Eyefinity and Crossfire?

[tuderen]

Hey guys. I've been searching the net and this forum for an answer to whether Eyefinity plus Crossfire works now. Only thing I've found out is that by Catalyst driver 10.2 it still didn't work properly, but the driver's up to 10.6 now, so does anyone know whether it's been fixed since then?

On a side note, what's better to Crossfire, 2x5850 or 5870+5850? (Already have a 5850, so wondering what card I should buy if it works with Eyefinity)

Thanks in advance!

 

[Naieve]

Hey guys. I've been searching the net and this forum for an answer to whether Eyefinity plus Crossfire works now. Only thing I've found out is that by Catalyst driver 10.2 it still didn't work properly, but the driver's up to 10.6 now, so does anyone know whether it's been fixed since then?

On a side note, what's better to Crossfire, 2x5850 or 5870+5850? (Already have a 5850, so wondering what card I should buy if it works with Eyefinity)

Thanks in advance!

You will want to research the games you play to see about scaling in xfire eyefinity. It's spotty game to game. Thankfully with the release of NV Surround I am sure there will be the benchmarks you are looking for soon as people go to compare it to eyefinity.

 

[membrain]

I'm with the OP on this one... does it work yet or not? I'm asking because I have the 5870 2gb with EyeFinity 6 outputs... is it time to buy a second for the crossfire support or not?

 

[Intel_Hydralisk]

Yes it works (refer to my setup). Some people report stuttering / input lag with xfire. I don't have that issue except for one game, Crysis Warhead.

Overall I don't think the second card is a good value unless you have the money to burn. I bought it just to see how much gain I'd get as well as test out the stuttering for myself. Scaling varies a lot from game to game. In general it's alright, but I don't think it's nearly as good as SLI (xfire was always worse than SLI in scaling on a single monitor). I suspect that xfire scaling degrades in eyefinity resolutions compared to single screen. That's what my personal experience is anyway.

That said, it's hard to test that with SLI since surround requires SLI so it's not like you can test single card vs. dual cards. However, from my roommate's GTX 480 setup, I can safely say that fermi definitely performs very well in surround and in some games absolutely slaughters my 5870 xfire. Of course my roommate has to water cool his GTX 480's to prevent them from hitting 95 C during gaming... and since it's water cooled they're massively OC'd as well.

Realistically what you get with xfire is maybe a few notches higher in settings. All my games are playable with one card, just gotta set one or two settings down and turn off AA (unless it's an older game). Are those one or two settings worth another ~$300-400 ? It's up to you. Personally I think a single 5870 is probably the best triple head value.

 

[l88bastard]

I completely agree with Intel above ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not looking to rant or rave I will post my experience.

Currently I have two Sapphire Toxic 5870 2gb cards and I only use one of them because crossfire usually does more harm than good with my triple Dell U2410 6048x1200 setup.

Here is the rundown of games I currently play and my experience with them and CF+Eyefinity

Crysis: I disable crossfire when I play crysis and tone down the graphic cards so I can maintain 30-45fps with just one card. Crossfire works and I get nearly a 100% gain in FPS however 30/fps with one card plays much much smoother than 60/fps with two cards due to very annoying microstutter. When Crossfire is enabled, Crysis has a tendancy to BSOD at random, could take 2 minutes or 2 hours, no ryme or reason for the BSODing

Just Cause 2: I get nearly 100% scaling with crossfire enabled and cannot notice any microstutter. For me crossfire is a complete win with JC2. I have not had any BSODing issues with JC2 and CF+EF

Dirt2: I get nearly 100% scaling with crossfire enabled and get solid 60fp with both toxics going full blast, however, there is a very, very slight microstutter that is always present. When I go one card and tone down the AA I get a noticeably more fluid gaming experience with similar settings at on 45/fps average. Like Crysis, when Crossfire is enabled, Dirt2 has a tendancy to BSOD at random, could take 2 minutes or 2 hours, no ryme or reason for the BSODing

Assasins Creed 2: I have not tried with CF as one cards really plays this game perfectly

Rise of Flight: Like AC2, one card plays this game perfectly over 60fps so I don't CF. However, when I forget to disable CF and start of ROF I get annoying microstutter until I disable CF.

GTAIV: Not only does Crossfire not work, but eyefinity is also completely broken with GTAIV. It has been like this for months and there has been no communication from Rockstar on the issue.

L4D2: one card dominates the game, never tried CF

Batman AA: Have not tried CF with this title, will reload it and check it out and update when I get a chance.

 

[Intel_Hydralisk]

@l88bastard:

I have the same experience with all your listed games, except for JC2. I personally get terrible scaling in JC2 for some reason (20-25%). I'm wondering if it's the difference in memory (2gb vs. 1gb) OR if it's the fact that I'm running 1156 (x8 + x8 vs. x16 + x16). However, shouldn't those carry over to other games as well? JC2 scaling seems to suck no matter what setting I set it to (lowest vs. highest). That said, some people can't even get JC2 to work with crossfire and eyefinity... seems really strange.

 

[tuderen]

So the smart thing to do right now is to keep my 5850 and wait a year or two and when/if new games start going too low on graphics to compensate for Eyefinity, buy either a new 5850 or an even bigger card for single GPU?

 

[l88bastard]

@l88bastard:

I have the same experience with all your listed games, except for JC2. I personally get terrible scaling in JC2 for some reason (20-25%). I'm wondering if it's the difference in memory (2gb vs. 1gb) OR if it's the fact that I'm running 1156 (x8 + x8 vs. x16 + x16). However, shouldn't those carry over to other games as well? JC2 scaling seems to suck no matter what setting I set it to (lowest vs. highest). That said, some people can't even get JC2 to work with crossfire and eyefinity... seems really strange.

Intel,

JC2 actually ran much, much worse for me with crossfire + eyefinity until I disabled the pci express link state power management, then it worked perfectly...in fact it is the only game I noticed a difference on when I disabled the pci express link state power management. This guide tells you how to diable the power state control
http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-7/set-pci-express-link-state-power-management/

 

[l88bastard]

So the smart thing to do right now is to keep my 5850 and wait a year or two and when/if new games start going too low on graphics to compensate for Eyefinity, buy either a new 5850 or an even bigger card for single GPU?

Thats my best advice, I am only keeping my second Toxic 5870 because it can be a backup card and I also am going to use it to power a set of projectors for jumbo eyefinity gaming for my flight sims.

 

[McKie]

Currently I have two Sapphire Toxic 5870 2gb cards and I only use one of them because crossfire usually does more harm than good with my triple Dell U2410 6048x1200 setup..

I have 2x 1gb 5870's and right now my whole set up has been dissembled and out in the garage because of all the headaches. Eyefinity is broke for me with 3 Dell U2410's. severe windows flicker every time I open a 2D application , re size a window, scroll, watch video.

The only driver that stopped the Flicker was 10.4 , but then I still had problems with games stuttering bad. Just waiting for a driver that works. and if you have any suggestions I'm all ears.

when It did work I never seen that much improvement in games using crossfire . the problems would always outweigh . If I did.... it was minimal
most often though I would see better performance with just one card.