I Purchased 2 Dell Tower Motherboards. The 990 And 7010. Was Wondering If

I purchased the dell 990 and 7010 motherboards I'm using for builds. Each motherboard has two PCIe X16 slots and I'm hoping I can set these up with 2 graphic cards in crossfire in either motherboard. I will be using a 600 watt PSU for each of them and I have 2 Sapphire R7 260X cards I'd like to use in crossfire in one of them. Is that possible? Are these motherboards crossfire and/or sli compatible?

 

I am a bit confused. And sadly, you did not give us complete information to go on. Most people don't buy motherboards from Dell, except for repairs under warranty. Did you mean you bought two Dell tower computers? If so, specifically which ones? And what is the brand and model of the PSU, and the Sapphire cards. Note there are 6 different models of the R7 260X.

Note that CrossfireX is used with AMD cards (which your Sapphire's are). SLI is used with NVIDIA cards. Same difference - the idea is the same, to strap two cards together for better performance. And yes, depending on the specific Dells you bought you should be able to use both cards. But I note there is a SFF (small form factor) 990 in a slim case. That may cause problems. If this is the 990, then you should be okay for space. But adequate cooling may be a problem. It is the case's job to provide an adequate supply of cool air flowing through the case. Same issues with the 7010. There are several models within the 7010 line and space and cooling may be issues.

I also worry about your PSU. Sadly, many cut corners in the budget and fail to get a quality 80 PLUS certified power supply. It's like buying a new Porsche then filling it up with generic, possibly watered down fuel at the corner Tobacco and Bait shop. Not good. According to user manual (click Download then scroll down) for the R7 260 card (all models), it says 600W "minimum" supply with two 6-pin power connectors with 2 cards. If you don't have a quality, name brand supply, I would not use two cards.

 

I purchased just the motherboards from ebay. They go to the following models:
Dell optiplex 990 ( 1155 MB with Q67 chipset), Highest usable cpu is the i5 2600.
Dell optiplex 7010 ( 1155 MB with Q77 chipset). Highest usable cpu is the i7 3770.
I know they are very limited in their capabilities, but I just needed something inexpensive.
I doing 2 computer builds based on these motherboards and I plan on using materials on hand to do so. Both motherboards have two PCIe X16 slots and I wanted to know if they are capable of using 2 Radeon cards in crossfire. I will be using a corsair 600watt PSU in both systems.

 

Again, the model numbers are important. Corsair currently makes at least 5 different 600W supplies and has made many more over the years and not all are top quality. Either way, if me, I probably would not use two of those graphics cards in Crossfire mode, unless I knew I had a high-end PSU with sufficient current capability on the 12V rail. Note too that the number and type of drives, sticks of RAM and fans all demand power too.

From what I can find on those motherboards, they should support both cards if they (and your cases) have the room.

 

Okay thanks, I do have a 700 watt PSU from Antec I can use in the 7010 setup. Will the 7010 be able to run either crossfire and/or sli?

 

I am guessing/assuming that because that 7010 has 2 x PCIe x 16 slots, then yes, it supports Crossfire. But because it is an HP branded board, I cannot be 100% certain HP has not done something proprietary to the board.

 

Okay, thanks. I guess I can just try it and see what happens.

 

Keep us posted. We all may learn something here.