I have a choice .. Dx11 or Crosshair IV Extreme... help me!

[neko77025]

Hello, I am in need of A new motherboard. I currently have A old M3A78-T Deluxe. One of the DIMM slots has stopped working and seems like I am haven more issues as time goes on. I have put this board threw its paces and its time too move on, However that being said ... I do not have the money too go all out like I have in the past.

What I have too work with.

AMD PII x4 965 (@ 4.1Ghz )
3x 4870s ( 16 /16 /8 )
Ultra x3 1000w PSU
4x WD 750g Black
SB X-fi (PCI)
Asus M3A78-T Deluxe ( going Bad fast )
Crucial 4x 2GB 1066/8500
As it is I can play most Dx10 games at 1920x1200 on HIgh setting, No Dx11 / No Tess,


If I get the Crosshair IV Extreme I will have too get DRR3 & all 3x 4870s will run at 16. And the thing that I really like .. their is info about 890FX getting beta drivers for bulldozer.

or Should I buy A cheap MB/ ram and get a 6970

I only have about 500ish too spend .. (note the Crosshair IV Extreme is 300.00 and 6970s are about 350.00 )


whats better DDR3 & 16/16/16 or Cheap MB prob DDR2 & 6970 ?

Notes: I am use my PC ALOT, I also like too O.C. as much as I can.


Also anyone know if you can run 4x raid 0 on this board/SB850 and what DDR3 would you get (min of 8gbs) .. and would 16gb be that much better ?

[Major_A]

For the time being I would do this...
Buy a cheap replacement board that supports Crossfire and DDR2. You already have all the components to make it work so I don't see spending money unnecessarily unless you have to.

For the RAM bandwidth you would probably never notice the speed difference in actual day-to-day usage. The only time you would see the benefit is in benchmarks.

Concerning Crossfire... From every article I've read 16x16 vs 8v8 PCIe slots are almost identical in speed. Don't waste time trying to find a board with 3 16x PCIe slots.

Concerning RAID... If your motherboard is failing that is about the worst thing you can do. If data starts to get corrupted before it hits the drives then it may trash the array. Get your computer stable first then look into a RAID setup. One other note about RAID. If you have an array bigger than 2TB it will not be bootable. You can use the array as storage but you can't install Windows on it it and boot from it.

Concerning DX11... For the time being I would say you are in a better situation than 1 HD 6970. If you are running a 3 way Crossfire with the HD 4870 then that's still a pretty beefy setup. To complicate things further there are very few DX11 titles out there. My advice, stand pat until you do a complete rebuild.

[sasamkd]

Same here. Agreeing with all from the previous reply. Go with a cheap motherboard.

And about that bulldozer... personally I think your configuration will last long enough. I dont think you'll need the bulldozer immediately. You can wait to see what it is and can do

[DragonFury]

Agreed with Major A, I just did a large article on the differences from a 8x8 and a 16x16 PCI-E lanes while comparing a Core i5 750, 930, 970 at a clock by clock comparison the differences were negligible once all CPU's were sitting @ 4.1 GHz.

[Major_A]

You have a link to the PCIe lane bandwidth article DragonFury?