend to reinstall the OS) and all that jaz. the amount of time spent might not be worth it but it's your call



Agreed. Crossfire (SLI too) is not worth it. Stick with one card.

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