Breathing Life Into a 3 Year Old System With Crossfire?

theoperator · 9 Apr 2009 at 17:23

Hello Everyone,

I'm getting a little disappointed in the performance of my system these days. Most things are still lovely and quick, but gaming is a drag sometimes.

I recently upgraded my aging Radeon X1900+ 512MB to a Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and wasn't too impressed with the performance increase. I'm wondering now if adding a second 4870 in Crossfire configuration would be a nice inexpensive way of getting what I'm after. I've heard horror stories about poor stability when running Crossfire or SLI from friends. Can you guys offer any insights?

My current system configuration:

Gigabyte 965P-DQ6
Corsair TwinX 2GB DDR2 6400 C4
Intel E6600 Core2Duo 2.40GHz
650W AKASA AKP650FF SLi PSU
Sapphire HD4870 1GB GDDR5 750Mhz GPU

I know stability is largely dependant on other components, so does anyone have experience running Crossfire on this kind of rig? The mobo documentation vaguely claims to support Crossfire. Is my PSU beefy enough? Any other considerations I've missed?

Thanks for your time.

Nick1881 · 9 Apr 2009 at 17:26

Is your CPU overclocked? Adding another 4870 will be held back even further if your only running at 2.4Ghz.

You should be able to get to 3.3Ghz + I should imagine, giving you a nice boost for free.

Your Psu should be fine if you did want to go Crossfire.

What CPU cooler do you have?

Also what games and what res are you playing?

Rybo89 · 9 Apr 2009 at 17:43

mr_x_plosion said:
Is your CPU overclocked? Adding another 4870 will be held back even further if your only running at 2.4Ghz.

You should be able to get to 3.3Ghz + I should imagine, giving you a nice boost for free.

+1

reflux · 9 Apr 2009 at 17:46

I'm surprised that you've not been impressed with the jump from a X1900 to a 4870. The newer card is much more powerful.

As far as CrossFire goes, I'd echo the above comments as well as saying you'll only see a really worthwhile difference at 1920x1200; possibly at 1680x1050 but bear in mind dual graphics needs a lot of pixels to chomp on.

theoperator · 9 Apr 2009 at 17:52

Thanks for your replies.

I've never really had much luck with overclocking. I'm probably doing it wrong. I just tried upping the host clock from 266 to 333 (3.0Ghz) 9x clock ratio, and switched on the various 'Turbo' and 'Full Thrust' options in the tweaker section of the BIOS. Windows didn't finish booting. I dialed it back a bit to 300 and got a booting system, but negligable performance increase.

I should probably go and read the overclocking forum

theoperator · 9 Apr 2009 at 17:54

reflux said:
I'm surprised that you've not been impressed with the jump from a X1900 to a 4870. The newer card is much more powerful.

As far as CrossFire goes, I'd echo the above comments as well as saying you'll only see a really worthwhile difference at 1920x1200; possibly at 1680x1050 but bear in mind dual graphics needs a lot of pixels to chomp on.

I'm running 1920x1200 on my lovely Samsung Syncmaster 245B

reflux · 9 Apr 2009 at 17:56

Yeah, sounds like you'd see a performance increase then but we really need some more info about what you're disappointed with; what games don't run well?

Also, re overclocking, have a look at the stickies

but remember one thing; don't use the 'auto' or 'turbo' options in the BIOS, as they are designed to make things easier....but just don't work

theoperator · 9 Apr 2009 at 18:24

mr_x_plosion said:
What CPU cooler do you have?

Also what games and what res are you playing?

Cooling wise I have an Akasa AK-961 CPU Heatsink/fan and 2x120mm case fans.

The main games I play are Team Fortress 2, Left4Dead, Dawn of War 2, World of Warcraft. WoW being the slowest, the others are around 20-30fps maxed out, WoW is 10-15fps in Dalaran maxed out. 1920x1200 res.

philip j fry · 9 Apr 2009 at 18:38

Should overclock your cpu for starters and before buying another 4870 to crossfire i would look into your mobo 1st as i think you will find that board runs 1 pci-e lane @ x16 and the other @ x4 , if thats the case i dont think it would be worth running crossfire as you would'nt get much of a performance increase at all, the cards would be held bk by your mobo and your cpu

rounddodger · 9 Apr 2009 at 22:01

theoperator said:
Thanks for your replies.

I've never really had much luck with overclocking. I'm probably doing it wrong. I just tried upping the host clock from 266 to 333 (3.0Ghz) 9x clock ratio, and switched on the various 'Turbo' and 'Full Thrust' options in the tweaker section of the BIOS. Windows didn't finish booting. I dialed it back a bit to 300 and got a booting system, but negligable performance increase.

I should probably go and read the overclocking forum

Not sure about overclocking on your mobo but I get 3.5Ghz out the same CPU and it really flies, can't believe its a 2 year old CPU.

I have 389x9 at the moment.

VTR · 9 Apr 2009 at 22:41

You dont need another 4870 mate, get another 2GB RAM and clock the cpu up to 3Ghz+ and it will be plenty fast enough.

theoperator · 10 Apr 2009 at 00:21

Thanksf for all the helpful replies guys. I'm going to order some RAM and in the meantime try and overclock my CPU. I'll let you know how I get on

fastwunz · 10 Apr 2009 at 09:00

Actually could you let me know HOW you overclocked the CPU please - ive go tthe same and want to clock it. Im on around 3.1Mhz atm. Got 3Gigs of ram and a 512 4870 but only game @ 1400X900 (19" Screen). I get similar performance to you (ish if not a bit higher in WoW).

theoperator · 10 Apr 2009 at 10:04

Not going so well tbh. Right now it's just continuously power cycling. I wonder if it's iteratively reducing settings until it finds one where it's safe to boot, or if it's just stuck on bad settings. I'm looking for my CMOS reset jumper right now...

Emlyn_Dewar · 10 Apr 2009 at 10:15

VTR said:
You dont need another 4870 mate, get another 2GB RAM and clock the cpu up to 3Ghz+ and it will be plenty fast enough.

This.

arc@css · 10 Apr 2009 at 10:29

theoperator said:
Not going so well tbh. Right now it's just continuously power cycling. I wonder if it's iteratively reducing settings until it finds one where it's safe to boot, or if it's just stuck on bad settings. I'm looking for my CMOS reset jumper right now...

Try setting the acceleration in the bios to 'standard' rather than to 'turbo' (which it might be set to at default) or 'extreme'. Before I did this I had known my system to do what yours is doing, even at 3gig on one occasion which isn't right at all. Now, I get it stable at 3.5 and considering I haven't adjusted anything else apart from the FSB, I'm pleased. Mind you vcore is well high. Even on stock it was pretty high.

theoperator · 16 Apr 2009 at 13:24

OK, I've been fiddling unsuccessfully this week with overclocking, so I'm going to spend a little cash for retail therapy

Heading into town this afternoon and picking up another 2GB of RAM and also a better cooler (Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro) in the hope that I'll be able to have better luck with overclocking.

Here's the settings I was trying, based on some info I found on another site: [img=http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9256/10042009207e.jpg]

The instructions stated to set these options, (although wasn't clear on what to do with some of the other options) then use the Gigabyte Easytune software to increase Bus Speed and Vcore. I'm sure I'm doing it wrong still, as it resulted in this:

[img=http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3808/10042009209.jpg]

In fact, even without tweaking the Vcore and Bus Speed, those BIOS settings caused a Blue Screen after 30 mins or so of light use.

Evil-I · 16 Apr 2009 at 14:21

Remember, just because someone else got good results with certain settings doesn't mean you will.

Best advice is to start at stock and slowly increase your FSB doing a quick test at each level until it starts to get unstable. Then drop the FSB back a bit until its stable again and do more thorough soak testing. Obviously keep an eagle eye on your CPU temps through all this process. Up to 70C is okay, but I don't think you want to past that.

Check with people more knowlegdable about your chip as to what the maximum reccomended voltage for your CPU is with your cooling.

Also read the overclocking sticky guides on these forums, a wealth of information from some real gurus.

Good luck,

E-I

khrall · 16 Apr 2009 at 17:20

theoperator said:
.

Here's the settings I was trying, based on some info I found on another site: [img=http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9256/10042009207e.jpg]

The instructions stated to set these options, (although wasn't clear on what to do with some of the other options) then use the Gigabyte Easytune software to increase Bus Speed and Vcore. I'm sure I'm doing it wrong still, as it resulted in this:

[img=http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3808/10042009209.jpg]

In fact, even without tweaking the Vcore and Bus Speed, those BIOS settings caused a Blue Screen after 30 mins or so of light use.

It might be your memory holding you back, looking at the settings in the first piccy, it's 800mhz ram trying to run at 1000mhz.

Second picture error relates to memory. Either try altering the system memory multiplier (SPD) or bumping up the voltage on the memory a little.

My memory (PC2-6400) also has stability issues when over clocking above 450Mhz (900Mhz)