Two 4850x2 in Crossfire

[trihedral]

Just recently bought 2 4850x2's from Newegg totalling to round $640.

Was wondering what would be a good Motherboard for these 2 cards since the current one i have only has 1 PCI-E x16. Not only that, but recommended CPU processors as well that wouldn't bottleneck the cards. also a good quality ram that goes well with the Mobo.

What i want to know:
Good Mobo for 2 4850x2's inside of a Antec 900 Case?
A RAM that goes well with the motherboard?
Dual Core or Quad Core CPU?
Intel or AMD?

Games i will be playing:
Crysis, COD: WAW, Company of Heroes, Lost Planet.

My Rig Specs:
Antec 900
Corsair 1000W
Raptor 10,000 RPM
Geforce 8500GT
Some old crappy 2006 Mobo from Dell.

-Thanks in Advance.

 

[trihedral]

Bump

 

[AdioKIP]

Personally I run 2 4850's in an Asus M3A32 Deluxe board. Its an older board though so currently you would want the M3A79 or the new M4A79. Processor wise I had an X2 6000 that was doing great, about two weeks ago I upgraded to the Phenom 940 and I am impressed so far, Crysis, Fallout 3 and any other game I've run so far are only putting about a 30% load on the CPU. As far as ram, this will be dependent on the motherboard you go with but get atleast 4 gigs and nothing less then DDR2 1066.... This is the AMD bang for your money budget route. If money isnt an issue then you can spend alot more and get an I7 based machine which will probably give you about a 20% gain over the AMD based machine but at a cost of almost double.

 

[trihedral]

Thanks a lot Adio, but i don't think i'd go for a i7 base since i have to same some money for college and double the amount is not worth is for a 20% increase, even though that would of been nice.

So i listened to what you said and bought the ASUS M4A79 790FX (Since its black)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131361

Will be putting the cards on the black PCI 2.0 x16 slots so i have the PCI slot on the top for a Sound card. If Crossfireing Two 4850x2, the two cards will run at x16 right? or is it a quad GPU type of thing that runs at x8 for each?

Also bought me 8GB of DDR 1066, and Phenom II 940 (3.0Ghz). Hopefully i can overclock this sucker to 3.4Ghz.

 

[AdioKIP]

Nice choice Trihedral. You said you were gonna put your cards in the black slots. The black are the 8x slots. You'll want to use the blue 16x pipelines. Normally running 4 cards drops it down to 8x speed but since you are running the X2's which only occupy the blue slots I beleive you do stay at the 16x speed, however in multi-card setups once you go above two cards the difference in 16x and 8x is minimal so either way you shouldnt take a performance hit.

Nice choice going with 8 gigs of ram, thats what I'm currently running. The phenom 940 is a great processor so far, have had it just under 3 weeks now and its handled everything I could think of with power to spare. Overclocking to 3.4 should be very easy on anything but the stock cooler, just bump your multiplier up and it should get you to the speed you want. Personally I was gonna overclock mine slightly but I dont see the point right now, no game or program is carrying the processor anywhere near 100% load even when multi-tasking like crazy.

You didnt mention what operating system you're running but with your setup I hope you are running Vista 64 to fully utilize everything

Good that you're saving money for college. My bachelors is in computer science, having a good career has definitely been whats allowed me to pay for my technology habit. Although I must say you are lucky, at your age I couldnt even consider doing a build like you're doing..... but my current setup is a monster

Vista 64-Bit
Asus M3A32 Deluxe Wifi Motherboard
AMD Phenom 940 Quad Core (stock speed)
8 Gigs DDR2 1066
2x4850 Radeons
1 Tb Hard Drive Primary / 1.5 Tb Storare (mutlimedia drive)
3 LG 22 inch LCD's
Thermaltake Armour MX Case
Thermaltake Toughpower 750watt PSU
Hauppauge TV Tuner

 

[gateway350]

Trihedral- Let me know how that works out. The whole rig but mainly the 2 4850x2's. Got the same setup and was considering dropping another 4850x2 in to max my resolution and gaming settings but wasn't sure if crossfire x was fully functional.

 

[maggett]

does the 4850x2 fit in and antec 900 good? or did u haft to take out the HDD cage

same as 900-2?

 

[maggett]

yes but the 4850x2 is like 11.5 inches long 1 inch longer than the 70x2s

anyone got any idea?

 

[rescawen]

1 single GTX 285 is more than enough for basically anything.

 

[michaelmk86]

1 single GTX 285 is more than enough for basically anything.

One GTX285 is not enough

 

[fruees]

+1 michaelmk: it is very good, but not enough for everything. At 1900x1200 you won't be able to max out the most demmanding games.
It all depends on your gaming preferences and resolution, so don't make sweeping statements like that, rescawen

 

[gatroo]

One GTX285 is not enough

ITS WAY!!! enought... u basterd rich kid..

i hate people like this...

 

[Euphoria_MK]

Hey Trihedral,

What happened to your setup?
Can you post some info on games and such?

I am interested on that how the 2 hd4850x2 crossfired...

Thanks!

 

[michaelmk86]

ITS WAY!!! enought... u basterd rich kid..

i hate people like this...

First of all why you judge someone that you don’t know

Try to play crysis at 1680x1050 veryhigh DX10, crysis benchmark
GTX285 = 32fps (unplayable)
GTX295 = 48fps

Also try to play cryostasis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, empire total war
The GTX285 will not be abele to play these games with high setting and good frame rates.

 

[fruees]

gatroo wrote :

ITS WAY!!! enought... u basterd rich kid..

i hate people like this...

Trihedral, don't listen to ppl like this, they're just bitter and haven't actually tried to answer your question.
at 1600x1050 you will be fine with 2 4850x2, given that they amount to probably more power than the gtx295.

Keep your eye on the amd forums however, as driver issues are common with multiple GPU crossfire setups

Good build ; )

 

[badfps]

One of those monster is enough. Dude 700 dollar you spend... thats a lot! Most games dont even utilize the gpus! Most people dont play such powerful games like Crysis! I am going to buy a 4670 and thats awsome!

I would love to have one of those cards tho!

 

[gatroo]

omg im not saying to the poster.....who posted this thread..so read the forum before you write......

i way wrinting that to a kid who writed that one 295 is not enought... -.-