Crossfire or physx? with hd 6850...

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Hello digitians...
My cousin wants to convert the pc to "dual gpu pc". She has Sapphire HD 6850 and a Msi e35-880gm and processor is phenom ii x4.

Can this mobo handle 2 gfx cards?
What should be done, physx or crossfire? Budget is 10-12k and this includes everything that needs to be changed.

BTW PSU is some CX 500w(not sure what was before it). Will this be enough? Mobo,needs to be changed too??

R

confused stupid said:
Hello digitians...
My cousin wants to convert the pc to "dual gpu pc". She has Sapphire HD 6850 and a Msi e35-880gm and processor is phenom ii x4.

Can this mobo handle 2 gfx cards?
What should be done, physx or crossfire? Budget is 10-12k and this includes everything that needs to be changed.

BTW PSU is some CX 500w(not sure what was before it). Will this be enough? Mobo,needs to be changed too??

*www.msi.com/product/mb/880GM-E35.html#?div=Detail

• 1 PCI Express x16 slot with x16 operation (PCI Express Bus SPEC V2.0 compliant)
• 1 PCI EXpress x1 slot
• 1 PCI slot, support 3.3V/ 5V PCI bus Interface.

Sadly u cant use dual gpu on 880GM-E35 m,b since it lack 2nd PCI-E port

exactly
as pointed by rajesh, you'll need a board with 2 PCIe x16 slots
890 series is capable of plugging in 2 gfx crads

also you'll need a good PSU to be on the safe side
if you can sell your Mobo and PSU and fetch around 5-6k, then by adding around 7k, you can build the setup you are asking for

^^but he is already having 12K budget.

@OP: please increase your budget.

The cheapest X8-X8 based crossfire mobo is MSI 890GXM-G65, priced @ 6.8K in theitwares. Now another HD6850 for Crossfire will cost you 9.5K (Sapphire). So the total cost will be 16.3K.

^^after selling his old parts,he will get some more money around 5k.then his total budget will be 17k.

out of 12k, 9k will be used by 6850 for crossfiring
so he requires around 6k-7k for a decent crossfire capable mobo

and thats not all
he should and he must buy a good PSU

so lets take corsair TX 650W v2 @ 6k appx

^^+1 for Piyush baba for reminding us PSu requirement which I forgot completely. For Crossfiring two HD 6850, atleast a 650W PSU is required.

so 6+7+9=22k.
@op,
you have to increase your budget by a lot.by the way whats the purpose of cross fire setup?

No point, just stick to HD6850 and njoy. Next generation should come out soon, upgrade then

^^ Price may just be a factor for him. (assuming from his present budget)