Crossfire graphics card NEED CF Mobo?

Dinkhai

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Aug 22, 2006
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Hi there guys!

I thought it was finally time to sign up for the TH forums and join in on the confusing, brain-numbing conversations about compatibility of hardware, etc etc!

So here I am. How are you all?

To further my introduction:

The last few weeks or so I've been wanting to buy a completely new system and I have been using TH guides to try and decide the best components for me. But unfortunately, a few years ago I went completely out of touch with new hardware and now there's a really overwhelming amount of new stuff to look into. And I have to admit, it's hurting my brain!

After a few days of looking into hardware, I had an almost complete list of components I was going to buy (939 socket crossfire mobo, Athlon 64 CPU, DDR400 RAM, X1900XTX Crossfire graphics card, etc)... but a quick conversation with an old friend completely changed my decision! He convinced me AM2 socket mobo with Athlon 64 X2 CPU and DDR2 RAM was the way to go (with the falling price of the hardware since Intel Core 2 came out, etc).

So I made a new list...

Anyway - back to my question:

I'm not fully sure if this should go under the ATI section, or the motherboard section, but oh well :) ...

When picking my first list, I was under the impression that a Crossfire ATI card NEEDED a Crossfire motherboard even if you didn't want to use the whole dual-graphics card features (so I looked into buying an Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire mobo and a X1900XTX Crossfire graphics card originally). This was all good (in my mind :wink: ) until I looked at the AM2 motherboards and it appears that non of them have the Crossfire features.

Does this mean a X1900XTX Crossfire graphics card would not work on them? Or is the Crossfire feature only (and I mean ONLY) for using dual graphic cards?

Just to make this clear again, I'm only interested in using ONE graphics card for my new system :)

I'm sorry for a long winded post, but I wanted my first time to be special... I mean, first post to be good... ;)

Any help or responses would be great! So thanks in advance. :D
 

jelly1228

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Apr 13, 2006
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You do not need an ati chipset to run that card. All you need is a pci-e slot for the card. If you wanted to run two cards in crossfire you will need an ati chipset. If you are going AM2 get the nforce 590 chipset! You will be happy with it.
 

Dinkhai

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Aug 22, 2006
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Ah-ha! Thank you for your reply Jelly1228 :)!

Yeah, I was sad enough to camp the boards waiting for the first responce ;)

And I'll look into the 590 chipset prices (I was actually looking at a 570).

Thanks again :p