Cheapest motherboard that will support Crossfire 7850's?

[UsernameLadiesMan217]

I currently have a Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 (Socket 1155) and it IS Crossfire capable, however the second PCI-E 16x slot will run at 4x during Crossfire and slot 1 will run at 8x (unless I'm mistaken?).

What is the cheapest motherboard (socket 1155 or 1150) I can buy to run Crossfire without hindering performance?

The rest of my system specs

-i3 2120 3.3 ghz (I plan on upgrading this very soon)
-Some 7.1 sound card I can't even remember the brand name.
-MSi 7850 Twin Frozr III @ 980 mhz (graphics clock) 1300 mhz (memory clock)
________


So yeah, very budget gaming PC, but tbh I got it in 2011 (except the 7850) and so far I been maxing every game I played except Metro Last Light.

This has led me to believe that I don't need an i5 for adequate gaming, albeit it will be more future-proof if more games start utilizing multi-cores like BF4.

So unless I need an i5 to Crossfire adequately, I don't think I'll get an i5 just quite yet. Was looking at the i3-4350 3.6 ghz, still on the fence about that.

So my logic here is to get the i3 and wait for 2016 (DDR4)


What else is there to mention...

I guess I could just keep my mobo/CPU and just buy a R9 280x?

 

[wizardofid]

You would need some like this Asus Z77-DELUXE IZ77 and good luck finding a board like this, socket 1155 is EOL. You will mostly find lower end stuff now.

Also for the price you better off getting a R9 280x and be done with it.However that said i3 is still good, the move to quad core has dramatically changed in the last couple of months, UDK 4 is now 64bit DX 11, EA same thing shifted all their development engines to DX11 and 64bit.

I3 will in all likely event still play games just fine but there will be some settings that will need to be turned down and especially at higher res. If you can get a secondhand I5 then you will be waxed till your next upgrade.

 

[UsernameLadiesMan217]

You would need some like this Asus Z77-DELUXE IZ77 and good luck finding a board like this, socket 1155 is EOL. You will mostly find lower end stuff now.

Also for the price you better off getting a R9 280x and be done with it.However that said i3 is still good, the move to quad core has dramatically changed in the last couple of months, UDK 4 is now 64bit DX 11, EA same thing shifted all their development engines to DX11 and 64bit.

I3 will in all likely event still play games just fine but there will be some settings that will need to be turned down and especially at higher res. If you can get a secondhand I5 then you will be waxed till your next upgrade.

Huh I didn't know there was that much of a focus on quad core lately. So are there any i5's I should stay away from? Can I still use a sandy/ivy bridge and get all these benefits?

IIRC a i5 ivy bridge will work on my mobo.


Thanks for the response

 

[wizardofid]

BF 4 needs at least i5 dual core as min, recommended is quad, EA and a few other studio's announced late last year they will be shifting over to DX11 and 64bit, unreal engine 4 was release a few weeks back, and that is DX11 and 64bit, there has been some shifts towards that, however that said, first new games we will see with the new tech will be around year end, mid next year, so still be some time before that is really a problem on lower end systems.

It is not to say you will not be able to play games, you will not easily max out settings in some games like farcry 4 or crysis 4 for example, and require some tweaking that is all, if you can live with that then you should be fine