5870 Crossfire Woes

[dirkpitt45]

I recently acquired a second 5870 for my pc, so I now have 2 (along with the rest of my pc in my sig). Basically, I've noticed absolutely no gains with the second card.

Metro 2033 actually runs worse, all of the crysis series are the same, GTAIV is unplayable now (stuttering), Dirt3, Dirt2, NFS:Shift2, Witcher 2, basically every game I have.

They run more or less the same as when I had just the single card. So I'm thinking the crossfire isn't set up right. But GPU-Z shows both of the cards, and GTAIV recognized the 2gb of memory.

CCC is as useless as ever. So I'm really at a loss here as to why I've gained nothing by adding a second 5870. Just the single one struggled a bit on the highest settings in some games (metro2033, witcher2), but just barely. Like 20fps or so, a second card should offer some marginal increase in performance. Friend has the same set-up (but he uses eyefninity) and says he noticed a pretty big difference.

I reinstalled CCC, 11.4, twice, and still no difference. Also installed the xfire profiles for games that were on AMD's site. Is there anything I can do to check and make sure xfire is indeed working? Cause right now I feel like I wasted a rather large chunk of money...

 

[Slaymate]

run a benchmark like 3DMark Vantage or 3DMark 11 with CrossfireX enabled and then with it disabled, you should see a noticeable difference.

Uninstall the driver through the control panel, restart the system in Safe Mode and use a utility like Driversweeper or Driver Cleaner to make sure any and or all ATI files are removed. Restart the system normally and install the latest drivers.

 

[acerinpa]

If you get a Driver update or go to the ATI website and download the latest crossfire driver - do you still have to uninstall the old driver? If yes- that could be the problem as well with my crossfired 5770's

 

[Slaymate]

In my experience I found that not removing the old drivers first is the most common problem.

 

[MindoverMaster]

I agree with Slay. Driversweeper tutorial in my sig.

 

[dirkpitt45]

Thanks guys. I will go through the suggested and see what happens.

EDIT:

Ok so I downloaded 3DMark Vantage and ran the GPU test, on high.

With xfire I score 19012, and without 12448. Does that sound about right?

Also, after updating the drivers my fan settings don't really stick. I like to keep them at 40% when I'm not gaming, but it seems every now and then they'll spin up to 50 or 60 for no reason. It doesn't show in ccc, nothing shows in ccc overdrive for the second card. The current value are all at 0, and the temperature and activity are also at 0.

EDIT #2: It's just one card that the fan speed is wrong on. I tried changing it with MSI afterburner and only one fan changes, while the other stays the same.

 

[Slaymate]

going from 12448 to 19012 is a pretty good improvement so CrossfireX is working. Is it working as good as it should? I'm not a AMD expert so I'll let someone else make that decision.

Your fans will automatically speed up once a predetermined temperature level is reached. I don't know about AMD cards but the fan speeds of my Nvidia cards are linked together, if one card spins at 50% then they both spin at 50%.