rdx-200 or cfx-3200?

[jeremywills]

well boys and girls, even with a few quirks on my infinity rs482 im very happy with it, extremely actually and glad to have returned to having a dfi board in the house

 

my BFG nf4ultra has pissed me off forthe last and final time so screw it, im either selling or trading it somewhere very soon

 

Ill need a home for my x2 3800 sitting on it though so Im looking to the DFI boards now.

 

I have become a fan of ATI again, part of my requirements is that I want to be able to do Stanfords Folding at Home on a Radeon graphics card. Im eyeballing a couple of x1900s or better and so the crossfire thing is of most importance. Stanfords only supporting ATI cards at this time. Seeing that my new RS482 is ATI and my last 3 cards have been ATI, my Nvidia based BFG boards turning out to be a POS Im done with that green company, but not AMD. Hey AMD and ATI are in bed together so its a good thing?

 

Anyways

 

So here I am clueless with whats up with these two Crossfire boards from DFI.

 

Intially the RDX-200 is looking tempting because it cost less, but.......... is it worth the time or should I be looking at the newer cfx-3200?

 

I for the moment plan to use one of my x300 or my new on the way x1600hdmi card in the interim but plan to get 2 x1900 or better class cards later on for the sole purpose of folding, this current rig I am wanting to replace is a dedicated folder only, so no gaming at this particular box. However with 2 of these badboy cards I realize a Crossfire or SLI class PSU is of upmost importance. Ill probably need to get some different memory too most likely. I have some Mushkin UTT and some PQI turbo that supposedly TCCD based but Im too lazy to pull the spreaders and look. They behave like it though. Probably is. This board will not be overclocked or if so midly so keep that in mind, will either of those two memories probably work or will i have to buy yet another set of RAM, if thats the case I might tempt fate with am2 and ddr2, but i have a chip and memory good to go, just a nvdia board that has really gotten the best of paitence lately

 

Im trying to weed through the postings now, from what Im seeing as long as you get the later revision RDX-200 you should be ok right. This would be for dedicated folding only and Im doing this in stages, for non gaming purposes would the RDX-200 most likely fill the bill or would you really recommend the the extra 40 to 50 odd bucks for the CFX-3200 instead?

 

Any other Crossfire 939 DFI boards Im unware of to consider? I won't cosider Nvidia because of this current pos bfg board and the fact Stanford only supporting ATI, so please dont go suggesting SLI boards. It would be a waste of money for my purposes.

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Guest Lavell]

Since setting up Crossfire is of the upmost importance to you and because you plan to get 2 ATI Radeon X1900 video cards, I will recommend getting the CFX3200-DR motherboard over the RDX200 CF-DR. The reason behind this is the CFX3200-DR has 2 physical 16x PCIe slots. The RDX200 CF-DR has 2 physical 8x PCIe slots. For graphic data, you'll need the extra lanes. The CFX3200-DR will give you better performance for your new Radeon X1900s than the RDX200 CF-DR.

 

I currently have both motherboards. I'm using the CFX3200-DR in my system right now along with 2 ATI Radeon X1800s in Crossfire mode (see sig). I've noticed a good performance gain over my RDX200 CF-DR. I plan on building another system with the RDX200 CF-DR and team it up with a single Radeon X1900XTX video card and use it as a portable system for LAN parties.

[FXed]

Go to the Link here and read the review. The CFX3200 is the latest and greatest. Many problems were due to the first ATI RDX200 chipset boards and you'll see the reviewers' points on the Link I've provided. If you want the best and most recent ATI chipset, definitely spend the extra and go with the CFX3200. That's what I bought recently and despite some people having quirks and errors, I must be one of the lucky ones that got a board without those problems.

 

Here's another review on the DFI CFX3200, a very informative read. I hope this helps you to make up your mind. I did alot of research before getting my new DFI MoBo with the ATI Northbridge. So far, I very happy with this board and hoping I continue to go on, without the problems some others here have had. It seems to be hit or miss and if you get one of the newer boards, like I did, that could be why mine has had no problems.

[Angry_Games]

actually X1900XT Crossfires still only need 8x 8x...this is why Crossfire still works most excellent on 955/975 chipsets (which are all 8x 8x)

 

if you can't go to Core2Duo (native Crossfire support), I would probably say CFX3200-DR though neither of our AMD Crossfire boards would rate in my list of favorites

[Guest Lavell]

That's a good thing you said that. I'm very unhappy with my Radeon X1800s. Now that I know that the Radeon X1800s need 8x, I can put those on my RDX200 CF-DR board and get a couple of Radeon X1900s. I want the extra pixel processors for better image on my games. Since you have them, how would you rate their performance?

 

actually X1900XT Crossfires still only need 8x 8x...this is why Crossfire still works most excellent on 955/975 chipsets (which are all 8x 8x)

 

if you can't go to Core2Duo (native Crossfire support), I would probably say CFX3200-DR though neither of our AMD Crossfire boards would rate in my list of favorites

[jeremywills]

well this is for dedicated folding only, no gaming on this particular station, they just announced the release of the folding on a gpu core thing and its tommorow officially out, so........ im pissed at my bfg board, looking for an excuse to get new toys so i wanted to do some brushing up before i made a choice, i didnt read up on this bfg and so shame on me or i wouldnt have this pos in my possesion

 

Angry, I mean Happy you really are not impressed with your Crossfire boards? Sounds strange coming from the official representation, but........... you would know your own products best, any other suggestions elsewhere then? Been uber happy with my new RS482 minus that intial post and winders splash screen dissapearing and my reciever hating the optical, but it loves the coax spdif, go figure, but thats so minor and everything else has been up to snuff and then some so thats why Im looking at these options first. FWIW that yellow plastic is just uber sexy especially under UV lighting and I still have all that happy horseshit from my previous Lanparty NF2 board in that case, so I wanted to maybe utilize it again. Thats the least of my worries though, I want something stable. Again, not really wanting the board for overclocking the chip and board, wanting it for the dual ATI cards for Folding Purposes so if it runs ok at stock or mild oced speeds, thats ok folks.

 

Thanks thus far for the links and suggestions.

[Angry_Games]

That's a good thing you said that. I'm very unhappy with my Radeon X1800s. Now that I know that the Radeon X1800s need 8x, I can put those on my RDX200 CF-DR board and get a couple of Radeon X1900s. I want the extra pixel processors for better image on my games. Since you have them, how would you rate their performance?

superior to any other video card setup

 

(keep in mind I do not have a pair of 7900GTX's to test them against)

 

a SINGLE X1900XT card is super fantastic...2 on a high-res monitor with a C2D or fast X2 AMD64 is heaven

[Angry_Games]

well this is for dedicated folding only, no gaming on this particular station, they just announced the release of the folding on a gpu core thing and its tommorow officially out, so........ im pissed at my bfg board, looking for an excuse to get new toys so i wanted to do some brushing up before i made a choice, i didnt read up on this bfg and so shame on me or i wouldnt have this pos in my possesion

 

Angry, I mean Happy you really are not impressed with your Crossfire boards? Sounds strange coming from the official representation, but........... you would know your own products best, any other suggestions elsewhere then? Been uber happy with my new RS482 minus that intial post and winders splash screen dissapearing and my reciever hating the optical, but it loves the coax spdif, go figure, but thats so minor and everything else has been up to snuff and then some so thats why Im looking at these options first. FWIW that yellow plastic is just uber sexy especially under UV lighting and I still have all that happy horseshit from my previous Lanparty NF2 board in that case, so I wanted to maybe utilize it again. Thats the least of my worries though, I want something stable. Again, not really wanting the board for overclocking the chip and board, wanting it for the dual ATI cards for Folding Purposes so if it runs ok at stock or mild oced speeds, thats ok folks.

 

Thanks thus far for the links and suggestions.

ah if you put it that way....that it really is only a folding rig or not going to be your main gamer/power rig...get whichever board is the cheapest.

 

If you find an RDX200 for $20 less than the CFX3200, then get the RDX200

 

both run Crossfire real nice, and both overclock real nice if you got the patience.

[jeremywills]

thank you everyone for the advice, now ill just watch for a good deal on either board, for my purposes either should work ok, just wanted to ask first

 

a new PSU is a must as well so Ill be on the lookout for a good strong PSU

 

off to go keep playing with my rs482 board and media center, its really coming together, all I have is the silly sound issue but Im on the right track with that one , its either more system memory to see if that helps the onboard optical or get a dedicated soundcard for the pci slot

[Angry_Games]

if you are still looking for a relatively cheap RDX200 let me know

 

I happen to have an extra one and need some cash to purchase yet another Core2Duo cpu for testing some new cooling hardware that is coming