Crossfire on My x58 i7 Sli Board

I have an EVGA X58 3x SLI i7 motherboard. First , if upgrade my 2gb Sparkle 9600 gt card to Crossfire Graphics cards, will I be able to do Tri Crossfire ? Second, the motherboard came with a ONE Dual (2 way) and ONE Tri (3 way) SLI bridges and Crossfire requires two bridges, not a single bridge like SLI. How do i solve this problem ? Finally is there any advantage or disadvantage to going Crossfire on my motherboard ?

yes i read all this .... it didnt answer my question .... i know i can do sli/crossfire on my x58 chipset .... my question is , can i do tri crossfire or only tri sli ?

You can run 3 way Crossfire on that board fine.. though it will not be technically supported by evga (two way would) if you have problems, due to various marketing reasons.

All x58 boards support crossfire by default. The only reason SLI is a bit different is enabling that requires certification from Nvidia, and is not by default. Thus it is usually advertised separately.

Maziar.. you will have to update the FAQ to include info about the x58.

The op already made a second post, it seems to me he understands what sli/crossfire are.. he simply wants to upgrade his slow 9600gt to something better.. an wants to know if he is limited to nvidia, or if crossfire will work.

He is not asking if he can 'crossfire' a 9600gt.

Yes Crossfire and Sli are the same thing .... CROSSIRE is for ATI and SLI is Nvidia and the only reason they are seperate is to make more money .... So both companies wanna be exclusive so you have to buy there products .... As Amd and Ati are both owned by the same company .... I called EVGA and there rep wasnt sure ... he said for a fact it would support tri sli .... and my board came with a tri sli bridge and it has two inserts for each card as required for crossfire and sli .... So I understand how the tech works .... I just need to know if the x58 board will support 3 way crossfire ... and is there any advantage or disadvantage to going one way or the other ..... EVGA rep said to goto this website and compare http://www.hwbot.org/ and i did and the Nvidia cards are getting much better bench marks then the Ati cards..... the ati hd 4870 is a top of the line ATI card and the GTX 260 has higher benchmarks ..... and the 260 is and nvidia still has many better cards then this ..... My choice is to go with three NVIDIA GTX 260's ... what is a recommended power supply for this because each card requires two 6pin pci connectors from the PSU .... Which means i need 6 six pin connectors ....any suggestions ? and how many watts would it take to run 3 of these cards ?

Umm.. no they are not the same thing.. at all. They work totally differently, require different hardware and connections, and different software... though the result is still "I can use a couple pf cards together."

I would recommend you do a lot of research before you drop any money into this as you don't seem to understand the tech very well.

By the by.. the 4870 is not the top of the line ati.. the 4870x2 and 4890 are (were) though tomorrow (perhaps) the 5000 series will be out which will be roughly twice as fast down the line.

The board will support crossfire as it is an x58 board.. It will also support SLI because it has the added support and certification for that...

To power 3 cards would require something on the lines of 800Watts... Though if you plan to overclock.. or have a hefty system in other areas 1000 would be better.. Something from corsair or PC power and cooling.

well the idea is the same is what i meant by they are the same .... crossfire and sli just for different manufactures .... and comparing nvidia to ati ... nvidia has better speeds for majority of there bechmarks on the website i posted. For example, the GTX 280 is about the same as the as 4870x2 ... but the overclock is high with nvidia ....

You both should edit your message to include if 5xxx series comes out tomorrow, not when. Now the 5xxx series should be released prior to the release of windows 7 on Oct 22, with the strong possibility of it being tomorrow.

another question will i be able to use my pci slots with TRI SLI ? i dont think so but thought i would ask and mention that i am overclocking my pc 2.2 and 1600mhz on my ram .... will the corsair handle this goodness ?

The older ones will not drop in price all that quickly as nothing of equal performance will be out for a bit.. just the high end cards to start.

Nvidia is not as far ahead as you seem to think, but in general their cards do tend to be a tad faster (for now).. though more often than not more expensive.

However.. you cannot use single card performance as your guide since you plan to buy three. this changes things a lot.

If you plan to overclock three 4890's would be the best bet.. but there is no point in spending that much given they will be half as powerful as the cards that will be released in the next couple of days.

You example is rather flawed.. the 280 was never considered close to the 4870x2.. though neither are produced any more so the point is moot.

Remember.. scaling is a huge factor with crossfire/sli.. If you really want to buy three 260's.. keep in mind they will cost a good deal more than what a single 5870 would cost.. and still bring all of the disadvantages SLI/cf brings.. with no real performance leap. Three way SLI/CF is really only useful for extreme rigs.. all current of which will be obsolete in a week.

I can't in good conscience recommend building a three way GPU setup with last generation cards.. it would be gratuitous waste of money.. even if the cards are halved in cost with the new generation.. which they will not be.

whoops I must have skipped over the parenthesis.
My apologies...

Which might be 5850, or maybe 5870....

yeah well thats what i wondering i am either going to go with 3 4870's or 3 260's and price wise the 4870's are better and they have ddr5 ....

did u read what i said ? i said u can't use CrossFire on a SLI board like Nvidia 680i/780i etc.
X58 is different,u can use both SLI and CrossFire on it