Video Card(s) recommendation for M4A785TD-V Evo please.

M

mrmodus

New Member
Hello ComputerForum guru's.

I'm new to the forum and would really appreciate any advice you may have.

I have a M4A785TD-V Evo, what's the best video card (or dual) card solution for this mobo for between $300 and $400? I've read a number of articles and reviews and I'm more confused than ever about whether this mobo is good for a crossfire set up or not. Asus says it's set up for crossfire, but then it says "2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue @ x16 mode,gray @ x4 mode)" which makes me think one card won't perform as well.

I used to have a PowerColor HD 5850 but the powercolor drivers never really seems to work very well and it gave me a lot of BSOD's so I recently sold it. I don't play many games any more, when I do it's often Civ 5. I do like the occasions fps as well and I want to play on high settings when I do play.

Any guidance is appreciated.
 
mrmodus said:
Hello ComputerForum guru's.

I'm new to the forum and would really appreciate any advice you may have.

I have a M4A785TD-V Evo, what's the best video card (or dual) card solution for this mobo for between $300 and $400? I've read a number of articles and reviews and I'm more confused than ever about whether this mobo is good for a crossfire set up or not. Asus says it's set up for crossfire, but then it says "2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue @ x16 mode,gray @ x4 mode)" which makes me think one card won't perform as well.

I used to have a PowerColor HD 5850 but the powercolor drivers never really seems to work very well and it gave me a lot of BSOD's so I recently sold it. I don't play many games any more, when I do it's often Civ 5. I do like the occasions fps as well and I want to play on high settings when I do play.

Any guidance is appreciated.
Click to expand...

Depending if your power supply can push it or not. A single HD 6970 or GTX 570. Board not really setup for Crossfire. Dont use the cards manufacturers drivers. Get then from Nvidia or AMD/ATI

salvage-this said:
Welcome to CF! :D

http://www.linustechtips.com/ltt-vi...est-16x-vs-8x-vs-4x-3dmark-11-linus-tech-tips

I good card is not limited by a x8 slot and it looks like in this test that even a 6990 did not get cut down too much by a x4 slot.
Click to expand...

Sorta of a bogus test. They cut down a PCIe X16 slot to X4 for the test, which runs off the northbridge. The X4 slot on AMD boards run of the southbridge which is alot slower.
 
salvage-this said:
How did they cut it down? I figured that they just ran it in a x4 slot.
Click to expand...

Didnt really mean cut down. It was a true X4 slot on the MSI Intel board they used, but ran off the northbridge like the other PCIe lanes. The X4 slot on AMD boards run off the southbridge which has to go through the northbridge.

The southbridge 4 lanes were really meant for the PCIe X1 slots, but some added a extra X16 slot that used them, If you do use it, it deactivates the X1 slots.

Some manufacturers, mostly Asrock bypassed AMD rules and split up the X16 lanes off the northbridge to X8/X8 on 785/770/870/880g chipset. But not this one. X/GX and FX boards are the only real crossfire boards that run all the lanes off the northbridge.

There was another benchmark that did it by taping up the contacts on a PCIe X16 lanes to make it a X4 slot (well they really taped up the contacts on the card itself, not the slot.), but cant find it anymore. But the Toms Hardware test did use a real X4 slot , but like said it still ran off the northbridge.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top