Intel motherboard with Crossfire

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Maplewalnut

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Can anyone recommend a great best-bang-for-your-buck Intel motherboard that supports crossfire?

Cheers,
Maplewalnut
 
Intel brand mobo or mobo for Intel CPU?

For best results you probably want a P45 or X38/X48 chipset mobo as P35s with CF tend to be x16+x4.
 
P45 is way to go, The BIOSTAR TPower I45 is amazingly the hottest P45 mobo on the market atm. It's setting world records on overclocking left right and center! Pretty much any P45 mobo with CF from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte or Biostar will be good.
 
if I was to go 4850 or 4870 crossfire, would it be worth it to get a x38 or x48 for the 16x16 crossfire? Or is the extra bandwidth irrelevant. All the P45's are 8x8 right? Or at least the non cheap ones that are under 150. Also, what's the difference between the:

Asus P5Q - Pro $150
Asus P5Q - E $160

and is there any advantage besides 16-Phase power for the:
Asus P5Q - Deluxe $210

also care to explain anyone why this board is cheaper than the Pro, only has 1 pci x 16 slot, yet holds twice the ram?
Asus P5Q $130
 
I'd go for the x48/x38's. There was some articles on bit-tech and tweaktown on the whole p45 vs x48. I'll try to dig it up if I can but generally go for the x48s. I myself am leaning toward the asus rampage.
 
I actually did find that one, they were talking about the Asus Blitz, which I believe, the P45 will work the same, since the Blitz was one of the few p35 that could do 8x8. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/10/12/crossfire_comparison_intel_x38_versus_p35/8

Can anyone explain to me this line? "But remember, simply overclocking or tweaking the system for more performance will negate some of the advantages of more PCI-Express lanes and should provide a better overall performance for your everyday computing, rather than just gaming."

I thought that the more power a graphics card has, the more bandwidth it will need to process the data, now if you overclock a card, it seems to me that it would take up more bandwidth, and eventually, if you could overclock as far as you wanted, be limited by the bandwidth. I must have it totally wrong, can someone explain to me what the bandwidth actually does?

also another quote "While the Asus Blitz Extreme's dual x8 lanes should certainly suffice in terms of performance, the X38 not only provides that edge but also has PCI-Express 2.0 capabilities, thus delivering more bandwidth again (providing your graphics cards are PCIe 2.0 enabled - none are at the moment)."

So if the new Ati's are 2.0 that will even out the x8 vs x16 even more, correct? If I'm going to have to upgrade to a nahelem or something in two years, then it seems to me a mid range p45 would be a good option, as long as it doesn't limit crossfire 4850.

Could anyone explain to me the difference at least, of the P5Q Pro and P5Q-E? Why in the world would they make a mobo with only a 10 dollar difference! :)
 
The issue with upgrading to nehalem is that when it first comes out, you're going to have massive problems as with any brand new release. Plus it's going to be extremely expensive.

The tweaktown article basically I think said that graphic cards can potentially get to use all the bandwidth of the x16 lanes and you shouldn't limit yourself now.
 
I think ill just save the money, but what about the E version for 10 dollars, what's it for?
 
Check out the chart here for differences : TechARP

Seems the Pro is has 2 PCI-E's, the -E has 3. The -E also has two lan ports and better audio.
 
So is the tweaktown article the only one that's saying the P45s blow for crossfire? Otherwise I made a horrid decision after months of research.
 
I am somewhat confused about the difference between the P45 and X38/X48. I am relatively certain that the P45 boards, when running crossfire, have 2 PCIe 2.0 lanes at 8x. Do the X38/X48, when running crossfire, have 2 PCIe 1.1 lanes at 16x or 2 PCIe 2.0 lanes at 16x?
 
x38 and x48 are two x16 pcie 2.0. Alot of numbers don't to get them confused. From what I've read just recently, it seems like x38 is the best and cheapest option to not limit your 4850's.
 
ricochet48 said:
So is the tweaktown article the only one that's saying the P45s blow for crossfire? Otherwise I made a horrid decision after months of research.
Click to expand...
That's my problem as well. I was ready to pull the trigger on a P5Q with intentions of running a single recent release GPU but I picked up two 4850s for $263 on Friday and I'm quite impressed by the performance. Now, trying to find a board that doesn't limit performance.

The new P45 boards are great, considering most have very modern technology cheaper than what's been out for a year. Something about paying $230-300 for a top end Asus X38/X48 board doesn't feel right when you get everything (ICH10R, Flash Express Gate, 16 Phase, etc) except for dual 16x lanes for $200.

Anyone know of any 4850/4870 Crossfire benchmarks on a P5Q board? Tweaktowns numbers based on the Gigabit boards don't even match the exact same settings they ran on the same board the night before so I question their numbers.
 
Yeorwned said:
Anyone know of any 4850/4870 Crossfire benchmarks on a P5Q board? Tweaktowns numbers based on the Gigabit boards don't even match the exact same settings they ran on the same board the night before so I question their numbers.
Click to expand...

I second this request. I was so close to order a P5Q board tonight but something told me to research this issue more fully first.
 
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