Asus M4A785T-M/CSM Crossfire?

[adammitchell]

I read that the Asus M4A785T-M/CSM can support Crossfire. Is this true? And if it is, is there any way to know which GPUs are supported in this configuration. My current GPU is an ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB. I tried looking on the ASUS website, but wasn't having much luck finding my answer. Good to know I can always rely on Tom's!

Thanks!

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

This is old, but may help clear it up some. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/269346-33-785g-hybrid-crossfire

From what I can tell, the newest/best GPU that was ever supposed to work in Hybrid CF with that chipset was a HD 3450/70 and possibly some 4000 series cards, although I don't know that that ever happened.

In any case, your 5670 will definitely NOT work for Hybrid CF.

 

[adammitchell]

Thanks for the info. This is disappointing. I really only bought this mobo because I thought it would not age as fast if it had CF capabilities. It seemed like a very upgradeable board at the time I purchased it (2010). I probably should have done a little more research.

As it stands now, I have this mobo maxed out with 16gb RAM and since this mobo can accommodate some many drives, I was going to get more storage and maybe an SSD for caching to try to boost my performance a bit. My main issue is that I am trying to boost my graphical capabilities and was hoping the CF option was my answer to a quick boost. I guess now it is back to the drawing board. Probably going to be getting a new GPU altogether. Any suggestions?

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

Something in the range of a 6850/70 or GTX 560 would be a very nice upgrade. You could go higher, but depending on what CPU you have, you may not be able to use anything better to it's fullest potential.

 

[adammitchell]

Thanks to my mobo's AM3 socket, I am currently running an AMD Athlon II X4 630 (2.8 Ghz) quad core 2mb cache. I haven't overclocked it because I don't think my cooling system would enjoy that very much.

Based on that CPU, which GPU would you suggest?

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

A 6850 or 7770 would fit pretty nicely with that. Also a GTX 550 Ti if you care for Nvidia. I think much higher and you would probably run into some bottle necking.

Another pretty significant upgrade would be a Phenom II X4 965 BE. You could go higher, if you want, all the way to a 1100T (although almost impossible to find), as it supports any Phenom II CPU up to 125W TDP. The 965 BE would be nice though because you can just OC it to match a 980 and go beyond it too, of course.

 

[adammitchell]

Well, for my fellow upgrade hunters, I found the 1100T Black Edition here: http://discount-superstore.net/p/187236/AMD%20Phenom%20II%20X6%201100T%20Processor,%20Black%20Edition%20%28HDE00ZFBGRBOX%29-%252d%252d-3JI7O004QNYJ5X99.html

Thanks for all the info. This restores my hopes a bit, as all this hardware is definitely priced right and by the looks of it, should future-proof my system fairly well.

Thanks for all your help, DJDeCiBeL. I am gonna start weighing my options. I will be back if I have more questions.

 

[adammitchell]

Best answer selected by adammitchell.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

You're welcome.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

Just one more thing though. I couldn't find a support list when I looked for that exact model name (just plain wasn't there), but I looked here http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A785TM/#CPUS (possibly different board, but I'm thinking it's actually the exact same one) and it says that a 1090T is the highest X6 that it supports, along with the 965 being the best X4 that it supports.

You'll probably need a BIOS update as well.

I just assumed that a 1100T should work, since I couldn't find any evidence to the contrary, but that's what I get for assuming, lol.

Anyway, I actually think a 965 BE is the best choice for gaming purposes. The extra cores in the X6 1090T aren't really of much use for gaming and it's slower at stock.

 

[adammitchell]

Well this mobo for some reason came lsited with the M/CSM, but I think on the ASUS website they have it listed as M4A785T-M. Thanks so much for going and looking that up, though.

Honestly, this has been really educational. I am by no means an expert and this build is really just kind of hit and miss. It started as a budget box that was intended for my girlfriend to be able to play Sims 3 on. So far I have been able to get it to run just about anything but the Sims 3 perfectly, but I'm sure this thing will be tearing everything up with a new CPU and GPU.