CrossFireX, Dual 3870X2's and 3DMark06...

[KillerDr3w]

Hello Folks,

I bought a second PowerColor 3870X2 that was delivered in lighting time by Overclockers and installed it last night:

Abit QuadGT
Intel Q6600 @ 3.24GHz
2Gb PC-6400 Memory (This should be upgraded today to 4Gb PC-8500)
2 x PowerColor 3870X2

Running Vista Ultimate 64Bit and Catalyst 8.4 (I didn't quit any apps to benchmark the system - I probably should have done).

I know 3DMark06 isn't a game, but its a good indication of how your system is generally running and I expected a couple of thousand extra on my 3DMark06, so I checked CCC for the CrossFireX tab, double checked that Catalyst AI was enabled looked at the 4 GPU's listed in device manager and ran 3DMark06 with a grin

With 1 x 3870X2 physically installed I got 16307, with 2 x 3870X2's I got a +172 increase making it 16479, and I noticed that parts of the benchmark seem to jump a bit. My 3DMark06 score is here.

I expected an increase of around 5k, taking me above 20. I have seen some people with a single card getting better results than me, so I was a bit disappointed (I am going to buy CoD4 and Crysis today so hopefully I should be able to see some real world benchmarks).

Can anyone tell me why the 3DMark06 score was so low with two cards and 4 GPU's?

Also - can someone explain how the autotune feature works with CrossFireX - if I autotune one card 3DMark06 crashes almost straight away. I have to manually set everything back to default for it to run.

Thanks for the help in advance!

 

[KillerDr3w]

3dmark06 is CPU-limited once you pass about 15k, I went from something like 16.5k to 18k by installing a second X2. Try 3dmark03 for more pronounced results.

Ah - thanks. I wish I hadn't bought 06 now

Hopefully when I get my new memory I can get to 3.6GHz, at the moment I think the timings are too tight at 4-4-4-12 to OC anymore. I am not 100% sure how to adjust them uGuru has waaay too many options for newbies like me. I needed more memory anyway...

 

[KillerDr3w]

What is the max resolution you can run 3DMark06 at on your rig - the standard certainly won't stretch your cards, but if you can get it to 1900x1200 (or higher) you should see a difference. I know this makes comparison with others difficult, but at least you should see the benefit of the second card. Failing that have you tried any of the game benchies that allow for Crossfire?

I can run at 1920x1080 on my TV. I will try that tonight.

What game benchmarks are there that allow for CrossFire? Are there any that you can download independent of the game?

 

[KillerDr3w]

You could always try the Crysis demo / benchmark thats linked to here tis a good way to test that sort of horsepower ...

I downloaded a Crysis benchmark tool, but it asked for the Crysis install directory, so I thought you needed the full game to run the benchmark.

Another issue I am having - does anyone know how to auto-tune all 4 GPU's using CrossFireX? If I don't have them set to defaults I get a crash when I run 3dMark06.