Crossfire questions

[spoony77]

Hi people
I have picked up a second card identical make and model to my own 7970 to give crossfire a whirl for the first time.
Can you tell me can I just plonk it in connect it up and reboot without messing with drivers?
Do I need to install anything else to get the crossfire up and running correctly?
Where do I find these crossfire profiles I have read about?
Do I need to change any bios/ccc settings to make sure they scale down nicely when idling and don't expend too much electricity?
Any advice appreciated

 

[tommybhoy]

Can you tell me can I just plonk it in connect it up and reboot without messing with drivers?

You can as long as you power up, let Windows do it's thing installing hardware/legacy driver then reboot.

Upon reboot and PC has finished loading up, CCC should present you with a CrossFire selection pop up window, select enable>apply, done.

However, that's not how I'd do it.

I usually add a second gpu at a later date, so I always uninstal everything from AMD via Remove Programs, power down, plug in new card and let Windows do it's thing installing hardware/legacy driver then reboot.

Then instal latest driver(which is the Omega driver) then reboot, CCC should present you with a CrossFire selection pop up window, select enable>apply, done.

Do I need to install anything else to get the crossfire up and running correctly?

Just the CrossFire bridge to connect the cards.

Where do I find these crossfire profiles I have read about?

The most up to date profiles are in the latest driver-be it Whql's or beta.

Do I need to change any bios/ccc settings to make sure they scale down nicely when idling and don't expend too much electricity?

No as long as you don't disable ulps in Afterburner/Trixx, the second gpu simply powers down with the fan turning off and should only spin up when used.

You can find out if your 7970's aren't GHz editions and flash a non GHz bios to enable lower voltage, they will run the same but use a fraction less electricity.

Any advice appreciated

Np.

The AMD driver thread is useful for what has/hasn't got a CrossFire profile and how to create custom profiles that can get some titles to run CrossFire.

Welcome to CrossFire Club and good luck.

 

[spoony77]

Very helpful thank you!

 

[LtMatt]

Good advice tommy, thanks.

Spoony if you need any other help, just shout.

 

[rtho782]

You can probably pick up a 2nd hand 7970 for ~£90, you could sell yours for the same.

If you sold yours for ~£90, you could buy a 2nd hand 4gb 290x for ~£180.

I'd suggest that would be far less hassle (xfire and sli are both non-ideal solutions compared to a powerful gpu.)

 

[spikeot]

You can probably pick up a 2nd hand 7970 for ~£90, you could sell yours for the same.

If you sold yours for ~£90, you could buy a 2nd hand 4gb 290x for ~£180.

I'd suggest that would be far less hassle (xfire and sli are both non-ideal solutions compared to a powerful gpu.)

This is good advice. I have found that game support for Crossfire has been less than ideal recently. I'm lucky in that when it doesn't work for me, I still effectively have a 290X, (half of my R9 295X2) which is still an excellent card. If you're hoping to play recent things like Far Cry 4 or CoD:AW then you might prefer a 290X because of their lack of CrossfireX support.

 

[Divine Pain]

Didn't they add CF support for CoD AW already?

 

[postmanfw]

Didn't they add CF support for CoD AW already?

Yes cf working fine here on my olde gpus on windows 7...had some problems on windows 10 with it tho and never tried it on w8.

 

[Legend]

SLI is iffy too though isn't it, neither a perfect all encompassing solution.