Msi 770-g45

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Has 6 phase power and Crossfire support with a pair of PCI-E 2.0 16X slots:

http://www.techpowerup.com/107971/MS...therboard.html

It also has an overclock switch too. This could be the budget AMD motherboard to have for a gaming setup. It supposed to be around 100 USD making it the cheapest AM3 Crossfire motherboard out there!!

[BUFF]

This could be the budget AMD motherboard to have for a gaming setup. It supposed to be around 100 USD making it the cheapest AM3 Crossfire motherboard out there!!

2nd slot will be limited to x4 electrically though (same as e.g. abit AX78) - 770 has relatively few PCI-E lanes to play with.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

2nd slot will be limited to x4 electrically though (same as e.g. abit AX78) - 770 has relatively few PCI-E lanes to play with.

Funnily enough the 4X slot is not such a limitation:

http://techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/H...caling/25.html

For a pair of lower end cards like the HD5770 it should be fine.

[nibbler]

Cheers for link Cat, interesting.

[Pob255]

Although the name confused me for a moement, I thought it was a new intel G45 chipset motherboard.

[BUFF]

Funnily enough the 4X slot is not such a limitation:

http://techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/H...caling/25.html

For a pair of lower end cards like the HD5770 it should be fine.

you are better off just buying a single good card than CFing 2 lower ones.

[scaryjim]

you are better off just buying a single good card than CFing 2 lower ones.

Not necessarily. If you shop around 2 4770s can be picked up for < £120, which makes it a farily compelling choice. Hexus's 4770 Crossfire review makes interesting reading, with the benchmarks showing both the performance potential, and problematic nature, of Crossfire setups.

[BUFF]

you can get a 1024Mb HD4870 for £100 which will likely be quieter & cooler as well as cheaper & bearing in mind that with the 2nd slot @x4 you'll have a performance penalty compared to the CF test on an X58.
& as you mention CF (& SLI) can sometimes be problematic.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A PCI-E 2.0 4X or a PCI-E 8X slot is still fast enough in most instances and TPU showed this was the case even with an HD5870.

I run an overclocked HD4830 in a PCI-E 8X slot and I see no performance loss IMHO.