Buildling A Two Video Card I7-2600k System Over Clocking Gaming

[alohascott]

Aloha
I am a little confused when looking at the pci card slot specs on motherboards.

Here is an EATX motherboard that costs $350 and its seems to not allow you to use two x16 slots at the same time.

ASUS MAXIMUS IV EXTREME (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
Average Rating 4 out of 5 eggs(98 reviews)
B3/ROG, w/ Digi+VRM, 3 way SLI, 10x USB 3.0

Expansion Slots

PCI Express 2.0 x16
4 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (single @x16, dual @x8, triple @x8, x16, x16 )

PCI Express x4
1

PCI Express x1
1

Am I reading this correctly?

Anyone have any suggestions for a top of the line motherboard for exelent and stable OverClocking and using Two video cards.
thanks

 

[alohascott]

I am considering

2 XFX HD-685X-ZNFC Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
for this build.
cost about $300 for both cards

Is there any games or anything at all that I can do better with say two
SAPPHIRE 100312-3SR Radeon HD 6950 Dirt3 Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
that would cost about $500 total?

not to leave out ge force how about two similar cards from different manufactures so i can take advantage of reabates of $50 on each card or $100 total.

MSI N570GTX-M2D12D5 GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

and

ECS NGTX570-1280PI-F GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

total cost $280

I am actually building this for someone else so I don't really know that much about gaming.

thanks

 

[alohascott]

GTX 570 total cost would be $560 not $280

 

[redeemer]

If you are only running two video cards than you dont need that motherboard, I would recommend "ASUS P8P67 WS REVOLUTION ".
This board overclocks like a dream and equiped with the NF200 chipset.
The blue slots are 2X 16, there enough spacing as well. Grab yourself two 570 for sli and your good to go, since this is a gaming rig i would go with the i5 2500k

 

[alohascott]

Aloha
Thanks for the good info. why would you reduce the processor? is the I7 not needed for games?
thanks

 

[chillin15]

The asrock extreme7 gen3 is suppose to come out in a week or less:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z68%20Extreme7%20Gen3

it's little brother the asroc extreme4 gen3 is already out:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157264

 

[alohascott]

interesting
do you have any pricing info?
thanks

 

[chillin15]

I believe it will come out at around 300 for the extreme7 but that is just my guess based on forums and the extreme4 pricing.

 

[alohascott]

bump
I am considering

2 XFX HD-685X-ZNFC Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
for this build.
cost about $300 for both cards

Is there any games or anything at all that I can do better with say two
SAPPHIRE 100312-3SR Radeon HD 6950 Dirt3 Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
that would cost about $500 total?

not to leave out ge force how about two similar cards from different manufactures so i can take advantage of reabates of $50 on each card or $100 total.

MSI N570GTX-M2D12D5 GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

and

ECS NGTX570-1280PI-F GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

total cost $280

I am actually building this for someone else so I don't really know that much about gaming.

thanks

 

[chillin15]

I would personally get 1 570 versus two 6950s. You have room to get a better card and sli if you buy one 570 versus buying two 6950s.

Either choice, however, will max you out at all games.

 

[alohascott]

just to clarify, are you saying one 570 would be enough but I would need two 6950 to max out the games?

 

[chillin15]

I'm saying either one 570 or two 6950s will max you out in any game with the highest settings except if you want to play like metro 2033 with 3 monitors...

 

[alohascott]

Best answer selected by alohascott.

 

[alohascott]

thanks
that's what I needed to know.

 

[alohascott]

one last question if anybody is still around.
where would you look for benchmarks of video cards?
I was using passmark.com but it would be impossible to tell by looking at the video card scores there, that two 6950 could be matched by one 570.

GeForce GTX 570 3,546 314.88*
Radeon HD 6950 3,079 289.99*


http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

 

[chillin15]

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-gaming-graphics-charts/benchmarks,123.html

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey