Can the ASUS Crosshair V Formula use quad SLI w/dual GPU cards?

[Ladamyre]

The specs say 3-way SLI but there are two dedicated x16 slots on the board and I was wondering if it could be done or especially if somebody has already done this, namely use two dual GPU cards like the nVidia 590 or the Radeon 6990 on this board?

And PLEASE! I don't care if you think me a fool for going with an AMD based board. Any arguments designed to get me to see the error of my ways is wasted and will only be evidence that your mother failed to teach you any manners.

If you don't have an answer to my question, don't reply. I will report any flamers to the moderators.

 

[THE UNKNOWN]

www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/Crosshair_V_Formula/#specifications

If your talking abot this one then dual for x16 and for 3way sli is x16/x8/x8

 

[THE UNKNOWN]

No you cannot use quad on 2GPUS you need 4 GPU to run in quad

 

[Ladamyre]

Perhaps you misunderstood.

If you use SLI on two dual GPU cards that would be quad SLI. Four GPU's, two cards.

 

[THE UNKNOWN]

Thanks for that i knew already but i was thinking your talking about 4 cards what so ever what was the question ?
If your asking for can i run 3 card if i only have 2x16 then for 3 its x16/x8/x8 if not then let me know what you wanted know ?

 

[horaciopz]

In theory, you can and there will not be any bandwidth penalization for using 2 cards (6990/590) in 2 slots, actually the bios will recognize them as dual cards. But the driver is the one that will allow you get the 4 GPUs runnig together.

For the motherboad, 2 lanes at 16x/16x will not hold anything from those cards. I cant say you "go ahead it will work" im not sure. Gotta wait to someone to clarify.

Cheers!

 

[Ladamyre]

In theory, you can and there will not be any bandwidth penalization for using 2 cards (6990/590) in 2 slots, actually the bios will recognize them as dual cards. But the driver is the one that will allow you get the 4 GPUs runnig together.

For the motherboad, 2 lanes at 16x/16x will not hold anything from those cards. I cant say you "go ahead it will work" im not sure. Gotta wait to someone to clarify.

Cheers!

Yeah you see what I'm driving at.

Actually my real problem is deciding which MOBO to go with, this one or the Sabertooth which says it can run quad sli/crossfire.

And thanks for reminding me it's all about the drivers, so I suppose a proper driver for the Crosshair board could make the quad thing on 2 dual gpu cards work.

That makes me think, does the bridge/ribbon that connects the cards together have anything to do with it? For instance, is there a difference between an sli bridge for two single gpu cards and an sli bridge for two dual gpu cards?

 

[SafetyJ]

i just finished watching the motherbords.org review on the board and the guy said that u CAN run 2x dual GPU's in crossfire ONLY.

 

[Ladamyre]

i just finished watching the motherbords.org review on the board and the guy said that u CAN run 2x dual GPU's in crossfire ONLY.

I dunno. I hope I can find that link (hint, hint).

I'm skeptical though. Unless I actually see him running quad anything, and since if I do run quad Crossfire it would be because I waited and saw that the AMD 7990 is better than the nVidia 690, I'm gonna want some real user data before I go with this board since it might mean laying out a grand for a card I can't pair up with another dual GPU like it, if I did buy this board.

For the moment, I'm still leaning toward the Sabertooth.

 

[horaciopz]

This is the link of the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGbYXfS0Y2s&feature=plcp

And the sabertooth is kinda the same...

But i talked with friend in a group of lan gaming... And they said that it will work, for sure.. Its recommended an AMD card for that setup, but the chipset and stuff actually will work.

So well go ahead it will work as many people have told me.

 

[Ladamyre]

This is the link of the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGbYXfS0Y2s&feature=plcp

And the sabertooth is kinda the same...

But i talked with friend in a group of lan gaming... And they said that it will work, for sure.. Its recommended an AMD card for that setup, but the chipset and stuff actually will work.

So well go ahead it will work as many people have told me.

I see you can take a hint.

Yeah, I saw the vid and he admits later on that he's been arguing with some guys about it taking dual GPU AMD cards in quad Crossfire.

But it seems reasonable to me that two dual GPU cards of either kind should work with this chipset, after all the Sabertooth advertises quad SLI or Crossfire. Maybe that's because it'll take 4 single GPU cards, but as far as the chipset is concerned, whether it sees two GPU's each coming in through the two X16 lanes or 4 single GPU's coming in through 4 x8 lanes shouldn't matter. The quad setups doing either have worked well in the past, I see no reason it won't work now.

I would like to see some data (test scores) just to satisfy my curiosity as to which gives more real world performance, 4 GPU's coming in through two x16 lanes versus 4 coming in through 4 x8 lanes. Nevertheless, if the difference isn't huge (and I doubt that), I'd go with dual GPU cards, of either kind, for the advantage of less power consumption, which always relates to less heat.

Oh, one more thing, FYI. Unless someone comes back with some information that has escaped my research, I have decided to get the Sabertooth after all. Five PWM fan headers, five year warranty, heat sensors all over the board AND extra PCIe slots for whatever I want later on means a whole lot more to me than ROG connect and that Sound Blaster 7.1 chip. I can do my own overclocking (thank you very much) and I've not noticed any difference between SB's stuff and Realtek's since the day I built my first PC back in '93 when you had to have an expansion card for good sound.

That one had a Cyrix 5x86 CPU! (In your face Intel fanboys.)

 

[Ladamyre]

Well guys I actually did something I hate to do, I read the instructions. I downloaded both the Crosshair V Formula and the Sabertooth user manuals' latest revisions and read them.

First, I must correct myself, neither board has 4 PCIe 2.0 x16 slots that will run at x8 for use in a quad card setup. So a quad card setup is out, unless you want to for instance, use four dinosaur single slot cards like the GeForce 7950 GT's in x4.(?)

The Sabertooth's expansion setup will allow for good cooling on two dual-slot card setups since the slots to use on that type will give an open space between the two for a more open air intake on the top card, that is if you don't use the #3 slot for anything else, like a sound card.

And the Crosshairs setup for that particular usage is even better since it gives two extra spaces between them. However a triple SLI or Crossfire setup on it crams all three right up against each other, IMO not a good thing unless you're gonna watercool them.

But back to the original idea of the thread, I've been seeing "Crosshair V Formula Clubs" where there are more than one or two guys running quad setup with dual GPU cards on them and they have no complaints. So I am flagging horatiopz as the best answer.

Unless someone comes back with some information that has escaped my research, I have decided to get the Sabertooth after all.

Well, in this new research I did I found out the Crosshair has seven PWM fan headers, three connectors for temperature sensors, a reset CMOS button on the I/O panel, is supposed to be better able to overclock memory and has the same amount of extra PCIe slots with better spacing for a quad GPU setup using two dual GPU cards that gets even more better air flow. (Got that one from "Idiocracy")

So since aesthetics means nothing to me, I guess it boils down to the difference in the warranties. Do I want to give up two years of warranty and (currently) pay about $25 more for a better memory OC and SoundBlaster Fx?

Decisions, decisions.

 

[Ladamyre]

Best answer selected by Ladamyre.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr