New 3870 x2 Running Slow

S

stevember

n00b
Joined
Feb 4, 2008
Messages
38
I have:
Phenom 9500 (I know ok ok)
Gigabyte 790FX
Saphire 3870 x2
3 gb ram
Watercooled Zalmon (Not x2 yet)


Heres prob no faster than single 3870, I have tried uninstalling and reinstalled in the drivers, I've used the ones of the CD and from the website. I am lucky if I get over 10,000 in the 3D-mark.

It seems to me it is not working in the crossfire?

it seems to me there is something strange with the default clock, if you select the different cards right at the bottom the default clock and memory speed changes as you can see in the two different screenshot.

Does anybody have any idea?

2.png

1.png
 
Make sure that catalyst A.I is on standard and all the AA/Adaptive AA etc. are on "use application settings".
 
I think I may be having the same issue. I used to get ~11k in 3dmark06 with my 1950xtx crossfire setup. Now I'm only getting ~13k with the hd3870x2. Granted, my games are playing great. But something seems weird.
 
-=PESTILENCE=- said:
I think I may be having the same issue. I used to get ~11k in 3dmark06 with my 1950xtx crossfire setup. Now I'm only getting ~13k with the hd3870x2. Granted, my games are playing great. But something seems weird.
Click to expand...

That something is that you are putting way too much worth into 3dmark. If your games are running great, then who cares what your 3dmark score is?
 
Like i said, i'm glad the games are playing great. it's not that I take too much stock on 3dmark, it's that 3dmark is usually a good indicator that crossfire is performing correctly. And with this score, I'm not sure if it is or not. it's easier to identify a number, rather than subjectively looking and systematically going through your aa/af and quality settings in every game. I did see a jump in performance over my last setup, but I think something is a bit off with the drivers at the moment. Waiting for the crossfirex drivers so I can put my 2nd hd3870x2 in the system.
 
Results new HIS driver.

I normally don't care about benchmarks, but I am using it to try to figure out what is wrong. World in conflict the Company of Heroes was smoother I had the 3850.

3.png
 
I only use 3dmark myself to see if the system works.

Seems like your card isn't working as it should. Your gpu-z shows the same as mine, so nothing is different there. Its almost like the second GPU doesn't work.

Check the power connectors on the card and see if both are as they should and also see if something is stealing your system resources via taskmanager.

Edit:
You should make a post in the Sapphire forums as well:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3
 
Ya know what, looking at those screens of GPU-Z, i noticed something too...

It does this with mine as well, you can select each core on the card using the drop down menu right...but as with mine the default clocks are about half of what they should be on the 2nd core. Besides the fact that it says crossfire is disabled for it, it would seem that one core is running full capacity and one is running at half....i think...

It's tough to tell because the overdrive panel in the driver doesn't even allow you to select the cores seperately, to be able to check. But running at 1 and a half cores would probably explain the drop in performance, no?
 
-=PESTILENCE=- said:
Ya know what, looking at those screens of GPU-Z, i noticed something too...

It does this with mine as well, you can select each core on the card using the drop down menu right...but as with mine the default clocks are about half of what they should be on the 2nd core. Besides the fact that it says crossfire is disabled for it, it would seem that one core is running full capacity and one is running at half....i think...

It's tough to tell because the overdrive panel in the driver doesn't even allow you to select the cores seperately, to be able to check. But running at 1 and a half cores would probably explain the drop in performance, no?
Click to expand...

I believe that is simply the power management of the card dropping the frequencies to use less power. It should jump back up when you launch a 3d app...
 
kllrnohj said:
I believe that is simply the power management of the card dropping the frequencies to use less power. It should jump back up when you launch a 3d app...
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell, GPU clock on GPU-Z is what it is currently set at, which would be correct being at the desktop, but the DEFAULT clock I think is what it should clock up to when in a 3d app.

Again, wish we could get some definite clarification on this...it's very confusing, lol.

Also, let me add that while overclocking using overdrive, the system locks when you get to 860mhz on the core, every single time. just a gray screen and I need a system restart. Kinda sounds like a bios thing, like when the 3870 first came out and the core was hard locked...
 
Stevember, do you happen to have a Soundblaster X-Fi installed? I was having VERY similar problems to you and it turned out to be a conflict with the X-Fi drivers. I had pretty disappointing performance with my 3870x2, Unreal Tournament 3 wouldn't even start, Crysis had weird corruption in the menus, and my 3dmark06 score was around 9000.

After several uninstall/reinstalls of the drivers, I decided to remove the X-Fi drivers and clean them up with Driver Cleaner. Now it finally works! I got over 15,000 on 3dmark06 and everything works beautifully. Only thing is, I'm stuck using onboard sound for now.

As far as the GPU clock issue, GPU-Z says exactly the same thing for mine. The first GPU shows the "correct" default clocks and the second shows the defaults at half-speed. I guess it's just a quirk with the card/drivers/GPU-Z version.
 
smartpatrol said:
Stevember, do you happen to have a Soundblaster X-Fi installed? I was having VERY similar problems to you and it turned out to be a conflict with the X-Fi drivers. I had pretty disappointing performance with my 3870x2, Unreal Tournament 3 wouldn't even start, Crysis had weird corruption in the menus, and my 3dmark06 score was around 9000.
Click to expand...

I do, i'll try now.
 
A Phenom @ 2.61 will even limit overclocked HD 3850 Crossfire @ 1280x in 3dmark06. Below is a comparison I did with HD 3850 Crossfire @ 760|2038. The higher bench number is with a 3.51GHz Q6600 G-0 in a BX2 mobo. The lower number was with my Agena when it was @ 2530MHz in a MSI K9A2 CF. Ignore the CPU score|test and just look at the raw FPS for each game test. BTW both tests were done under Vista x64.



The FPS in the largely GPU limited "Canyon Flight" is close. In the other tests in varies by up to 20FPS. I doubt this will matter in actual game play and an Agena is going to limit your 06 score with a HD 3870 X2 @ 1280x. You probably wouldn't feel the difference between the two rigs and as you raise resolution and filtering, even less so.
 
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