Motherboards Can anyone tell me the best moboard for Bitfenix Prodigy?

Hi,

Newbie on here so I appreciate you taking time to read this.

Unless I can find someone else to build it Im looking at building a mini itx in a Bitfenix Prodigy and wondered what the best spec would be for game with a sizeable hdd for some movies.

Also is there a board which allows 2 cards in SLI in this case?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks everyone.

 

ITX boards do not allow for SLI. They only allow for one PCI/PCI-E slot in general (with a couple of unusual exceptions).

There is an mATX version of the Prodigy you would need to buy specifically, then you can put in any mATX board you need.

 

Cheers mate.

Just found it.

With a GPU budget of say £500 what would you recommend? 1 card or 2 SLI'd?

 

Prodigy-M is due in stores this month.

 

Moved to hardware.

 

Don't SLI on MATX unless you're putting the cards under water. You'll just have a thermal sandwich that can't cope.

£500? wait.Wait to see how the AMD 290x is. If it's crap? GTX 780.

Either that or I would buy a 7990. Then you can go ITX and have Crossfire

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/6gb-...oost-1000mhz-4096-cores-dl-dvi-i-mdpplusfree-

Even the 290x won't come close.

 

Ran sli for years on matx. If the case has good airflow it wont be a problem

 

Out of interest what cards?

Have you tried it with Crysis 3, Tomb Raider or Metro : Last Light?

The reason I ask is because when running any of the above three, even with triple slot coolers and masses of space my top card hits 82c with the fans on 100%. It was going over 90c with only one slot between the cards.

Oddly with pretty much everything else (Grid 2, Bioshock Infinite, etc) I see temps of no higher than 55c on the top card. Not that it's overly odd, given that the three titles I listed above are hardware killers.

However in the past I have ran both SLI and CFX on sandwiched cards (295s, 480s which breathe through the back, 560tis etc) and titles like BF3 and NFS : The Run made them overheat.

 

570 and 580 gtx. Even had tri sli on all these cards on an evga cheesecake in a carbide 400r with the top card hitting 85c middle 82c and lower card about 80c all within tolerances running standard fan profiles.

 

The temps were stress tested with furmark burn in. Game temps were slightly lower

 

Thanks for the answers - defo want to stick to some sort of Mitx setup ( small but powerful and all that )

Looks like a single card is the only way as I dont have the build experience to try anything more ambitious...wishing someone would build it for me to be honest

Great ideas though...thanks to all who have replied so far - much appreciated

 

What is your budget mate

 

Do you mean to build myself or have it built mate?

Dont have one in mind at the moment but realise it will cost at least £1000, I would have thought?

I just want a build I can stick next to tv or attach to the monitor and know it will be good for anything and at least 18months to 2 years...

Never had a good build before so want to do it properly if you know what i mean.

 

If you have budgeted a grand, here is something for £903 including postage and all you need to do is add a Prodigy alongside for £70 from somewhere that stocks it.

http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/57a0e46802bc4cc293abcce36adc861a

Includes MSI ITX board with wifi on it, a EVGA 770, 8Gb RAM, 600W modular PSU, H60 cooler, quad core Haswell K chip that you can overclock.

Could save loads of cash in places to if you wanted, drop to a 760 to save £100, get a non K chip and a H87 mobo to save another £100. Get a refurbished cooler for half the price. Also if you keep an eye out for deals you could save cash without compromising, and just as easily you could add more stuff. Get a CPU with hyperthreading for 4cores 8threads, get 16Gb RAM, get a 780 gfx card.

Possibilities all depend on budget and what you want from it.

 

Buying a non K chip makes absolutely no sense, especially when AMD offer CPUs with six cores for around £80 that can be overclocked. The only reason to buy a non K is if you simply can't bring yourself to buy an AMD CPU because you really do hate the company that much.

Personally I would drop to a FX 6300/50 with a Giga UD3 990FX (£100) and then go SLI 760s and trounce the Titan for my grand.

I had a non K chip and it didn't even last a year before games started to lag on it, and there was pretty much nothing I could do about it.

 

I can see where your going with the fx 6300 but the opp wants itx (if he still wants itx i should say) If amd do an itx board wont it throttle? Been a while since ive looked at amd boards. I think the fx 6300 is my new love for the lower end of the market.

 

They don't do an ITX board at all. It's mostly down to the fact that you really ought to have 8+2 power stages which makes it expensive (and a PITA to get it on there).

The board of choice ATM is the Giga UD3 for around £100. Above that you would either go Sabertooth or CHVFZ. No point in either of the latter if you are going FX 6300 but they come into their own with the 8 core chips.

There aren't even any decent MATX boards, and certainly none with 8+2. That may change now though, given the FX range are slowly gathering momentum. It seems that the AMD chips are much more popular in the USA (maybe because AMD are American after all?).

FX 6300 is pretty much dead even with the 2500k. That's an awful lot of CPU for £80 IMO. Pair it up with two 760s and you'll have one heck of a gaming rig on your hands. As ridiculous as it sounds AMD CPUs and the 990FX absolutely love SLI.

But yes, I must doff my cap to AMD. Their recent price cuts have been great. I did notice they have changed the box for the FX 8 core to cardboard (you got a lovely little tin number before) but that could mean they're shaving every penny down in order to drop prices further.

 

Would be my £1000 game destroyer. Replace 760s with 7950s if you prefer AMD gpus

 

That's a lot of PC for a grand, depends if OP is up for some overclocking fun and doesn't mind going full scale.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions guys - really blown away by them.

Im going to stick to the mitx route so will keep looking.

Really appreciate the response though - it helps trust me...