AMD Phenom II X4 965 crossfire motherboard

Question

I am trying to build a cheap mining rig. I wanted to use the AMD Phenom II X4 965 (HDZ965FBGMBOX) processor as it got very good reviews and benchmarks, and is inexpensive. However, I am having trouble finding motherboards with crossfire support for 2 GPUs.

AMD's website only lists five compatible motherboards, of which only one has crossfire support. Worse, it is expensive and seems to be obsolete and no longer available.

I have trouble believing that there are only five compatible motherboards for that CPU.

Are there any low-end motherboards that are both compatible with the AMD Phenom II X4 965 and have CrossFire support? (Is there a way to find this sort of information, like a central site that lists motherboards and their technical specifications?)

Answer 1

Odd that Neither Newegg nor Geeks.com have any crossfire motherboards at all... however...

Ascendtech has 4 boards for under $100 that support both AM3 and crossfire... albeit hybrid crossfire. Start with that. Why Ascendtech? Because they purchase parts from other computer manufacturers, and thus they have parts that other places either stopped carrying and/or have discontinued. There are a couple of other companies out there that are just like Ascendtech and you can find them through Pricewatch.

I'm currently using an AMD Athlon X2 64 6400+ (dual core 3.2ghz) that uses 125 watts on a Biostar TA770 A2+ board. It's a workhorse for handling tasks I don't want to do on the main machine. Now, if you read the CPU support list for it there, nothing greater than 95 watts is supposed to be supported. But at the time I paired the processor with the board, AMD recommended that board for that processor, AND that page said it supported 125 watt processors. The current trend now for multiple manufacturers is to reduce the supported processor listings to 95 watt processors and below. The Asus m4a78 am2+ boards would support 125 watt processors, the m4a785 series (like the M4a785 htpc) also supports 125 watt processors, but nothing above hybrid crossfire in the bunch. I think digging through Pricewatch will end up being your best bet.