Budget Gaming Upgrade Help

[rvjones10]

I am upgrading current system on a budget. I purchased 2 MSI ATI RX3850 OC (512/256bit) Graphics cards on the cheap and want to crossfire them. I picked up a core 2 duo 8400 3.0ghz and I was planning to get this mother board:

GIGABYTE GA-X48-DS5 LGA 775 Intel X48 (crossfire support at 16x both slots)

Any thoughts on this? and does my power supply have the juice to handle this? my power supply is:

RAIDMAX VOLCANO RX-630A 630W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular

 

[Proximon]

No to the PSU, the 3870s are not very hungry but the Raidmax is junk.
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

Corsair 650TX would be one good choice.

You do NOT need a $190 board to crossfire. See this review:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3508

Then get that board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128358

 

[rvjones10]

No to the PSU, the 3870s are not very hungry but the Raidmax is junk.
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

Corsair 650TX would be one good choice.

You do NOT need a $190 board to crossfire. See this review:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3508

Then get that board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128358

Is there a big performance drop (graphically)on the motherboard you recommended with regards to the PCI slots not being 16x on both? I think it said it was 8x/8x in duel mode. That is what was driving me towards that Mobo.

 

[Proximon]

It's not very important, especially with slower cards in CF at lower resolutions.

If you were talking about a couple big cards at the resolution of a 30" monitor, then you might see 10 FPS difference.

Here is a full test with 2X 4870s:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-pci-express,2095-5.html
NOTE: This is not done with the superior board I linked.

Here is about the most EXTREME difference in the boards:
Note the 3.3 FPS difference at 1680x1050... and that is with more powerful cards.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

I think I'd dump the 3850's on ebay, and maybe try to pick up a 4870 on the cheap on newegg.

 

[rvjones10]

thanks for the knowledge proximon,

and ohiou_grad_06, that definitely crossed my mind.

I appreciate the feedback