Massive upgrade questions...

[I3lood Eagle]

So basically I'm getting a new FX 8350, TPQ 1200W, 2xR9 290s, SSD(of some sort), Case, etc.. etc...

I was just basically wondering what is a good board that's not gonna cost me an arm and a leg to get full CFX potential from those beautiful 290s? I mean I have a small understanding of how CFX works but not entirely sure how it differs on the AM3+ socket boards 970 and 990FX. Also gonna need some help with the SSD since I was planning on getting the S840 but one of my instructors told me there was a 250GB going on sale now or soon" for around 150.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157262

this is the board I just ordered but Newegg has it's Iron Egg Guarantee or whatever so I can send it back no problem, I'm just a little foggy on the actual PCIE ports because it says it has 3 at x16 but then in notation 16/0 8, 8, 4... I feel like I should know what that means in terms of speeds but honestly I am a little confused. What I mean to say is I think I know what that means but I don't want to think I know what something means, I want to know I know what something means... lol... Thanks for the help in advance guys.

PS I'm looking at the Throne as far as cases go
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147187

 

[aznricepuff]

Most of the differences between the different AM3+ chipsets (970 vs 990x vs 990fx) boil down to: the more expensive chipsets tend have more high-end features like more SATA 6 gb/s ports, more USB 3.0 ports, better OC features, etc.

One other important difference is that the more expensive chipsets can accommodate more PCI-e lanes. 970 can have 22 PCI-e 2.0 lanes while 990fx can have up to 38 (I believe). So if you were to crossfire two cards on a 970 board, each card would run in PCI-e 2.0 x8 mode as opposed to a single card, which would run in x16 mode. This is what the specs mean when they say "PCI-e 2.0: 3 (x16/0, x8/x8, x4)" - it means there are a total of 3 PCI-e 2.0 slots, one of which always runs in x4 mode, and for the other two you can either slot one device and have it run at x16 (x16/0) or slot two devices and have each run at x8 (x8/x8). If you were to switch to 990fx, you could slot two devices into PCI-e 2.0 and have them both run in x16 mode (since 990fx supports up to 38 lanes).

Now obviously a device running on only 8 PCI-e lanes will have less bandwidth than a device running on 16 lanes. However in practice this doesn't really matter. If you go over to Intel's side, every motherboard except the ultra high-end X79 chipsets can only support x8/x8 in crossfire/SLI, and nobody is complaining.

The bottom line is: the motherboard you've chosen is perfectly fine for dual-GPU crossfire. I would consider upgrading to 990fx only if you are planning on doing some serious OCing with your CPU or you need some of the more advanced features that can be found on 990fx boards.

 

[I3lood Eagle]

I appreciate the help man, I'm going to be shelling out a down payment on a Ferrari from what I've predicted for all these components but will the performance be the same as it would be on the 990fx because the R9 290s don't have the CFX cables they use the bandwidth from the motherboard to crosstalk and render things simultaneously.

 

[ihog]

Wait for the R9 290 to be released with aftermarket coolers. The stock cooler is awful and will be even more of a problem with Crossfire.

 

[aznricepuff]

I appreciate the help man, I'm going to be shelling out a down payment on a Ferrari from what I've predicted for all these components but will the performance be the same as it would be on the 990fx because the R9 290s don't have the CFX cables they use the bandwidth from the motherboard to crosstalk and render things simultaneously.

I don't think anybody has done benchmarking to see if PCI-e 2.0 x8 will bottleneck a crossfire configuration without the crossfire bridge. If you want to be safe then go with the 990fx.

 

[I3lood Eagle]

I like to live on the edge I'm gonna stick with the 970... haha

 

[ihog]

You'll be more likely to achieve higher clocks on 990FX boards most of the time.