MOBO XFIRE Support

[Arcanekitten]

Hi so I was looking into getting a second r9 290 but I have a Asrock extreme3 r2.0 which I have a question about.

This is in the specs what does this mean if I would install a second gpu

2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (PCIE2 @ x16 mode; PCIE4 @ x4 mode)

Other specs are on my profile

Thanks

[Dabombinable]

Hi so I was looking into getting a second r9 290 but I have a Asrock extreme3 r2.0 which I have a question about.

This is in the specs what does this mean if I would install a second gpu

2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (PCIE2 @ x16 mode; PCIE4 @ x4 mode)

Other specs are on my profile

Thanks

You could, however AMD doesn't recommend going past a single R9 280X, which is also the best graphics card that you can use without a bottleneck:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_fx_8370_and_8370e_processor_review,3.html

[Duskie]

I ran crossfire R9 290's for a while whilst one was at pcie2.0 4x, after upgrading to a Maximus VII hero i've noticed about an 8FPS improvement and less stuttering, so the higher bandwidth can help but it isn't going to completely bottleneck you.

[Arcanekitten]

You could, however AMD doesn't recommend going past a single R9 280X, which is also the best graphics card that you can use without a bottleneck:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_fx_8370_and_8370e_processor_review,3.html

Yeah but what does the pcie4 mode mean?

[Dabombinable]

Yeah but what does the pcie4 mode mean?

Instead of running at PCIe x16, it runs at PCIe x4. Pretty much its a PCIe x4 slot that looks like a full slot.

[Dabombinable]

Instead of running at PCIe x16, it runs at PCIe x4. Pretty much its a PCIe x4 slot that looks like a full slot.

Just to expand on that, looking at the second "x16" slot on my Asus H87M-Pro, it only has the contacts for a x4 slot, the rest of the slot is unused. However its good enough for using a GTX 650ti OC 2GB as a dedicated PhysX card as running Nvidia's PLA benchmark had the maximum FPS with my GTX 970 on its own become the average with my 650ti running as a PhysX card (though with my H87M board that meant disabling the wifi card in the spare x1 slot).