4850X2 question

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Pete1burn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 17, 2009
Messages
218
I have one, and I was wondering, does it only use one core for most things until it needs the second core and then enable it, or does it use both cores at once?

It's hard to tell if gaming is using both cores or only one. One of them stays around 45c, and the other goes to around 51c.

Both cores have Zalman VF900s on them.
 
I *think* you have to enable CrossFire in the drivers. Other than that, I'm not sure if there's any real way to tell if it's using both GPUs other than turning the fan speed down and seeing how far each go up under load. Your current temps could simply be one GPU has better airflow than the other.
 
The 45 temp is what both are at normally idle. When I game one of them goes up to around 51-52., but the other stays at or around 45, so I use the fanmate to turn both fans up to 100. (Because I don't know which core is the active one.) CrossfireX is enabled, but it always seems one core is the only one doing anything.

It's a waste of money if the games and the res I play at (1600x1200) don't require the use of both cores.

In that case I'd sell the card and get a GTX 260 or 285 or something.
 
On the ATI emblem in your tray there is an option in the right click menu to display the XfireX logo in games that support it. Just fire up any current FPS (FEAR2, CoD:WOW, etc) and you will see the logo in the upper right hand corner
 
Ah, sweet. I didnt know that. Thanks!

Also, some people say leave CrossfireX on, some people say leave it off. I run XP. Is there a general consensus for what is correct to do? On or off?
 
Curr said:
On the ATI emblem in your tray there is an option in the right click menu to display the XfireX logo in games that support it. Just fire up any current FPS (FEAR2, CoD:WOW, etc) and you will see the logo in the upper right hand corner
Click to expand...

Well dam. I also didn't know. I would leave the overdrive tab open while gaming. Then I would alt+tab out quickly and check the activity meter. What a pita that was. Thanks for the tip.
 
Curr said:
On the ATI emblem in your tray there is an option in the right click menu to display the XfireX logo in games that support it. Just fire up any current FPS (FEAR2, CoD:WOW, etc) and you will see the logo in the upper right hand corner
Click to expand...

Hmm, I don't seem to have that option.
 
It's there on my 4870X2 using Cat 9.2 and 9.3. Weird.
 
I'm running 9.2. Maybe 9.3 will add it? I dunno, I'll have to do some poking around.
 
if you find a game that runs poorer on two gpus rather than one, then that means the driver team has yet to write a single frame rendering mode for that game. is i understand it sfr is the default rendering mode. if your game doesn't have sfr working, you can force catalyst to use alternate frame rendering by disabling catalyst ai. whether this mode will net improved performance is hit and miss. sometime forcing afr produces better performance than sfr, but not better than single gpu performance.
 
I turned on dual gpu support in COD5 this morning and it crashed out. Won't even run now even with dual gpu turned off.
 
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