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low frames with two 6950

PhilyP said:
getting low frames in games with my two saphire 6950 2gb

Is my CPU a bottleneck?

This is my PSU: Thermaltake toughpower 750w. I got this a couple years ago and it's Sli certified, now crossfire. Does that matter?http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1264&ID=1502#Tab1

for example I'm getting 44fps in just cause 2 "concrete jungle" benchmark
Click to expand...

Your new so probably no sig, so please post all of your specs, also what games give you low fps and do you have the latest drivers and caps installed?
 
wow haha sorry I forgot...
my specs are:
Q9450 3.4GHZ
4gb Corsair Dominator
saphire 6950 2gb crossfire
Biostar Tpower 145 motherboard
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
PSU 750Watt Thermaltake toughpower
 
Lord_Exodia said:
Your new so probably no sig, so please post all of your specs, also what games give you low fps and do you have the latest drivers and caps installed?
Click to expand...

I notice you also have crossfire 6950. Do you have dirt 3? If so, can you share your benchmark scores?
 
well that cpu would not be much of a bottleneck especially in Just Cause 2. the concrete jungle is a very gpu intensive benchmark so what settings and resolution were you running?
 
yeah I think it is my cpu :( I lowered my resolution to 1440x900(was 1920x1200) and I got the same exact fps...
 
I don't think that the CPU is the problem.
Did you update your drivers?
Is CFX enable in the control panel?
I have a i3 530 and I'm having no problems with my HD 6870.
 
wjq8g6 said:
I don't think that the CPU is the problem.
Did you update your drivers?
Is CFX enable in the control panel?
I have a i3 530 and I'm having no problems with my HD 6870.
Click to expand...

yup drivers are 11.7 crossfire is enabled. I do get a performance increase with the other card(but very little) not the scaling I was expecting.
 
PhilyP said:
..whats a CAP :/
Click to expand...

haha I said that in my first post.

To be clear, with crossfire you need to install your drivers and a crossfire driver as well. The Caps are

Catalyst Application Profiles and they are made for the newest games. Dirt 3 is pretty new You need to download and install the lastest CAP 11.7 Cap 1

Without the Caps many times crossfire simply doesn't work at all. To test disable it and compare your fps with and without crossfire. Sometimes without the cap you'll get a 25% boost with crossfire and with it your fps can double!!

You can see they are very important.

BTW no I don't have dirt 3 so I can't share benchmarks with you so sorry about that.

The Q9450 is a bit of a bottleneck so lowering your resolution will bottleneck you further. The higher your resolution and quality settings the more you'll take the workload away from your cpu and put them on your gpu's. Make sure you overclock your cpu as far as it will go stable. 3.4 is a decent overclock but i've seen them go as high as 4Ghz if your motherboard fsb can handle 500mhz running at 1.37V with a good aftermarket cooler.

Install 11.7 Catalyst driver, reboot, install 11.7 Cap 1, reboot and then try dirt 3.
 
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Hey I was just passing through, and just read your post Lord_Exodia.

I too have crossfired 6950's but never really had any problems. Never knew about the Cap drivers! Look forward to checking them out, thank you so much.
 
Lord_Exodia said:
haha I said that in my first post.

To be clear, with crossfire you need to install your drivers and a crossfire driver as well. The Caps are

Catalyst Application Profiles and they are made for the newest games. Dirt 3 is pretty new You need to download and install the lastest CAP 11.7 Cap 1

Without the Caps many times crossfire simply doesn't work at all. To test disable it and compare your fps with and without crossfire. Sometimes without the cap you'll get a 25% boost with crossfire and with it your fps can double!!

You can see they are very important.

BTW no I don't have dirt 3 so I can't share benchmarks with you so sorry about that.

The Q9450 is a bit of a bottleneck so lowering your resolution will bottleneck you further. The higher your resolution and quality settings the more you'll take the workload away from your cpu and put them on your gpu's. Make sure you overclock your cpu as far as it will go stable. 3.4 is a decent overclock but i've seen them go as high as 4Ghz if your motherboard fsb can handle 500mhz running at 1.37V with a good aftermarket cooler.

Install 11.7 Catalyst driver, reboot, install 11.7 Cap 1, reboot and then try dirt 3.
Click to expand...

so I installed the latest Cap, restarted my PC, ran the dirt 3 benchmark and still the same performance. even when lowering the res to 1440x900
 
So I just ran the Just Cause 2 concrete jungle benchmark again.

single 6950: 39fps average
crossfire 6950: 49fps average

i've also noticed that when I game for over 30min my PC would just got to black screen and restart
 
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DualOwn said:
why did you buy AMD for JC2, thats ultimate self ownage imo.
Click to expand...

I didn't buy it for just cause 2. It's just one of the benchmarks I was comparing to other people with 6950s and I was getting like 20 frames less then them
 
So i ran the heaven benchmark at 1920x1200 maxed settings, but with tessellation at normal.

single 6950 2gb:
FPS:32.3
Scores:813
Min FPS:16.6
Max FPS: 67.5

crossfire 6950 2gb:
FPS: 63.5
Scores:1600
Min FPS:24.8
Max FPS:130.2

this actually looks right. Can anyone share their benchmark scores?
 
What fps are you getting in dirt 3 exactly? Have you disabled vsync or veritcal sync to see if the fps changes, also disable crossfire and post how much fps you get with one card and both cards. as far as the cards and system blanking out and restarting, that's a strange issue, does your power supply give you 4x 6pin pcie power connectors? Are your power cables daisy chained with anything else if not?

Also what graphic card/s were you running in your system prior to this and did you reinstall the os since using them? If not, did you thoroughly remove the drivers you had from your previous graphic card?

t0asty said:
Hey I was just passing through, and just read your post Lord_Exodia.

I too have crossfired 6950's but never really had any problems. Never knew about the Cap drivers! Look forward to checking them out, thank you so much.
Click to expand...

no problem bud :D
 
I don't think it's Crossfire or your GPUs or the drivers.

It's the fact that those GPUs will shine at high resolutions and need a stout CPU to help them.

You're being held back by the CPU at this point, I think. With what you have, you got what you're gonna get. Unless you can crank that thing to 3.6 or 3.8 GHz.

I missed your post above. It looks like in that benchmark you got very good scaling.....nearly 100%, so looks like you're problem is fixed.
 
Well I just tried crysis warhead and used msi afterburner to check out my gpu usage

with crossfire I got around 45-55% usage

with a single card I got 99% usage

what does this mean?
 
what settings are you using in JC2 benchmark? default when you run the game for the first time?
 
Lord_Exodia said:
What fps are you getting in dirt 3 exactly? Have you disabled vsync or veritcal sync to see if the fps changes, also disable crossfire and post how much fps you get with one card and both cards. as far as the cards and system blanking out and restarting, that's a strange issue, does your power supply give you 4x 6pin pcie power connectors? Are your power cables daisy chained with anything else if not?

Also what graphic card/s were you running in your system prior to this and did you reinstall the os since using them? If not, did you thoroughly remove the drivers you had from your previous graphic card?



no problem bud :D
Click to expand...

before I had a 5870(sold it) I uninstalled the previous drivers and installed the new 11.7 and the new CAP. everything else is the same. this is the power supply I have. I bought it like 3 years ago
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1264&ID=1502
 
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PhilyP said:
wow then something is really off here.

So now i'm in the market for a new cpu/mobo/ram :p

what do you guys recommend? not crazy expensive

how is this cpu/mobo combo deal?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Combo...17075X740592Xd34fbc5b76b878d576d870522cad60b9
Click to expand...
well that's what I have. other than not being able to turbo to 3.7, everything else is okay. just make sure you get the last official bios since it adds better support for more brands of memory.

I would go 8gb(2x4gb) 1333 or 1600mhz for ram. and try to get something with low profile heatsinks because an aftermarket cpu cooler is not going to clear tall ram heatsinks. and you have to use the first and third memory slots on MSI 1155 boards.
 
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i personally would get the combo with the ASUS P8P67 PRO instead of the msi, its 30 more but ive never had an issue with any Asus board ive owned.

ive had an msi board that had compatability issues with my Q6600 and getting it to overclock past 3ghz but as soon as i got an asus to replace it the cpu went to 3.6ghz np.

thats not saying its msi's fault or anything it was prob the nvidia chipset it had at the time.

ill be hard pressed to give up going Asus in the future unless a board i want has a really nice feature set which is why i was eying the Asrock fatality over the Asus boards i liked its features ect. but i actually decided to pick up this Phenom II x4 955BE and the Asus Crosshair V and then get a bulldozer in sept/oct which i dont recommend doing only because its a gamble no really worth making when 2500k's and 2600k perform and overclock so well.

The 2500k is the sweet spot for performance and price right now.


Here are the Haeven numbers i got. comparing to yours your gpu power was def a factor in your scores but i think it still shows you being cpu limited. my 2 6870s should just be a bit better than a single 6970 i think and i got pretty close to catching you.

Single 6870



Crossfire 6870




I ran the other 2 bench levels in Just Cause 2 if you want to compare those also

The Dark Tower

Single 6870



Crossfire 6870





Desert Sunrise

Single 6870



Crossfire 6870

 
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UPDATE: So I went and got a new motherboard, cpu, and ram..and my performance is MUCH better :D
New Rig:
i5 2500k 3.3ghz(stock. i'm going to overclock later today)
CORSAIR XMS 8GB 1333mhz
Saphire 6950 2gb crossfire
ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 B3 Revision
Thermaltake toughpower 750w

Old Rig:
Q9450 3.4GHZ
4gb Corsair Dominator
saphire 6950 2gb crossfire
Biostar Tpower 145 motherboard
Thermaltake toughpower 750w

I'll do another Just cause 2 benchmark when I get home, but from what I've played so far where I got 34-40 frames I now get 90-95 frames :D
 
Good to hear. Both crossfire and sli put more of a burden on your cpu than running a single card. That's a pretty awesome upgrade and should keep you happy for a while. I'd love to see comparison benchmarks -- might push some people to upgrade.
 
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