Is my motherboard Crossfire compatible?

[Augray37]

I have a Biostar TA880GB+ AM3 motherboard, and I simply can't figure out if it can handle two graphics cards or not. The Biostar website says it has "hybrid crossfireX", but doesn't explicitly state that it can handle normal crossfire (for example, two HD 6870s). Newegg, however, in the overview section says that it can handle two discrete GPUs. Here are the links...

http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=491

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138197


This is driving me nuts! I've looked over the manuals and it doesn't say if it does or doesn't support regular crossfire, i've scoured the web, i just can't figure it out. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

Augray

 

[nikorr]

ATI Hybrid CrossFireX™ Technology
It says it on the website.
ATI Hybrid CrossFireX™ takes your gaming experience to the next level, under a Windows Vista® environment. ATI Hybrid CrossFireX boosts PC performance by enabling the AMD Chipset's integrated graphics processor and a discrete GPU (ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 Series ATI Radeon™ HD 3400 Series) to operate simultaneously with combined output to a single display for blis display for blisteringly-fast frame rates. Unleash the graphics performance that you've been waiting for on a mainstream Windows Vista® PC!

INTEGRATED VIDEO
ATI Radeon™ HD4250 Graphics , Max. Memory Share Up to 512 MB
Support ATI Hybrid Crossfire . Please refer to http://ati.amd.com/technology/hybridgraphics/technology.html for details

 

[JKatwyopc]

No it can't do normal crossfire because you would need 2 PCIe v2.0 compatible expansion slots for that. Your board only has one. You could use a second PCI video card if you wanted but there would be little reason to do that because most newer video cards can handle two or three monitors without the need for an additional card.

As far as the "Hybrid Crossfire X", you would be wasting your time an money doing that because you would have to find a video card that is compatible with your chipsets built-in video (Radeon HD 4250) andaccording to this chart ( http://sites.amd.com/PublishingImages/Public/Graphic_Illustrations/WebBannerJPEG/AMD_CrossfireX_Chart_1618W.jpg ) the only discrete cards that work are the very low end ATI Radeon HD 5000 series cards.

You would get better performance with a single 6850 or 6870.

 

[nikorr]

Only ATI Hybrid CrossFireX.

 

[willard]

I have a Biostar TA880GB+ AM3 motherboard, and I simply can't figure out if it can handle two graphics cards or not. The Biostar website says it has "hybrid crossfireX", but doesn't explicitly state that it can handle normal crossfire (for example, two HD 6870s). Newegg, however, in the overview section says that it can handle two discrete GPUs. Here are the links...

http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=491

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138197


This is driving me nuts! I've looked over the manuals and it doesn't say if it does or doesn't support regular crossfire, i've scoured the web, i just can't figure it out. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

Augray

Your motherboard only has one slot for a video card, so no, you cannot put two cards in it.

 

[swifty_morgan]

hybrid cross fire on those older boards is horrible. you're limited by a very low end card and what's on board ( on the motherboard )...... if you already are using a 6870 you have it beat by a mile.

 

[Augray37]

No it can't do normal crossfire because you would need 2 PCIe v2.0 compatible expansion slots for that. Your board only has one. You could use a second PCI video card if you wanted but there would be little reason to do that because most newer video cards can handle two or three monitors without the need for an additional card.

So let me get this straight...I can put another 6870 on the standard PCI slot, and it will work separately to power a second/third monitor, but it can't work together with the other 6870 on the PCIe 2.0 slot? ls that right?

 

[willard]

So let me get this straight...I can put another 6870 on the standard PCI slot, and it will work separately to power a second/third monitor, but it can't work together with the other 6870 on the PCIe 2.0 slot? ls that right?

No. You cannot put another 6870 in your system, because as I already said, you do not have two video card slots. How are you planning to put another card in there without anywhere to put it?

You could find another, much older video card running on the PCI interface (not PCI-E, PCI, there's a massive difference), and put that in there. But, because it would not be the same type of card you already have, they will not work together on rendering games. You could try offloading physics to the older PCI card, but they're so far out of date (10+ years since they were the standard) you'd probably be hurting your performance rather than helping it.

Just forget about putting another card in that board, it's not happening.

 

[Augray37]

No. You cannot put another 6870 in your system, because as I already said, you do not have two video card slots. How are you planning to put another card in there without anywhere to put it?

You could find another, much older video card running on the PCI interface (not PCI-E, PCI, there's a massive difference), and put that in there. But, because it would not be the same type of card you already have, they will not work together on rendering games. You could try offloading physics to the older PCI card, but they're so far out of date (10+ years since they were the standard) you'd probably be hurting your performance rather than helping it.

Just forget about putting another card in that board, it's not happening.

Hmm...i could've sworn i read somewhere that you could do that, but maybe i'm just makin stuff up. So if my board had, say, a PCIe x1 slot as well as the PCIe 2.0x16 slot, then could you crossfire? Sorry dude, i'm one of those guys that knows a thing or two, but still has some gaps in understanding I appreciate the help though!

 

[willard]

Hmm...i could've sworn i read somewhere that you could do that, but maybe i'm just makin stuff up. So if my board had, say, a PCIe x1 slot as well as the PCIe 2.0x16 slot, then could you crossfire? Sorry dude, i'm one of those guys that knows a thing or two, but still has some gaps in understanding I appreciate the help though!

A PCIe x1 slot will not hold a PCIe x16 card. The slots are of different sizes, and intended to do different things. There are x1 video card out there, but they're slow and expensive. Anything you could run in crossfire with a card in an x1 slot would be absolutely destroyed by a single decent x16 card, and the x16 would be cheaper to boot.

Like I said, forget about crossfire. It's not happening on your board.

 

[Augray37]

A PCIe x1 slot will not hold a PCIe x16 card. The slots are of different sizes, and intended to do different things. There are x1 video card out there, but they're slow and expensive. Anything you could run in crossfire with a card in an x1 slot would be absolutely destroyed by a single decent x16 card, and the x16 would be cheaper to boot.

Like I said, forget about crossfire. It's not happening on your board.

could i put a 6870 in the USB port? or could i just toss it in my case and hope for the best? lol, just playin, i know i can't crossfire on my board, but that's not what i've been asking the last several questions...i've been asking hypothetical questions, for future reference and my own benefit. but i appreciate the info, thanks!

 

[Augray37]

Best answer selected by Augray37.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr