Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

[peter89]

I just bought a used 4850 online to go with my 4830 and neither the 4830 or the 4850 come with a bridge. I don't have any experience with CF and the motherboard manual is vague on the subject. Do I need a bridge with the UD3R and if so do I need 1 or 2? Thanks in advance.

[genec57]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

Wont work in crossfire without a bridge. One will do. You do know that your 4850 will be degraded to 4830 performance, don't you?

[peter89]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

Wont work in crossfire without a bridge. One will do. You do know that your 4850 will be degraded to 4830 performance, don't you?

Ya, I was looking for a single slot 4830 since I don't have room for a 2 slot card. The only one I could find was an XFX model and they wanted a fortune for it. I found a HIS single slot 4850 used for $60 so I went for it. I run my MSI 4830 overclocked to 725 GPU clock and 1130 Memmory clock, stock is 585/900. The His 4850 being a single slot reference design probably wont OC very well so it will probably even out. I think the 4830 overclocked may even outperform the stock 4850.

[Psycho101]

[peter89]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

Good info, thanks for the advice. I have a 22" inch monitor with 1680x1050 resolution. I'll keep on eye on 4850 prices, hopefully when ATI releases their new lineup people will be looking to unload their 4x00 series cards cheap. Until then I'm content since I was only looking for 4830 crossfire performance anyway and I got a decent deal on a single slot 4850. The increase in performance with just the 4850 in games that don't benefit much from crossfire is a nice bonus also.

[wazza300]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

plenty of xfire bridges on ebay if you take a look,also some cards need two, well my old x1950 pro needs two bridges but you can tell if you look on the card and see one or two connections.....and why is it that the supplied bridges that come with my ud5 board are too narrow???

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

and why is it that the supplied bridges that come with my ud5 board are too narrow???

The bridges that are included with the X58 boards are SLI Bridges and not Crossfire ones, that is why it looks narrow, it's for SLI.

[wazza300]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

The bridges that are included with the X58 boards are SLI Bridges and not Crossfire ones, that is why it looks narrow, it's for SLI.

no theres one thats for sli with three joined connectors and one for ati crossfire with two joined connectors and there all the same width and too narrow seemslike gigabyte cant even get there crossfire bridges right, typical

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

They are both for SLI, one for two card SLI and one for Three card SLI. This is stated in your manual, page 20
GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Manual - GA-EX58-UD5 (rev. 1.0)

[wazza300]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

They are both for SLI, one for two card SLI and one for Three card SLI. This is stated in your manual, page 20
GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Manual - GA-EX58-UD5 (rev. 1.0)

yes your right,my mistake i naturally asumed that gigabyte would provide ati bridges aswell as nvidia being there boards support either and ive only used ati cards so i wasnt familiar with the sli setup...

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

No biggie, I kinda thought the same thing with mine until I looked at them when I opened the wrappers.

I wish they would make them for us ATI users and include them.

I think they do with SLI as they paid for SLI Licensing for each board is why

[Psycho101]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

It is up to the board manufacturer to supply SLI bridges as they have licensed the tech from Nvidia and it must be part of the agreement. ATI Crossfire bridges are always supplied with the card.

Your X1950Pro needs two bridges, or at least it did with the older driver versions. By its own admission, only one channel was used to communicate with the GPU's though. From the HD2xxx onwards, only one bridge is needed and the drivers will implememt CF just fine with one installed.

The real reason for two ports on the top of each card on all modern ATI GPU's is to allow three or more cards to be connected. For example in a three card setup cards 1 and 3 will only have one connector used, where as card two will have both used, one going to card 1 and the other to card 3. Having two connectors totally eliminates the pre-X1900Pro era of external connections and having to have a "Master Card" and a "Slave Card".

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Do I need a bridge for CF with a GA-EX58-UD3R

Yeap, I have a triple setup going right now

I think a hard blue bridge like the SLI one for crossfire would be cool though, but maybe only because there isn't one now though as I always see the SLI users saying they want flexible ones like xfire has so who knows?