Mobo that allows for 3 AMD 290x's

[TheGameguru]

With room to "breathe" that is.. I've run 3 Card setups before with the cards essentially stacked side by side.. not really anxious to do that with these 290x's

 

[cortexodus]

You could maybe do a riser setup with extenders

 

[Digital Viper-X-]

considering AMD claims that the 290x in Crossfire can saturate the pcie 16x 3.0 bus, I'd probably go for an X79 board, or a board with plx chip(I think MSI makes one for Z87 boards)

 

[chithanh]

If you stay with the reference cooling, a mobo that spaces the PCIe slots properly apart would be good. Like the EVGA Z87 classified:

(you'll need a case with 9 slot backplates though)

ASRock used to make such boards too, but apparently not any longer.

 

[Final8ty]

considering AMD claims that the 290x in Crossfire can saturate the pcie 16x 3.0 bus, I'd probably go for an X79 board, or a board with plx chip(I think MSI makes one for Z87 boards)

Where did you read that ?

Why would you need it? It needs to be able to transfer that much data in that much time. While more speed and lanes will get it there faster, it only needs to be there by the deadline, which for a 60Hz monitor is 30 times every second for 2-card AFR.

For a 4k 60hz screen, it needs to be able to transfer a full 34MB of data every 33 milliseconds to get there by the deadline.

PCI-e 2.0 x8 (4GB/s) can transfer that in 8 milliseconds.
PCI-e 2.0 x8 can transfer one 1080p frame in 2 milliseconds.

Theoretically speaking, a PCI-e 2.0 x8 has enough speed to handle 4k eyefinity at 60hz. It would be like running crossfire in a PCI-e x2 slot, but you could. Practically speaking, you want a 2.0 x16 or 3.0 x8. Even at this most extreme of resolutions you still don't need a PCI-e 3.0 x16

oh, and because math:

PCI-e 3.0 x16 (16GB/s) can transfer 4k 60hz in 2 milliseconds.
PCI-e 3.0 x16 can transfer one 1080p frame in 0.5 milliseconds.

Pretty simple math to work out how much other resolutions and refresh rates will need.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1428344/...red-has-512-bit-4gb-memory/1000#post_20890405

 

[Araxie]

Where did you read that ?

here @[H]

This hardware DMA engines allow for direct access between the GPUs over the PCI-Express bus solely. AMD has said the video cards can saturate a PCIe 3.0 x16 bus bandwidth; 16GB/s bi-directional. If this is true, it is possible that gamers who are going with two R9 290's or R9 290X cards will now have a need to upgrade to PCIe 3.0 for the best performance. It makes your CPU and PCIe bus speed choice more important than it was in the past, where previously it made little or no difference. Certainly this will be something to go back and test with real world gaming and see if there is an impact.

 

[FRZ]

I believe my evga dark supports it with 2 slot cards. But for trifire wouldn't it be 8x for some anyways?

 

[CSC Tiscali]

It is actually a 2-6-9 setup since I have a dedicated soundcard and needed breathing room between video cards. It was the only way to keep my tri-fire setup cool, short of watercooling them.
The ribbon I purchased is the following: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ls_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1&tag=hardfocom-20

8x/8x/8x via a Z68 FTW in a Rosewill Thor V2 (10-slot case)

 

[Tych-0]

Sounds like a very good reason to go X79.