Cheap board and CPU for 3 GPU's?

[Jokah]

I'm looking for some recommendations for a cheap motherboard and cpu combination to use with my three 5870's. AMD or intel is fine. I would also be open to suggestions for a two card setup as I may get another card and run two seperate mining computers.

As things are I'm hoping to move the three cards I have out of my main computer and into one or two dedicated mining rigs. I could just do with a bit of advice on what is the minimum i need cpu wise to power three cards and what would be a good motherboard to go with it. I can manage sorting out the rest of the stuff like power supply and memory etc.

I have a spare i7 920, asus P6X58D Premium motherboard and 6gb of corsair dominator sat to one side after recently upgrading my main everyday use rig. I figured by selling all of this I should be able to purchase a CPU, motherboard, memory, PSU and maybe a hard drive second hand to fit my requirements. This would leave me with a small amount of cash to spend on a case, some fans and any other little bits I might need.

I could make a rig out of the i7 bits I have but would need to spend more money this way to get it up and running. And would probably be over kill for what I need.

[KJaneway]

Hi,

i would recomend selling your i7 system instead of using it for mining. Any cheap CPU does it. Here my suggestion:

AMD Sempron 140
MSI FX790 GD70 (4 PCI-E 16x slots, I get mine for 50EUR)
Or else: ASRock 880G Extreme3 (3 PCI-E 16x Slots)
Add a cheap Ram Modul and you have the perfect basis for a efficient mining machine.

[Jokah]

I hadn't really considered a board with 4x PCIe slots. That may be the best option yet. I know I said I had the psu side of things under control but I had not planned for a 4 card set up.

Do you think 1000w PSU will suffice? My plan was to use the coolermaster 1000w real power PSU that I currently own. I'm using it now with three cards and a 2600k. The most I've seen it pull at the plug when mining and general use is about 850w but normally sits around 750w when just mining.

Also some more 4 slot board suggestions would be great as I think this is the direction I would now like to take.

[KJaneway]

Hi there,

a bit more expensive and with 4 Slots:

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3  (AM3+)
ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme (5 PCIE Slots, 4 of them are usable without extenders)
Or if you really want to get it a start: Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD7  (6 PCIE-Slots!!!) But you would need PCIE Extenders)

If you want to use 4 5870s i think 1000W should be sufficient. I for myself will use a 850W Power suply for 4 8580 Cards (Or perhaps one 5870 with 3 5850 Cards)

[Jokah]

I'm currently trying to work out a deal with someone on ebay who is selling the crosshair IV.

He also has a Phenom II 3.1ghz, 1000w thermaltake psu, an xfx 5870 and a haf932. If I get all of that for under £400 delivered I don't think I'll have done too bad.

All i need to do then is get my mem, cooler, fans and hard drive and i'm good to go.

I could do with learning how to use linux aswell. Or get xp somewher cheap.