Crossfire+General video card help

[danbernardi]

Hello. first off, i'll start with my system:

CPU: q9550 OC@3.4Ghz
Ram: 4GB G-Skill
Motherboard: GA-EP45-UD3P
PSU: Corsair xt750
Video cards:
XFX HD5850 DK
EAH5850 TOP Direct CU
Windows 7 Ultimate x64

I recently added a second 5850 to compliment the one I already had. I installed it (took all the necessary steps. Delete old drivers, driver sweep in safe mode, install second card and whatnot. Using ATI drivers 11.2) Everyone worked out fine, Crossfire was recognized and successfully enabled.

However, when I went to test out some games, I noticed that most games were giving me either no performance boost, or worse performance. I did a little experimenting using fraps and came up with these numbers. I tested both cards by themselves, and also both cards in crossfire.

The Asus 5850 is a Factory overclock with 765Mhz clock speed and 1125 mem clock.
The XFX 5850 is stock at 725Mhz and 1000 Memory.
All settings were set to MAX. Resolution was 1680x1050. No AA enabled. V sync was off.



Asus EAH5850 TOP Direct CU

Bad Company 2 :
Min, Max, Avg FPS
54, 105, 78.317
Crysis Warhead
20, 41, 29.100
Dirt 2
62, 83, 71.717
Fallout: New Vegas
45, 63, 58.650
Grand Theft Auto IV
16, 63, 45.183
Portal
0, 269, 205.333
Hot Pursuit
22, 60, 45.217


EAH5850 TOP Direct CU + XFX HD5850
in Crossfire:

Bad Company 2
71, 116, 88.000
Crysis Warhead
19, 42, 28.450
Dirt 2
53, 87, 65.483
New Vegas
31, 63, 55.550
GTAIV
7, 65, 36.733
Portal
202, 272, 252.450
Hot Pursuit
20, 48, 33.067


XFX 5850:

Bad Company 2
38, 75, 62.883
Crysis Warhead
16, 38, 29.300
Dirt 2
55, 72, 61.833
Fallout: New Vegas
47, 63, 58.700
GTAIV Gay Tony
33, 67, 43.567
Portal
98, 266, 156.700
NFS: Hot Pursuit
42, 61, 52.100

As you can see, Crossfire either did very little performance wise, or was a detriment to FPS. Only in 2 cases did Crossfire provide a noticeable performance boost (Bad Company 2 and Portal.) Even stranger, is that the XFX 5850, which is older and has a lower clock and memory clock speed, outperformed the Asus 5850 in some cases.

Also, in GTAIV, Assassins Creed II, and Splinter Cell conviction and Fallout, there was a very noticeable stutter when moving the camera, where the FPS would shoot to very low levels. In GTAIv it would stop doing it if I kept moving the camera around in the same spot, which leads me to think it is a problem with the video card streaming in parts of the game world. This was only noticeable on the Asus 5850 and in crossfire mode, and did not happen on the XFX at all.

So my question is: Why is crossfire mostly detrimental? Is the scaling that bad in most games? I would've expected to see a boost in more games than I did. The second question, do you think there is something wrong with my new Asus video card that is affecting its ability to perform properly?

Thanks for your help,
Daniel

 

[samuelmorris]

Those frame rate results are all over the place. I'd suggest a full driver cleanout, or maybe even a windows reinstall.

 

[danbernardi]

Those frame rate results are all over the place. I'd suggest a full driver cleanout, or maybe even a windows reinstall.

I already did reinstall windows, right before I tested all these games. All the drivers were downloaded up to date the day of the tests.

 

[samuelmorris]

Then why is the frame rate varying so wildly between the asus 5850 and xfx 5850? How are you testing this?

 

[danbernardi]

Using Fraps, I am playing through a section of each game (the same section) while recording the fps for 60 seconds. Unless the game has a benchmark feature, then I just run that and record for 60 seconds with fraps.

While using the Asus card, some games stutter a lot more than the XFX. For instance, in GTAIV, if I spin the camera around in circles, the frame rate will drop down to below 20 fps until the camera has made a full circle. Once all the areas around are loaded, the fps will return to normal. The XFX does not do this at all. But it only happens in some games. Usually its more noticeable in open world games, where there are a lot of NPCs and large worlds to render.

Battlefield Bad Company 2, for instance, doesn't do this at all, and actually runs much better with the Asus card.