Please Help Crossfire help

[dschmidt04]

Hello all this is my first time asking a question on Tom's, so please bare with me. First off, This is my set up:

Asus M4A88T-V Evo/ USB3 motherboard

AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE

16 GB Corsair Vengeance PC12800 DDR3 RAM - 1600MHz

Corsair TX850W Power Supply

2 x XFX HD-687A-ZHFC Radeon HD 6870 900M Video Card

Corsair Carbide 400R Mid Tower

Second, This mother board only runs crossfire x16 x4 and that is no good.

What do you recommend as far as a Crossfire motherboard with these two cards? I am willing to buy new motherboard and processor so feel free to recommend a few. I would like to stay under $400 for the pair (will spend more if worth it) and maybe throw some new RAM in there too. Please help. I would like to get the best deal, as far as performance goes, with my 2 6870's. If you need any other information, please ask.

 

[clutchc]

If you want to stay with the AMD processor, I recommend this board. I have had past experience with it with my Ph IIX4 980BE and 2 HD 6850s. It will do Xfire at x16, x16.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128514

You found out like I did that Xfire needs more than PCIe x4 speed to perform at its best. You'll like this board.

 

[JKatwyopc]

I have the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131736 ) and have had no trouble with it.

However, if your looking to improve performance you might consider going with a Sandy bridge setup. You could easily fit that into your $400 budget.

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072 ) ~ $230

ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z/GEN3 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131806 ) ~ $180

Total ~ $410

This would be my pick. It only does dual PCIe at X8,X8, however, there is very little difference ( around 1-2% ) between X8,X8 and X16,X16.


Here's a slightly less expensive MOBO that would perform similarly if you really want to keep your budget under $400.

GIGABYTE GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128503 ) ~ $160