Legit Reviews

I am getting ready to build a new workstation and I have hit a rather frustrating wall...

I really must have the new AMD Phenom x6 1090T processor (I really like it) so my board must be AMD with the following peripherals:
I will be using 2 AMD Eyefinity 6 cards in crossfire. My OCD demands they BOTH run at x16 speed. I also will be using a Creative sound blaster X-fi card (PCIe x1 speed). on top of that I will be using an Areca ARC-1680IX-12-4G raid controller (PCIe x8). My final problem is that everything must nicely fit in my existing case (stupid OCD) which is a Cooler Master cosmos 1000... is a standard ATX chassis.

Here's my problem: is there such a motherboard that will support 2 x16 PCIe graphics cards, 1 x8 PCIe raid controller and 1 x1 PCIe sound card? so far all the boards I have looked at that seem to support it either place the slots in such a manner that the needed x8 or x1 slots are blocked by the dual shot video card, or by using the x8 slots I diminish the capability of the x16 slots to x8...

HALP?

So you need a mobo capable of doing x16, x16, x8 at the same time. Im like 95% sure all consumer AMD boards, which would have to be using the 890fx chipset can only do x16,x16,x1,x1, or x16, x8, x8, x1. Probably will have to just live with the second card only getting x8. The Asus Crosshair 4 would be my choice, and its reviewed on the front page of this site.

Can't say I disagree with Sttm on this

Dang!

oh well, I'll try to reteach my brain a little...

So one more question on the same lines; is there any real noticeable difference in performance on crossfired x16-x16 configurations vs x16-x8? I really must have my raid controller.

I doubt youd see much of a drop using single gpu cards, but a 5970 might be bandwidth starved.

you wouldn't notice a difference between x16-x16 and x8-x8

.

Thank you for your responses. You all have been very helpful.

I guess it's down to either MSI 870A-G54 (If I use this board, id have to scrap the crossfire idea all together), MSI 890FXA-GD70 (due to placement of the PCIe x4 slot--blocked by the video card(s)--I'd have to scrap the raid controller and use a NETAPP with iSCSI instead), or the ASUS Crossfire IV Formula. for this board I'd have to scrap BOTH the RAID controller and the sound card because the unfortunate placement of the PCIe x16 slots block the remaining expansion slots or cause air restriction if the remaining x8 slot is used.

sigh... seams motherboard manufacturers don't believe that some of us actually like to use additional expansion cards other than video cards...

Personally I don't mind losing the raid controller... but I prefer to use fiber networking if I must use iSCSI in which case I need to replace the raid controller with an HBA... sigh... copper iSCSI targeting is so slow and obsolete.

oh well... I really must have my hex displays though. perhaps it's time to found my own motherboard manufacturing company. It's not so much the limitations of the technology, but a combination of those limitations, and the designers creating such inefficient and prohibitive layouts. Remember the days when having a spare expansion slot meant you could put something in it? sure we had to worry about IRQ conflicts but ultimately that was a software limitation... now... [facepalm]

sorry for the rant... I'm just frustrated.

You might want to take a look at what ASUS has to offer. The M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 has what you need and is equipped with onboard RAID and 2 pci slots. I have used their boards for several years and am very happy with ASUS. Currently I use an ASUS M4A79XTD EVO. This is by far the best board in simplicity of use and funtional accessories I have ever used,(including o/c abilities) and when the price drops on the 1090T I will upgrade since it is supported in the BIOS. ASUS tends to support older boards as they develop new ones.

Just a sugggestion

G