Is crossfire worth the potential hassle?

H

hiodie

Gawd
Joined
Aug 24, 2008
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I am trying to decide whether or not to go with 2x4850s or 1x4870 (or GTX 260) and browsing through I see quite a few issues running crossfire. System specs are:

P5Q Pro
E8400
2x2gb PC2 8500 Dominator
6400AAKS
Corsair 620HX

and I will be gaming at 16x10 probably for the life of this setup. How many have been converts to a single card after fighting crossfire and how is the support for new games with crossfire?
 
If you have the cash to spend upfront you should go with single card solutions. Besides, if you get one 4870 now, you can add another one to crossfire when you upgrade your monitor to 19x12.
 
other than the idle issue CF is working without a problem

 
Why not just 1 4850 at 1680*1050...? Aside from Crysis all other games run just perfect at max settings. Can't vouch for crossfire though - bought my 2nd 4850 a month ago and have yet to touch a game : \
 
At 1680*1050 it really isn't worth it to crossfire 2 4870's , you really need at the very least 1920x1200 to make the best of that. Just grab a single 4850 as lowtech suggested, its a great deal for the money and will last you a good long time without draining your wallet.
 
Okay, looks like I'll be going to BB in the next couple days and seeing if they still have any 4850s in stock. Thanks.
 
Crossfire was a real pain in the ass with the 3870s last winter. Only a couple of games I played didn't have some sort of annoying Crossfire-related glitchiness, and almost all of my games had weird "hiccuping" issues, even though the frame rates were good. I tried dual and triple Crossfire and it kind of sucked for the most part.

Problems:
Rapid screen flickering on death in Team Fortress 2
Major slowdown with some types of particle and lighting effects in various Source-engine games
Graphical glitchiness and stuttering in Flight Simulator X
Stuttering and slowdown in Unreal Tournament 3
Horrible game-breaking slowdown in Crysis... it would be super smooth one second and completely unplayably choppy the next

I had a similar experience with SLI a couple years back. Two different SLI rigs all seemed to have problems in all but a few games.

In my opinion, multi-GPU gaming is just a marketing gimmick and doesn't work very well. Anyone who tells you otherwise probably is in denial about spending all that money and getting something kind of crappy for it.
 
there is no hassle, and zinn, you are wrong. it works excellent. i find it surprising how you are trying to justify your 280 purchase when there's a 4870x2 out there that annihilates it :).
 
Zinn said:
In my opinion, multi-GPU gaming is just a marketing gimmick and doesn't work very well. Anyone who tells you otherwise probably is in denial about spending all that money and getting something kind of crappy for it.
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my old 7800gt SLI has zero issues...

and a 4850 is not going to MAX out Stalker Clear sky at 1680x1050.... If it, like Crysis are what should be coming down the road, it's not going to cut for future games either.
 
I think most modern games are starting to point towards multi-gpu gaming and the ones that people play in which arent most cards from the past 2 years will play just fine.
 
hmm...now I'm hesitant. Maybe I can just get lucky and BB will only have one or the other in stock to sway me...if I got the 4850 I would probably look at getting another whenever I see them drop to around $100, even if its after rebates (and I don't live near a Frys)
 
Bigbacon said:
my old 7800gt SLI has zero issues...
Click to expand...
Did you play F.E.A.R.? My 7800 GTX SLI choked in that game. It was pretty bad. In most games there wasn't enough of an improvement to justify the cost.

RADEoN said:
there is no hassle, and zinn, you are wrong. it works excellent. i find it surprising how you are trying to justify your 280 purchase when there's a 4870x2 out there that annihilates it :).
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Oh, whoops. I guess I was making up all the problems I had with my setup. Thanks for helping me realize this.

OR maybe, just maybe, the Catalyst 8.1 to 8.3 drivers had major issues with ATI's Powerplay feature downclocking the core speed of the second card in Crossfire mode to 2D speeds causing a drop in performance to far below a single card. I'm guessing that by now this has been fixed, but the fact remains that driver support is a lot sketchier for multi-GPU setups because there's just a lot more problems that can occur. Some games, like Flight Simulator X, that weren't coded for multi-GPU support would just have no improvement at all as a best case scenario.

I considered the 4870X2, but frankly I don't trust multi GPU setups from either NVIDIA or ATI. If ATI truly has improved the drivers, then that's great, but as the saying goes, "Once bitten, twice shy." Only I've been bitten several times because I'm a fool.

Zinn said:
In my opinion, multi-GPU gaming is just a marketing gimmick and doesn't work very well. Anyone who tells you otherwise probably is in denial about spending all that money and getting something kind of crappy for it.
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BTW, I admit this is pretty ignorant... I have no idea how much or little both ATI or NVIDIA's drivers have improved since the last time I tried. I was just going off my own experience, but it seems that my own experience might be obsolete.
 
I've been running 2 4870's in crossfire since they were released with zero issues in the games I play..

/shrug

Its gotten way better since the first go around with the stupid external dongle.. I had that and yeah it was kinda crappy back then.
 
i read some where they said 4850 cf is equal to a GTX280 in performance
 
i love people that say that the setup is overkill. do people not build for the future anymore?

 
I would go w/ a single solution.

SLi and CF are fun w/ benchmarks...but driver support as far as CF is concerned has been nothing but headaches, and from my own experience I couldn't really see all that big of a difference in game play.

go w/ the less hassle free solution and a single gpu is best imho.
 
I havn't had much trouble with SLI, and it has been worth the headaches. Check out the review [H]ard just did. You'll find the 4850 crossfire is a GREAT value.
 
vengence said:
I havn't had much trouble with SLI, and it has been worth the headaches. Check out the review [H]ard just did. You'll find the 4850 crossfire is a GREAT value.
Click to expand...

I read that, but does it scale down to 1680x1050? I just don't completely understand why a video card setup will be significantly better @ a higher resolution and then tie it or barely beat it at a lower one. Pardon my ignorance
 
16x10 you'll see decent scaling. You'd see more at higher res, but I think you'll see enough to warrant it.
 
i just got crossfire last weekend and i notice my fps are alot higher at 1920x1200
its more smoother with max settings
it didn't notice any more problems than running 1 card
 
To the OP: Here's the huge amount of hassle I had with crossfire ...

I installed one card
Installed windows and drivers
shut down installed 2nd card
booted up to windows
CCC popped up letting me know Crossfire was enabled

I doubt I would of even needed to go the extra step and just installed the two to start off with, but either way an extra step that caused 45 more seconds I was willing to go through the "hassle"

Crossfire is about as friendly as you can get, and I have yet to see any problems in games using it, except for STALKER (not clearsky's) where I need to disable Crossfire to get it to load.
 
Trimlock said:
To the OP: Here's the huge amount of hassle I had with crossfire ....
Click to expand...

I realize that not everyone has had issues with them. I was just seeing if people that used crossfire thought things were smoother before/after they switched. I appreciate the comments, but not so much sarcasm, as some do have issues. I do think after hearing the replies that I will go crossfire, but will probably only buy one 4850 and wait until I sell my old PC to buy the second.

Separate question (might be better if it were a new thread)
Has only one put Accelero S1's on crossfired 4850s? If so, does the card in the first slot get enough air passively (even if it stays the same as stock temps, would prefer the silence)? My case is an Antec Three Hundred.
 
Wondering about the S1 myself. I doubt that they will fit but? I am getting a gfx chilla for my visiontek 4850 to see if that will work.

If [H] says the 4850 crossfire is golden then I am all in. I got a 4850 this week and a good Gigabyte crossfire mobo coming Monday. We'll see next month when I get another 4850. I play mainstream fps games mostly and need all the ponies I can afford.
 
umm my 7800gtx in old dell 9300 ran fear with no problems, although @ 1440x900

4850 or 4870 single card now is great idea, then pick up 2nd as prices drop. Actually they have dropped already since launch

I run 4870 cf and its fantastic for gaming, I'd go for the 4870 myself, not much price difference - another plus point is the heat gets exhausted out of your case
 
ZX81 said:
umm my 7800gtx in old dell 9300 ran fear with no problems, although @ 1440x900

4850 or 4870 single card now is great idea, then pick up 2nd as prices drop. Actually they have dropped already since launch

I run 4870 cf and its fantastic for gaming, I'd go for the 4870 myself, not much price difference - another plus point is the heat gets exhausted out of your case
Click to expand...

negative ;)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161243

 
hiodie said:
I am trying to decide whether or not to go with 2x4850s or 1x4870 (or GTX 260) and browsing through I see quite a few issues running crossfire. System specs are:

P5Q Pro
E8400
2x2gb PC2 8500 Dominator
6400AAKS
Corsair 620HX

and I will be gaming at 16x10 probably for the life of this setup. How many have been converts to a single card after fighting crossfire and how is the support for new games with crossfire?
Click to expand...

I run 4870/4850 crossfire since a few days, works as far what I can conclude well.
I game at 1920x1200 so, even when the 4870 was great, I wanted a little extra power.
Havent had much hassle yet.
and I been a singel card user before.
 
Bigbacon said:
my old 7800gt SLI has zero issues...

and a 4850 is not going to MAX out Stalker Clear sky at 1680x1050.... If it, like Crysis are what should be coming down the road, it's not going to cut for future games either.
Click to expand...

Future games, or a bunch of games that are just unoptimized eye candies? 1 game has issues and oh no, gotta get a beefier card while every other game runs completely fine at framerates beyond what is visually perceivable. If games using the CryEngine (hell no!) are what's down the road, nothing is going to cut it.

ALL4AMD said:
i love people that say that the setup is overkill. do people not build for the future anymore?
Click to expand...

Again, not that we know what unoptimized crap is coming our way. Mainstream games will run fine (y'know, the ones that don't have ridiculous requirements), and who's to say a 4850CF will cut it if said unoptimized crap gets released?
 
hiodie said:
Okay, looks like I'll be going to BB in the next couple days and seeing if they still have any 4850s in stock. Thanks.
Click to expand...

the 4870 has a much better cooling system on it, add to that the fact that the price difference isnt very severe between the two, 4850's are loud and would benefit from aftermarket cooling solution
 
conghelach said:
the 4870 has a much better cooling system on it, add to that the fact that the price difference isnt very severe between the two, 4850's are loud and would benefit from aftermarket cooling solution
Click to expand...

lets see if you read the thread......... hmmmmmm looks like ya didn't. seems we have a dual slot 4850 below. oh and a 4850 is quiet until fear strikes you that it runs too hot and u setup fan profiles.

ALL4AMD said:
negative ;)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161243

Click to expand...
 
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