ATI 6870 Crossfire performance

Hyp3rion1969 · 18 Dec 2010 at 11:42

Hi,

I am after a little advice please.
I have two 6870's in crossfire and I am dissapointed with the performance when using the Dirt 2 benchmark.
All of the reviews I have seen show around 120-130fps in this setup but I can only get around half of that. Now, I can hear you all scream "check crossfire is enabled" but it is. Then you scream "check vsync is disabled" but I have ensured that it is disabled in game and also in CCC. So, I am hoping someone can throw some ideas at me to try.

My current setup is Q9650 on Asus P45 Deluxe, 4 gig Ram, Windows 7 64bit, Catalyst 10.12 (not the new control panel)

I know this is not the latest platform but I cant believe it is responsible for a 50% performance drop.

Cheers,

Hyp

J.D · 18 Dec 2010 at 12:22

What speed is your Q9650 at?.

Also, do a search on the AMD 10.12 driver in this graphics card thread. I'm not certain but it's something about a preview driver vs this other driver. In fact, rather than me trying to remember, here's the link below. Happy reading

.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18218624

tmaxxthomson · 18 Dec 2010 at 13:26

aye. id go with that driver man, see how she goes =] benches would be great to see how they are over my pair of 5870's

Rroff · 18 Dec 2010 at 13:33

Doubt its the CPU, tho maybe not pushing them as much as it could if its at stock - I have a Q9550 @ 3.825gig and it quite comfortably powers my GTX470 SLI even when overclocked to 6970 levels as good as any i7 setup except in scenarios where the extra thread units on the i7 come into play (which isn't often).

Walter Sobchak · 18 Dec 2010 at 13:53

Hyp3rion1969 said:
Hi,

I am after a little advice please.
I have two 6870's in crossfire and I am dissapointed with the performance when using the Dirt 2 benchmark.
All of the reviews I have seen show around 120-130fps in this setup but I can only get around half of that. Now, I can hear you all scream "check crossfire is enabled" but it is. Then you scream "check vsync is disabled" but I have ensured that it is disabled in game and also in CCC. So, I am hoping someone can throw some ideas at me to try.

My current setup is Q9650 on Asus P45 Deluxe, 4 gig Ram, Windows 7 64bit, Catalyst 10.12 (not the new control panel)

I know this is not the latest platform but I cant believe it is responsible for a 50% performance drop.

Cheers,

Hyp

What res? Ive got 6870 crossfire Q6600 @ 3.6, win 7 64 cat 10.12

Will run the benchmark and let you know what I get.

Hyp3rion1969 · 18 Dec 2010 at 13:59

Yeah resolution would have been handy.

I'm running 1920 x 1080.

My CPU is stock at present (perpares for flamage) as I had some random crashes a while ago and I have not bothered overclocking it again.
I did see the post on the 10.12's, I'll see what bench Walter posts and consider going back to 10.11 if there is a dramatic difference.

Walter Sobchak · 18 Dec 2010 at 14:22

give me 10 mins and Ill run it at 1920 x 1080 everything on high and vsync disabled right?

Hyp3rion1969 · 18 Dec 2010 at 14:42

Yeap, that would be great cheers.

Walter Sobchak · 18 Dec 2010 at 15:04

First time I ran it I got :-

44.7 ave 36.4 min

Thought that was a little low so I re-checked and applied crossfire is enabled in CC. Re ran the test and got:-

73.6 ave 56.8 min

@ 1920 x 1080 everything on high(post process changed to high) 8xMSAA and vsync off.

welshdragon · 18 Dec 2010 at 17:20

Guys, would you mind telling me if you know if a 6870 will fit in an antec 300 case?

Walter Sobchak · 18 Dec 2010 at 18:09

welshdragon said:
Guys, would you mind telling me if you know if a 6870 will fit in an antec 300 case?

Quick search seems to show it will!

welshdragon · 18 Dec 2010 at 18:16

Cheers dude. I had done a search but wanted peoples personal experience from here.

easyrider · 19 Dec 2010 at 20:21

6870 in xfire beats the GTX 580 by some margin for less money

TheRealDeal · 19 Dec 2010 at 20:29

Walter Sobchak said:
First time I ran it I got :-

44.7 ave 36.4 min

Thought that was a little low so I re-checked and applied crossfire is enabled in CC. Re ran the test and got:-

73.6 ave 56.8 min

@ 1920 x 1080 everything on high(post process changed to high) 8xMSAA and vsync off.

Your second score is pretty much in line with my single 6870 in dirt 2 but i ran the bench at 1920x1200 with 4msaa. Any how your score is far to low imo.

Walter Sobchak · 19 Dec 2010 at 20:39

TheRealDeal said:
Your second score is pretty much in line with my single 6870 in dirt 2 but i ran the bench at 1920x1200 with 4msaa. Any how your score is far to low imo.

Yeh I wonder why it is so low? Anyway adding the 2nd 6870 has made a massive difference in BC2 @ 2560 v 1440.

Hyp3rion1969 · 20 Dec 2010 at 06:56

I will have a play around later on today, maybe overclock my q9650 again as a comparisson.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

Hyp

wunkley · 20 Dec 2010 at 11:19

Ok, I'll chip in on this as I've been wondering the same after looking at the 6870/ 6850 crossfire reviews.

My set up:

Q9550 at 3.7

1x 6870 and 1x 6850 in crossfire or 'frankenfire' as some call it. (Will post in a separate thread about my frankenfire experiences so far if anyone's interested!)
Catalyst 10.12 with preview CCC2

Dirt 2 benchmark in graphics options menu.

1920 x 1080 (my screen is 1920x1200 native but for consistency set your res)
8xaa
All set to 'high' in preset (not 'ultra' as your bench was all set to 'high' no?)

Results:

Crossfire (6870@ stock / 6850 @ stock)
Av. 84
Min. 69

Single 6870 @ stock
Av. 63
Min. 54

Doesn't seem like it's scaling as it should? Drivers???
Even with my frankenfire it should perform at least as good as 2x6850 and it's not when you look at all the Dirt 2 benchies for the 6870/ 6850...

antran · 20 Dec 2010 at 12:20

Have you check what clock the 6870 is running at? I think your 6870 is running at 6850 stock.

Might want to OC the 6850 to match your 6870.

cobhc · 20 Dec 2010 at 13:52

antran said:
Have you check what clock the 6870 is running at? I think your 6870 is running at 6850 stock.

Might want to OC the 6850 to match your 6870.

But even if his 6870 is downclocking to 6850 speeds it's still not scaling as it should.

TheRealDeal · 20 Dec 2010 at 15:26

Using the high preset 1920x1080 8xmsaa 6870@stock

average = 71.0

min = 52.1

Using the ultra preset 1920x1080 8xmsaa 6870@stock

average = 72.5

min = 54.5

For some reason on ultra i get slightly better performance. I ran both settings 3 times and the marks are still the same. I am still using the 10.10 drivers atm