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Crossfire 5850 not working?

Mattuk69

Mattuk69

Mattuk69

Associate
Joined
17 Oct 2011
Posts
86
First off here are my spec:

Phenom II x4 @3.7ghz
DDR3 8gb @1600mhz
Crossfire 2X 5850
650W Coolmaster PSU
Asus M5A97 PRO
Win7 6bit

So basically my fps with crossfire is terrible in games. At first i accepted crysis at 6048x1080 is at 20fps because its crysis. But other games like Bad company 2 i couldn't get over 30fps. I put the settings to low and it did nothing to increase performance.

I tried TF2 and its pretty much the same thing. 10-15fps? Well this raised suspicion. I disabled CrossfireX in CCC and got these results.

Same settings:

BC2 -

Crossfire below 30fps

Single 5850 60fps

TF2 -

Crossfire below 10-15fps

Single 5850 130fps

Rage -

The same fps

Crysis warhead -

The same fps

Crysis -

Around the same.

So im basically having a dramatic loss in performance in some games. While in other i get no loss but no increase either.
Looking at CCC and GPU-Z it all seems fine. My speed's and temps go up on both card's. And it all says CorssfireX enabled.

Help:confused:
 
It's your board, you're running in x16/x4 crossfire mode. It doesn't support either x16/x16 or x8/x8 to get the best performance. PCI-E 2.0 x4 really limits the performance of the graphics card. This is probably why you're suffering a performance loss, the main card is probably slowing down to allow the second card to catch up.
 
Orcvader said:
It's your board, you're running in x16/x4 crossfire mode. It doesn't support either x16/x16 or x8/x8 to get the best performance. PCI-E 2.0 x4 really limits the performance of the graphics card. This is probably why you're suffering a performance loss, the main card is probably slowing down to allow the second card to catch up.
Click to expand...

So ASUS release a 9 series motherboard with crossfireX support that dont even work!?
 
Mattuk69 said:
So ASUS release a 9 series motherboard with crossfireX support that dont even work!?
Click to expand...

Hey now, don't blame Asus :p. It uses the 970 chipset, which is not a high end one. This chipset is designed mostly for single GPU setups. If you want true crossfire you need to buy a 990X or 990FX, these chipsets are the ones designed for crossfire.
 
Orcvader said:
Hey now, don't blame Asus :p. It uses the 970 chipset, which is not a high end one. This chipset is designed mostly for single GPU setups. If you want true crossfire you need to buy a 990X or 990FX, these chipsets are the ones designed for crossfire.
Click to expand...

I think im going to cry... I guess ill trade my 5850's for a 6950 or somthing.

Your right i shouldn't blame ASUS. I blame you Orcvader for giving me the bad news grr!:cool:
 
This is what one guy said to me about crossfire with this mobo.

"It does work in crossfire and it doesn't lose very much performance compared to having a x16 slot.

Keep in mind when you go crossfire you're already going down from 16x and 16x to 8x and 8x.

This board will just make it 8x - 4x compared to both being at 8.

So overall you're really not losing very much performance and it might not even be noticeable if you don't have the fastest video cards out."
 
The sort of "hit" you take from running x16/x4 compared to x8/x8 can be seen here.

Essentially a reduction of 0-26% depending on the game and resolution.

Radeon Pro will show your GPU usage in game. Settings > CrossfireX > Tick the box to Enable the CrossfireX bar.

And remember that Crossfire only works in full screen mode.
 
Ok, so i tried Radeon pro and its showing me both GPU's are infact being used. But it seems the more the GPU is used the more it laggs?

BC2 showed me more usage of both GPU's and is at 15-25fps.
Crysis showed me less GPU's usage and its at 35-40fps.
 
Well, considering the more GPU power is required, the more PCI-E bandwidth it needs. Really, it sounds like you're being limited here by your board.
 
I would expect to see poorer scaling with x4, but i would expect it to still be better than a single card.
Have you tried running the games on a single monitor and seeing if crossfire works as it should? Maybe it's something to do with the resolution.

Also, when you run with a single card, have you tried using both cards (individually). There might be something wrong with your second card.
 
MeMeMeMe said:
I would expect to see poorer scaling with x4, but i would expect it to still be better than a single card.
Have you tried running the games on a single monitor and seeing if crossfire works as it should? Maybe it's something to do with the resolution.

Also, when you run with a single card, have you tried using both cards (individually). There might be something wrong with your second card.
Click to expand...

Yes i've tried crossfire at 1920x1080 and my fps is worse in all games agaisn't a single card. TF2 crossfire 40-60fps. Single card 150+fps. 6048x1080 crossfire 15-20fps. Single card 130fps.

Pretty much the same in all games...

I tried both cards and they work.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=591&pid=320&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?leg=&psn=000101&pid=1152&lid=1
 
In your situation, I'd do a system backup, then reinstall from scratch and see what happens.

If you can eliminate everything else, it must be the x4 holding you back - but the articles I've read (like the one posted above) suggest that shouldn't be the case - they say you'd get a performance hit over x8/x8, but should still be significantly better than single card.

Edit: MSI afterburner can show the temps of the cards. Are they overheating when run in crossfire?
 
MeMeMeMe said:
In your situation, I'd do a system backup, then reinstall from scratch and see what happens.

If you can eliminate everything else, it must be the x4 holding you back - but the articles I've read (like the one posted above) suggest that shouldn't be the case - they say you'd get a performance hit over x8/x8, but should still be significantly better than single card.

Edit: MSI afterburner can show the temps of the cards. Are they overheating when run in crossfire?
Click to expand...

Just installed a fresh copy of Win7 with no luck. I had hopes because windows said its installing PCi to PCi bridge, and a AMD message popped up saying about corssfire config etc. It didn't before...

I think ill just buy me a new mobo and sell this one.
 
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