Question about Motherboard for GIGABYTE GA-B250M-Gaming 5

[Louis (AGlan)]

Where it says Multi-GPU: Crossfire, does this mean only Multi-GPU Crossfire works? since some of the PCs I saw have Multi-GPU SLI with this motherboard instead of Crossfire.

Thank you.

[Turbo]

If it only lists Crossfire, then that's all it'll work with. There are a few boards like that in game.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_chipsets#100/200/300_Series_chipsets

In real life the Intel B250 chipset only provides 12x PCI-Express 3.0 lanes. So this can't provide SLI Support in any B250 chipset based motherboard because Nvidia requires a minimum of 8x PCIE for both cards (16x split in to 8x-8x) for SLI to work. Where as AMD only requires 4x for each card for CrossFire to work (8x split in to 4x-4x), which this chipset can handle.

So that's why there's CrossFire Only on B250 motherboards.

[X-SR71]

If you're receiving PCs in SLI configuration for this board then it must be a bug.

[Louis (AGlan)]

I see thank you then that should be a bug for sure. Also, there are many motherboards with the wrong type of graphics card installed in this game along with CPU as well :(

[Brittimus]

Originally posted by Louis (AGlan):

I see thank you then that should be a bug for sure. Also, there are many motherboards with the wrong type of graphics card installed in this game along with CPU as well :( :lunar2019deadpanpig:

I think there may be some confusion here. You can install any graphics card into any motherboard. The only time Crossfire/SLI comes into play is if you want to install more than one. So unless you’re getting a PC with dual cards installed incorrectly there is no bug. And can you explain which CPU is installed incorrectly?

[Louis (AGlan)]

Oh that makes so much more sense now, sorry I was confused. For the Crossfire/SLI more than one graphics card they need multi GPU motherboard correct? Also Can you install two non multi GPU graphics card into non multi GPU motherboard? For the CPU that is installed incorrectly it was one time I noticed socket AM4 CPU on a LGA1151 motherboard. One last question for socket LGA1151 Skylake and Kobylake can they be use on LGA1151 motherboards or they need to be specific Skylare/Kobylake

Thank you so much for your time.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by Louis (AGlan):

Oh that makes so much more sense now, sorry I was confused. For the Crossfire/SLI more than one graphics card they need multi GPU motherboard correct? Also Can you install two non multi GPU graphics card into non multi GPU motherboard? For the CPU that is installed incorrectly it was one time I noticed socket AM4 CPU on a LGA1151 motherboard. One last question for socket LGA1151 Skylake and Kobylake can they be use on LGA1151 motherboards or they need to be specific Skylare/Kobylake

Thank you so much for your time.

AMD CrossFire works in most any motherboard with two pci-express slots. However nvidia SLI requires a motherboard that provides at minimum 16x PCI Express, which will be split in to 8x and 8x for the two slots. The motherboard must have an actual 8x electrical connection in the pci-express slot (for both slots) for SLI to work. Even though some slots appear to physically be the same 16x length as the first slot, the motherboard maker may not have connected all of the contacts in the second slot. So you end up with some motherboards that may have two physical 16x slots, but the second slot may only function at 4x. Nvidia SLI requires a minimum of a physical 8x connection for both video cards. So not all motherboards support it. Some are crossfire only because the chipset on them doesn't provide a full 16x of PCIE lanes, so they don't even connect the second socket to more than 4x. AMD CrossFire only needs a minimum of 4x physical connection though so it works in more boards than SLI does. Even some LGA1151 motherboards may have a cut-down budget chipset that doesn't provide 16x and so they won't provide SLI support.

[Brittimus]

Originally posted by Louis (AGlan):

Oh that makes so much more sense now, sorry I was confused. For the Crossfire/SLI more than one graphics card they need multi GPU motherboard correct? Also Can you install two non multi GPU graphics card into non multi GPU motherboard? For the CPU that is installed incorrectly it was one time I noticed socket AM4 CPU on a LGA1151 motherboard. One last question for socket LGA1151 Skylake and Kobylake can they be use on LGA1151 motherboards or they need to be specific Skylare/Kobylake

Thank you so much for your time.

Aquafawks gave a great answer above. Just to simplify a bit here:

You can install any graphics card in any mother board.

You can only install dual cards in a board that supports the same multi GPU setup the cards themselves implement. So if the cards require crossfire the board must support crossfire. Same for SLI.

You cannot use dual SLI cards in a crossfire board but you can install a single SLI card in a crossfire board and vice versa.

In order to install dual cards even if all the above conditions are met, the cards must be of the same type (i.e. GTX 1080s). You cannot use two different types even if they use the same multi GPU technology. So you cannot combine a GTX 1080 with a GTX 970 even though both use SLI.

Not all cards support multi GPU and not all boards support multi GPU. In eitner case you can only use a single card.

Hopefully you’ve gotten all your questions answered but if not let me know!

[Louis (AGlan)]

Thank you so much I finally understand how it works now :) I appreciate all of the great answers here

[cobalt151]

The B250M only has 2 PCIE slots spacing between the x16 slots, meaning cards thicker than 2 slots can't be used in dual crossfire config. I learned this the hard way with trying to put two 390's into that board, they were slightly thicker than 2 slots. Dual Radeon R9 290's work, I'm not sure if any other config works.