4850 Dissapointment...?

Modred189

Modred189

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Maybe I am doing something wrong here, but I went from an Nvidia 8800gt to two 4850's in crossfire, and I am seeing worse frame rates in Grid and Assasin's creed.

Plus, is 8Xmsaa the highest it can go on aa, 'cause that's the highest option I get.
 
Wait for better drivers to come out.

I haven't tried anything other than Titan Quest for about 5 minutes just to make sure it runs properly, but I can tell you it runs better than my old 6600LE and 7900GT. ;)
 
i dont think upgrading from a gt to a 4850 or crossfire was a good option for you. you already had a GT. im waiting for the 4870
 
Drivers, man. 4850 in crossfire is a substantial upgrade from a single 8800GT
 
Welcome to the world of XF/SLi. Better drivers will help to an extent, but a single card is the way to go for the most part. If you're intent on dual card configurations, you could have just gotten another GT for even better performance. At this time for me, it's a toss-up between the 4870 and GTX260. The 4870 might be the better deal, but the 260 will drop in price if need be, I am sure. I prefer Nv drivers to ATi's tbh as I haven't owned an ATi card since my 9800Pro. I've just gotten used to the Nv CP since then :( lol. I'm leaning towards the 260, but I'm waiting just in case (and for the price drop regardless of how the 4870 performs).

Of course the better the 4870 does, the bigger the price drop will be vs. it not doing much better than the 4850 (meh).
 
2wiced said:
i dont think upgrading from a gt to a 4850 or crossfire was a good option for you. you already had a GT. im waiting for the 4870
Click to expand...

You should notice a nice improvement going from a 8800GT to the 4850s so it sounds more like a driver issue than anything. I upgarded from my 8800GTS (G92) and have notice a very nice improvement.

Even more so the HD 4850 slighty outperformed the GTX 260 in initial benchmarks in GRID and AC so it should you should definitely see a noticable difference from the upgrade in those game from a GT.
 
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I guess it is probably a driver issue. I am using the ones that came on the CD untill the official ones land.

But still, is 8xmsaa the highest level of Ati AA?
 
Modred189 said:
But still, is 8xmsaa the highest level of Ati AA?
Click to expand...

I don't think so, but why do you need that much AA? Its nearly impossible to spot differences between 4x and 6x when comparing still shots, much less in game. I highly doubt that there would be any difference at all once you go past 6x. You would be better off using some form of transparency AA (super sampling, TRAA, temporal AA - I forgot what ATI calls it, but I'm sure you can figure it out if you dig around in the control panel a bit :) )
 
kllrnohj said:
I don't think so, but why do you need that much AA? Its nearly impossible to spot differences between 4x and 6x when comparing still shots, much less in game. I highly doubt that there would be any difference at all once you go past 6x. You would be better off using some form of transparency AA (super sampling, TRAA, temporal AA - I forgot what ATI calls it, but I'm sure you can figure it out if you dig around in the control panel a bit :) )
Click to expand...
Well, I'm using the in-game settings, and those just don't appear (in HL2 for example).
And it makes a HUGE difference in GRID> I had the AA much higher on the 8800gt and it made a big difference.
 
Everything I see about the 4850 makes it look great, I'm shocked that suddenly there's this new ATi card, already available and in stock, with such good performance at less than $200. Great to see ATi (AMD) come back like this, was worried they were going to continue struggling, limping along, with 2nd rate wimpy products until they died a sad slow death... If I was in the market to buy a new video card right now, I would be psyched to buy a 4850.
 
Modred189 said:
Well, I'm using the in-game settings, and those just don't appear (in HL2 for example).
And it makes a HUGE difference in GRID> I had the AA much higher on the 8800gt and it made a big difference.
Click to expand...

Probably a limitation of the game then. Override it in the control panel :)
 
gibber said:
Everything I see about the 4850 makes it look great, I'm shocked that suddenly there's this new ATi card, already available and in stock, with such good performance at less than $200. Great to see ATi (AMD) come back like this, was worried they were going to continue struggling, limping along, with 2nd rate wimpy products until they died a sad slow death... If I was in the market to buy a new video card right now, I would be psyched to buy a 4850.
Click to expand...

Its definately a compeling product. I'm more curious to see the 4870/4870x2.
 
Modred189 said:
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I guess it is probably a driver issue. I am using the ones that came on the CD untill the official ones land.

But still, is 8xmsaa the highest level of Ati AA?
Click to expand...

the cd drivers aren't usually the best ones for the cards, go get 8.6 from ATI if you don't have those.
 
Modred189 said:
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I guess it is probably a driver issue. I am using the ones that came on the CD untill the official ones land.

But still, is 8xmsaa the highest level of Ati AA?
Click to expand...

8x is the highest true AA setting that you can likely select. Reviews seem to show the hit from 4x -> 8x being only a couple % so not that big of a deal to leave on. Try going into the control panel and selecting 8xMSAA and edge-detect in the drop-down. That's the equivalent of 24xAA and doesn't cause any blurring etc.
 
Ok, update.
The 8.6 drivers plus the 4850 hotfix solved the problems I was having. Performance in AC went back up, and in Grid, AA, though enabled was not functioning, but is now.

TF2 is butter smooth, as is the rest of the source library, all settings maxed.

Thanks for the help all. I am off to try some crysis!
 
looking at your motherboard, looks like some of the problems could be due to bandwith. I had the same problem when i added a second hd 3870. Your second pci express slot only does x4, same as mine. And that screwer performance.
 
2 hd4850's here using the recently released hot fix drivers

123hk1.jpg
 
As mentioned previously, this is because of the bandwidth limitation of the 4x slot.

As a matter of fact, you would get better performance with only 1 card running on a full 16x slot.

Upgrade to a X38-based board, and you will see a HUGE improvement.
 
seems its not a limitation of the 4x slot as im able to select 16x AA in the control panel.
 
forrehmmnd said:
looking at your motherboard, looks like some of the problems could be due to bandwith. I had the same problem when i added a second hd 3870. Your second pci express slot only does x4, same as mine. And that screwer performance.
Click to expand...
I have to disagree, once I got the hotfix and 8.6 drivers, the hotfix solved it.
 
pandora's box said:
seems its not a limitation of the 4x slot as im able to select 16x AA in the control panel.
Click to expand...

WTF? We are talking about bandwidth, not AA!

Of course you can select any AA option.

Only 1 card is running at 16x.

The other card is running at 4x, thus limiting the performance of both cards.
 
Salavat23 said:
WTF? We are talking about bandwidth, not AA!

Of course you can select any AA option.

Only 1 card is running at 16x.

The other card is running at 4x, thus limiting the performance of both cards.
Click to expand...

WTF learn to read the original fucking post
 
Being able to select any AA option has nothing to do with the bandwidth of the second PCI-E slot.

If he indeed has one of the cards running on a 4x slot, I would bet this is the reason the two 4850s are doing poorly.
 
Supertag said:
Being able to select any AA option has nothing to do with the bandwidth of the second PCI-E slot.

If he indeed has one of the cards running on a 4x slot, I would bet this is the reason the two 4850s are doing poorly.
Click to expand...
Do you guys not read the previous posts in the thread? I fixed the performance issues.
 
Miscommunication said:
Welcome to the world of XF/SLi. Better drivers will help to an extent, but a single card is the way to go for the most part. If you're intent on dual card configurations, you could have just gotten another GT for even better performance. At this time for me, it's a toss-up between the 4870 and GTX260. The 4870 might be the better deal, but the 260 will drop in price if need be, I am sure. I prefer Nv drivers to ATi's tbh as I haven't owned an ATi card since my 9800Pro. I've just gotten used to the Nv CP since then :( lol. I'm leaning towards the 260, but I'm waiting just in case (and for the price drop regardless of how the 4870 performs).

Of course the better the 4870 does, the bigger the price drop will be vs. it not doing much better than the 4850 (meh).
Click to expand...

ie, "I'm a lazy NV fanboy."

~S
 
Miscommunication said:
Welcome to the world of XF/SLi. Better drivers will help to an extent, but a single card is the way to go for the most part. If you're intent on dual card configurations, you could have just gotten another GT for even better performance. At this time for me, it's a toss-up between the 4870 and GTX260. The 4870 might be the better deal, but the 260 will drop in price if need be, I am sure. I prefer Nv drivers to ATi's tbh as I haven't owned an ATi card since my 9800Pro. I've just gotten used to the Nv CP since then :( lol. I'm leaning towards the 260, but I'm waiting just in case (and for the price drop regardless of how the 4870 performs).

Of course the better the 4870 does, the bigger the price drop will be vs. it not doing much better than the 4850 (meh).
Click to expand...
UNfortunately, SLI was not an option considering my mobo (which I absolutely love by the way). And besides, I can sell my 8800gt for $150 with the accelero s1 that's on it to balanco of fthe cost of one of the cards.
In addition I was getting really tired of the Nvidia nTune and drivers. nTune would never save my card OC after rebooting the computer, and the drivers would crash once or twice a month.
I loved the 8800gt, but this was an easy choice for an upgrade.
 
I have duel 4850's with no mobo at the moment, I was hoping that the 8x8 crossfire pcie 2.0 on this mobo would be fine, Asus P5Q-E P45. I got such a great deal on the 4850 through bestbuy that I feel I wouldn't mind at all spending money on a x38, or x48(x48 would be pointless if I don't feel like buying DDR3 ram now, and will probably upgrade the mobo in 2 years, right?) If anyone would advise me to purchase a x38 or x48, would you please link me the model that you would recommend, it seems to me like the mobo is one of the hardest parts to buy.
 
Modred189 said:
Do you guys not read the previous posts in the thread? I fixed the performance issues.
Click to expand...
The point people are trying to make is that your motherboard has two physical PCI-e x16 slots (what the graphics cards plug into), but one is electrically only x4. This means that the second slot is very limited in how much data it can push through.

The x4 slot means that both cards will be performing worse than if you had two x16 slots. So even though you've fixed the performance issues, with a different motherboard you may be able to get even better performance. Tweaktown did a test comparing the HD4850 CF on dual x16 vs dual x8 PCI-e - there were significant differences (esp. in Crysis). Your x16/x4 configuration probably performs worse than x8/x8.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/7/intel_p45_vs_x48_crossfire_performance/index.html

This is why people are suggesting trying just a single card - it is possible that the CF configuration is being slowed down below the performance of a single card by the x4 slot (though it's unlikely). I think people would be very interested (and appreciative) if you were to compare the performance of a single HD4850 on your setup vs CF on the x16/x4.

Of course, this relies on not having a worse bottleneck elsewhere (for example, my E6300 reduces the performance of my single 9600GT - a mate with an E6750 and the same 9600GT has much better performance).

OK - I just did a search and found x16/x16 vs x8/x8 vs x16/x4 on older cards: QX6850 + 2x HD2900XT. Doesn't include Crysis, which you've said you play. The effects on 2x HD4850 would be considerably worse because it's pushing so much more data through.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/10/12/crossfire_comparison_intel_x38_versus_p35/2
 
Im currently using an Abit IP35 Pro which is 16x/4x in crossfire with 2 HD4850's. I have a Abit IX38 Quad GT on the way from newegg. Thought I would share some Folding@Home GPU numbers:

HD4850 1 on the 16x bus:
  • 1515.93 Points Per Day
  • Bumping the clocks to 690/1143 on this GPU while leaving the second GPU running F@H resulted in 1623PPD
  • Pausing Folding@Home on the second GPU and bumping the clocks on this GPU to 690/1143 Resulted in 1701.55PPD

HD4850 2 on the 4x bus:
  • 1111.68 Points Per Day
  • Pausing folding@home on the first GPU makes the PPD jump to 1212PPD

So theres definately a performance hit using Folding@Home on the 4x bus.

Also I was playing COD4 last night and I saw dips into the 20fps range at 1680x1050 4xAA max in game settings. That should not be happening with 2 4850's in crossfire.
 
magao said:
OK - I just did a search and found x16/x16 vs x8/x8 vs x16/x4 on older cards: QX6850 + 2x HD2900XT. Doesn't include Crysis, which you've said you play. The effects on 2x HD4850 would be considerably worse because it's pushing so much more data through.
Click to expand...

I heard though that perhaps it's opposite, because the HD4850 is pcie 2.0 and the p45's are 2.0, then 8x8 would be the same as 16x16 pcie 1.0. In that case, the limitation would be even less I would assume. I am willing to buy the 16x16 but I want solid proof that it is going to fix a limitation on HD4850 hardware, I suspect that I will not be upgrading the video cards before the processor and mobo.

Btw: It seems like they are working on pcie 3.0, from what I read, the bandwidth isn't even close to limiting any current cards.
 
Miscommunication said:
Welcome to the world of XF/SLi. Better drivers will help to an extent, but a single card is the way to go for the most part.
Click to expand...
This post was proven to be full of moderate amounts of fail...

Glad you got your issues taken care of OP. Now to wait for 4870 numbers, and make a decision for myself.
 
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