CPU Bottlenecking Crossfire?

[Cyanide]

I'm baffled by my pitifully low 3DMark and Crysis Benchmark scores. Crysis (as per the Crysis Benchmark thread) is getting around 37fps with crossfire enabled and 32ish without.

3DMark score is as below and a good 2-2.5k less without Crossfire

Looking at the CPU score and comparing my system to others I'd guess the low cache on the cpu is holding the system back?

 

[gurusan]

Can't you clock the chip more?

 

[Cyanide]

Can't you clock the chip more?

I can just about get it up to 3.2 on stock voltage but then it becomes unstable and I can't ram too many more volts through it as the case is starting to heat up during games due to the 2 graphics cards.

I'll be replacing it with a C2Q in the summer, only got a cheap cpu as I didn't want to fork out for a Quad when the new ones are out later this month

 

[RaV]

why dont you overclock the cpu by that extra 150mhz or so and see if you get a boost in fps. though not in the cpu test, but in the other tests.
On my C2Q at the same speed its nearly double yours. which i guess sounds right. 1.567 and 2.277

As for crysis is that with all the latest patches ect?

 

[Cyanide]

As for crysis is that with all the latest patches ect?

1.1 patch, latest Catalyst drivers and all the hotpatches as far as I know. I'm getting playable fps at 1920x1200 with everything on very high. Only slows down in big gun fights and the cut-scenes run ok. CPU maxes at 90% on both cores which is higher than I've ever esen during a game before which is why I'm thinking it's the cpu bottlenecking it.

 

[badbob]

I thought Crysis isn't optimised for dual cards yet? Play another game that is.

 

[gareth170]

bottlenecking only happens at low res, e.g 800x600 or 1280x1024. well thats what i been told anyway..

 

[Cyanide]

Increasing the CPU to 3.2ghz (400x8) upped my cpu score by 170 and my overall score by 650. As the overall score has gone up more than the cpu score I'd say this was a cpu issue more than a crossfire/driver issue?