[SOLVED] Compatibility Issue

[IanBuck]

So I am looking to upgrade motherboards because the motherboard I have now only had one graphics card slot and I want two. I have an AMD GPU and Intel CPU. All of the motherboards or most popular ones are showing up on PCpartpicker as incompatible with the Intel CPU. I have built this computer but I am not positive on why this CPU could not work with any of these MSI gaming boards I have found. Any help would be appreciated. The CPU I have is an Intel i7-3770.

This is one of the motherboards I was looking at. https://www.amazon.com/MSI-Performance-Crossfire-Motherboard-B450/dp/B07F83RVTC/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=motherboard&qid=1573101192&refinements=p_n_feature_eight_browse-bin:16955296011&rnid=16955292011&s=pc&sr=1-6

Thanks in advance.

 

[Darkbreeze]

That is an AMD B450 motherboard. It is not compatible. Just because a board is Intel based, does not mean it is compatible with all Intel processors. ONLY boards with a compatible chipset will work. For that CPU, without having to worry about potential BIOS updates in order for it to work, you need a board that is either B75, H77 or Z77.

New, any of these would work, but they are mostly not cheap, because these boards have not been manufactured in MANY years. Boards that are newer, will not work with your CPU.

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#sort=price&c=26,36,52


Used, you will probably find greater availability. The problem is, they will all have mostly been used for a number of years and their useful lives will primarily be over by now. You could get lucky, but you could just as easily get a board that lasts two weeks or doesn't power up at all.

The bigger question is probably, why do you want a board with two x16 PCI slots? It's highly doubtful that your CPU could support a dual card configuration very well, and the cost of two cards that your CPU could support would far outweight the cost of one newer graphics card that would work with your current board but do far more than any two older cards could do anyhow. I would not, for example, try running a Crossfire configuration with any modern cards, using that configuration, because it's not going to do well.

If the reason is only to add more monitors, you can easily do that with one graphics card AND also using the integrated graphics from your CPU through it's motherboard video outputs.

Plus, there is a power supply consideration. Unlike SLI or Crossfire configurations that only require about a 30% increase in PSU capacity to support two cards, if you are using two cards COMPLETELY separate of SLI or Crossfire, then you need a PSU that is more like a 50% increase in overall capacity requirement. So basically, if you don't have a very capable, high quality power supply, that has a significantly higher capacity that what your current graphics card requires, all of this is irrelevant anyhow unless you are willing to also upgrade the power supply to a higher capacity, high quality model.