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Please help me understand crossfire

Archaea

Archaea

[H]F Junkie
2FA
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
Messages
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I've never used it and I want to make sure I have my ducks in a row (and that all my stuff is compatible before I buy the cards).

I have the MSI z87 GD65 motherboard.
http://us.msi.com/product/motherboard/Z87-GD65-GAMING.html#hero-specification

Page 34 of the manual says I need crossfire bridges
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/680495/Msi-Z87-Gd65-Gaming.html?page=34#manual

I'm considering buying a pair of these cards for about $160 each.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1&cm_re=GV-R938WF2-4GD-_-14-125-821-_-Product

Problem is I don't see crossfire bridges on the card - then I read that crossfire bridges stopped being used in the AMD 2xx generation and are not used with the 300 series.

So does that mean I can't run these cards? or that the crossfire occurs through driver support over the PCI-E channels?
 
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You can't use bridges on R9 2xx and beyond, because they are no longer needed. All mobo manuals will still list this, but quietly ignore if using newer gen.
 
Only need bridges for the older cards like 280, 7000 series and older.
 
Do all AMD 380 cards support crossfire then? I can't even see anywhere where this card even says it supports crossfire?

Gigabyte GV-R938WF2-4GD (rev. 1.0)
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5535#ov

When I go to look at the card on newegg it doesn't specifically say crossfire support. But when I look at one that is also cheap by powercolor it does list crossfire support under specifications

PowerColor - does list crossfire under specifications
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1673&cm_re=4GBD5-PPDHE-_-14-131-673-_-Product

Gigabyte - doesn't list crossfire under specifications
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=gigabyte_4gb_380-_-14-125-821-_-Product


I'm comparing these two because they are the cheapest at jet.com with the android20 coupon code.


Goal - be able to run EA Battlefront at better than 60% internal resolution rendering at high setting with PLP on my 3 monitor setup. 20", 30" 20". Bezel corrected resolution is ~5040 x 1600.

I currently have a AMD 285 card - which I realize is basically the same thing - but it's a 2GB card, rather than 4, and it's only a single. I can easily tell when I try to punch through that 2GB memory limit as frame rates dramatically drop with a minor bump in internally rendering. 60 to 65% internal rendering drops from 60 FPS to 45FPS. I figure that's got to be video card RAM limit. This is on a Intel I7-4770k overclocked to 4.0Ghz on all cores with 16GB of RAM. My CPU is at like 25% in the game.

So I'm limited to a Tonga card or a Fiji card (CGN 1.2) to support PLP monitor orientation. So all the other options from AMD and NVidia are non starters. This specifically is

AMD 380
AMD 380x
AMD Fury, Fury X, or Fury Nano.

NOTHING else support PLP in hardware right now.

And I'm budget conscious. So the 380 price is the draw because there are no 380x on jet.com and nothing else is price competitive right now.
 
All AMD cards support crossfire and should be vendor neutral, so you could get one powercolor and one msi if you so desired.
 
just be sure you really want cf....in almost every case your MUCH better of just putting the money in one more expensive card. a 390 would normally be a better investment tbh so if you havent pulled the trigger yet...make sure the game you play has good cf support or just buy 1 card;)
 
Can't use 390 for Portrait Landscape Portrait.

Gotta be CGN 1.2. Which is only tonga and fiji. 330 is what it cost me for two 380s.

And of course later tonight after I ordered the 380x show up on jet.com which I've not seen any 380x on jet at all for the last month.
 
ok good...at least your aware of the pros and cons. but yea the 380x would be nice as well....cancel and reorder lol
 
Darakian said:
All AMD cards support crossfire and should be vendor neutral, so you could get one powercolor and one msi if you so desired.
Click to expand...


Yes this is true. i had a powercolor 280x and a sapphire 280x in CF with the bridge.

I had one CF bridge that didn't work. Not sure what the typical failure rate is but just throwing that out there.
 
Heck you can Crossfire a 390 and 390X if you want to. AMD is really flexible when it comes to Crossfire.
 
cageymaru said:
Heck you can Crossfire a 390 and 390X if you want to. AMD is really flexible when it comes to Crossfire.
Click to expand...

From what I understand you can do just this, however the 390X will basically become a 390 to equate itself with the 390, by disabling the extra cores on the gpu though software. I cannot confirm nor deny this so if someone knows better please comment.
 
It depends on how things are handled these days , under DX12 or Vulkan it should not matter.
The only thing what we know from the past they both cards needed to be equal for some reason (interlaced frame rendering)?

But they might have gotten around this I hope ;)
 
Pieter3dnow said:
It depends on how things are handled these days , under DX12 or Vulkan it should not matter.
The only thing what we know from the past they both cards needed to be equal for some reason (interlaced frame rendering)?

But they might have gotten around this I hope ;)
Click to expand...

With the amount of games releasing with zero support for crossfire/sli these days, I would strongly consider grabbing a single 390 or 390x instead of 2 lower end cards. Even in the past, a single high end card provides a better experience than 2 mid range cards.
 
He can't use a 390 or 390x because he is doing PLP with his monitors. He can only use AMD Tonga cards as they support PLP. Nvidia can't do it. Only AMD Tonga can.
 
I think the Fiji cards do PLP also. But not 100% sure as I don't use PLP myself
 
Yes those also. But I think they are out of his budget. I think a Nano, Fury, or Fury X would suit him well. But those are priced well above the $330 that he is spending on the two 380's. I saw a Fury X for $569 yesterday on Newegg.
 
My self imposed limit for a video card is $400.

I use them for a year or two and sell. I don't want to go to 550-600 range cause its such a money pit to sell every year or two. I also don't want to buy a top end card right now because all my AMD options don't support 4k 60hz over HDMI since they are still HDMI 1.4. The current cards won't even play Blueray UHD when it comes out in 2016 as I understand it because of copy protections associated with the new hdmi standards. So I feel like the current top end cards are already outdated and another generation or two is needed before I would even consider going all in on a top tier card.

If the furys were $400 I'd do it. That's my subjective cost benifit analysis. Looks like the pair of 380s can basically perform the same as a fury anyway assuming a game has crossfire support.

Though it is tempting to try to buy a pair of those 380x cards now that they are available for closer to 400 for a pair.

$330 for two 380s or $400ish for two 380x. Hmmmm.
 
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I'll be the first to admit..plp setups really are very impressive...So i cant fault a person that needs that:) op should post a pic if he has one of those cool setups
 
primetime said:
I'll be the first to admit..plp setups really are very impressive...So i cant fault a person that needs that:) op should post a pic if he has one of those cool setups
Click to expand...

I can do one better.

Here's a video of PLP on dirt ralley on my setup when I first picked up the 285 card last may to see if I liked PLP.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pyEelpXGv6U

Honestly multi monitor support is best on driving and flying games. But I've really been enjoying it on Battlefront too!
 
That looks very cool:) Had no idea a single budget card could do that lol
 
Archaea said:
If the furys were $400 I'd do it. That's my subjective cost benifit analysis. Looks like the pair of 380s can basically perform the same as a fury anyway assuming a game has crossfire support.

Though it is tempting to try to buy a pair of those 380x cards now that they are available for closer to 400 for a pair.

$330 for two 380s or $400ish for two 380x. Hmmmm.
Click to expand...

I got my Fury for $468 on Jet. Of course that depends if you can get the 15 or 20% off.
 
380 cards came in.

Of course the game I bought the crossfire setup for doesn't actually work in crossfire. :rolleyes: -- Battlefront doesn't work in crossfire. I'm sure I read reviews that showed crossfire scores on Battlefront but now I can't find them, and EA forums say it will be fixed in a future driver update by AMD.

sigh....

more over - some games work, but when I use a single card in Battlefront (with crossfire disabled) - the game crashes, stating something about a directx error because the card lost power. This happens with one card in the system or two!!! So it's worse than crossfire not working - the new 380 cards aren't working for the game I wanted to play more optimally!

I have a XFX TS 550 watt power supply so that could be the issue, but some of the games work just fine with crossover enabled (and two cards) like Evolve. (man what a difference in speed there is on that game between a single card and dual). So it's weird that Battlefront would crash using a single card while Evolve definitely is working with both.

I have a 750 watt PC Power and Cooling power supply in for RMA right now, so I guess I'll try that when it comes back in, my 550 watt PSU has been my trusty backup for some time!

The jury's still out - but it's starting to seem like I should have ponied up the money and bought a single card. If it's going to be this much headache to get this working - I've fiddled with it for so long - I'm thinking about just selling all my monitors - buying the HP 34C from microcenter for $600 and going back to Nvidia.


This is the error as shown with a single 380 card in the machine on Battlefront. Crashes about 2-3 games in. Same error pops up with both cards in on Battlefront in both crossfire mode or disabled crossfire. I have not gotten this error in other games.
2dmhzr5.jpg


Opening up the drawgraphs 1 console command in Battlefront - my CPU is at 20% and my GPU is 30%. So it's not like the are both maxed out. You can see the heat only gets to 60% on the card, and the fan speed is less than 1K RPM.


EDIT -
It appears I'm not alone on this - this error happens to both Nvidia and AMD users. Weird that I never experienced it before now?
http://starwars.ea.com/starwars/battlefront/forums/discussion/3376/amd-r9-390-crash
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBa..._error_device_removed_cant_start_battlefront/
 
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okay - ----

so I pulled the single card that was in there and put the other single card in. I haven't seen the error since on this second card. So I may have a faulty card????....egads.

I'm going to try it like this for a while with a single card and see if I ever get the error. If I do not, then without changing anything else I'll swap the other card in. Assuming I get the error I'll confirm the issue is a faulty card. Then the headache of sending it back - since I purchased it from Jet. It would probably be easier just to RMA the card through Gigabyte directly if it comes to that.
 
Archaea said:
okay - ----

so I pulled the single card that was in there and put the other single card in. I haven't seen the error since on this second card. So I may have a faulty card????....egads.

I'm going to try it like this for a while with a single card and see if I ever get the error. If I do not, then without changing anything else I'll swap the other card in. Assuming I get the error I'll confirm the issue is a faulty card. Then the headache of sending it back - since I purchased it from Jet. It would probably be easier just to RMA the card through Gigabyte directly if it comes to that.
Click to expand...

For what its worth..i got a very similar error in bf4 a few times. Lowered my gpu overclock down 20mhz and never got it again. So it sounds like one of the cards has issues at the same clock speed. Regarding dice and battlefront..lol.That is a bit surprising. How many games use that same engine already?
 
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So no crashes all day on the one card and even oc'ing it a bit - 1000 core and 6000 memory from 970 and 5700 stock. Heck the card's not even going above 63* with the O/C in stress testing Valley GPU benchmark on ultra.

BUT -- even with the slight OC - it comes out slower in 3dMark than my 285 it replaced. And the 380 is supposed to be the same exact card with 4 GB of Memory instead of 2 GB and the 380 has slightly higher clock speeds. That makes no sense?!?!? These are both of my system - run identically except the GPU swap out --- well and the AMD drivery switched between then and now. (but one would assume the new driver would be faster on the higher clocked card with 2GB of RAM, not 10% slower.

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/7018822/fs/6493527
 
Archaea said:
So no crashes all day on the one card and even oc'ing it a bit - 1000 core and 6000 memory from 970 and 5700 stock. Heck the card's not even going above 63* with the O/C in stress testing Valley GPU benchmark on ultra.

BUT -- even with the slight OC - it comes out slower in 3dMark than my 285 it replaced. And the 380 is supposed to be the same exact card with 4 GB of Memory instead of 2 GB and the 380 has slightly higher clock speeds. That makes no sense?!?!? These are both of my system - run identically except the GPU swap out --- well and the AMD drivery switched between then and now. (but one would assume the new driver would be faster on the higher clocked card with 2GB of RAM, not 10% slower.

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/7018822/fs/6493527
Click to expand...
I find with 3dmark some cards including my current one get locked into the UVD state (850mhz) during the entire benchmark. load up gpuz and check the gpu graph for what clock it used for the benchmark. 3dmark is the only program that causes this and the only way i can make mine run at full clocks is to disable power play and force constant voltage with afterburner before hand. Some kind of power play bug? everything else powerplay works fine and runs at full clocks no problem. Oh and one other thing make sure no browser is open with hardware acceleration turned on...that will lock it to UVD state as well
 
good tip. Thanks - I'll give that a look --- but I'll have to try the new version of GPU-Z. The current version doesn't read my cards correctly. I can see some of that stuff (I think) in Gigabyte OC-Guru II.

----------

I put the suspected bad card in there and ran 3dmark full suite (same score as the other - within about 50 points anyway). I ran the Valley stress test, and I played Battlefront for a half hour, and then let it sit in game for two hours. No crash.

That's weird. So I don't know what's going on here. I even overclocked it to 1000 and 6000 like the other one and no issues.

Maybe it is a PSU issue afterall? Or perhaps a card wasn't socketed perfectly. I did take a can of compressed air to the machine as well.

I'll be glad if I don't have a faulty card for sure. I was really a bit frustrated with that this afternoon thinking I had a bad card.

By the time I get the RMA'ed 750 watt PC Power and Cooling PSU back maybe AMD will have fixed crossfire for this game. Then it'll be nice. Playing on the single 30" seems so small compared to my normal play on the 20-30-20 PLP display setup, but definitely looks better with all high settings and native res, as compared to medium settings and a 60% internal rendering resolution for the 5140x1600 3 screen setup.
 
I think I've narrowed this down to a bad card. More time with the suspect card and it crashes within about a half hour of actually playing a game. The other card has never crashed. Both together they crash.

Now to figure out if I want to RMA it through Gigabyte or fight Jet.com for a return under their 30 day return window.
 
Archaea said:
I think I've narrowed this down to a bad card. More time with the suspect card and it crashes within about a half hour of actually playing a game. The other card has never crashed. Both together they crash.

Now to figure out if I want to RMA it through Gigabyte or fight Jet.com for a return under their 30 day return window.
Click to expand...

Return it to the retailer as they are likely to give you a new card. Gigabyte would more than likely send you a refurbished one.
 
check and see if Gigabyte has an newer bios....you never know
 
darn - the other card I thought was good crashed tonight with the same error.

So we are back to power supply --- OR bad cards. My AMD 285 has NEVER had this error in many months of use. I can't imagine the power difference is that much between the 285 and the 380 - they are supposed to be basically the same card. My PC has as XFX 550TS power suppy which is seasonic guts and supposed to be tested to handle 600 watts all day long without complaint.

Jet offered to take them both back for a full refund since I was having trouble. I think I may just say screw all this mess and just go with a Fury card instead. Crossfire seems like more headache than it's worth.
 
Yup, could be cards, PSU, MB. Multi-card setups stress the whole system more. While I've been running many different combinations of Crossfire setups for years without any real issue I'd definitely suggest the Fury instead!
 
Well my PC Power and Cooling 750 watt MKII came back from RMA and I plugged it in tonight and the better of the two cards still crashed after a couple hours of battlefront - no overclock - the Card was at 63*C max temp according to CPU-ID.

same error.

So I guess both cards are just bad -- cause there is no way I'm running out of power now. That's lame. I'm sending them back.

Guess I'll keep my eye out for a Fury sale price or maybe give up on my PLP and go back to tried and true Nvidia.
 
Thats to bad..That plp setup you have is badass and cool to boot. I think its worth trying with a slight gpu voltage increase..i know my 280 are night an day different with a slight voltage bump
 
Called Gigabyte. They said it was strange that both cards would be doing this and that I probably have a software issue. They asked that I uninstall and reinstall the drivers --- I did that multiple times and tried 3 different AMD drivers. They suggested that I use a 3rd party tool to clean out the drivers between the uinstall and install. Okay - maybe that might work if the AMD 285 I have (with no issues) didn't use the exact same driver as the AMD 380...but it apparently does.

He suggested that I try them in a different machine - I don't have a different machine.
He also suggested that I reload my OS and try it with a fresh OS install...
His suggestions aren't bad, but ultimately since the cards fail at different intervals - one of the cards fails in just a few short minutes - it might crash 3x's in 15 minutes. The other card lasts for an hour or two before crashing --- so it's not like they are acting identically.

He said they have not had problem reports with these cards, FWIW and it's possible I got two bad cards, but unlikely.

At any rate - I think I'm still gonna send them back. I popped my 285 back in there last night and played for a while with no crashes and without swapping the driver at all. (the 285 card has never crashed). Since the 285 and 380 are the same hardware - just that the 380 has 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB - it doesn't seem to be a driver issue - and having tried the two different power supplies now - I refuse to think this is a power supply issue.

A voltage bump, or a core speed drop on the 380 cards might work either way - but the reality is these are just stock factory clocked cards - not any OEM overclocking - so they should work without modification at factory spec and they don't. That doesn't sit well with me.

Another factor is Jet.com has the Fury X for $506 right now - with $50 off and $11 for free return shipping waived - the price is only $445 for a Sapphire Fury X. I picked one up and am just going to move that direction instead of crossfire.

Moreover - both 380 cards individually score about a 7,000 on FireStrike in 3DMark, while my 285 card consistently scores about a 7,600. That doesn't make sense - and while a benchmark like 3dMark isn't the end all - I still don't like that the score is like 10% lower on the 380 than it is on my 285 -- both at factory clocks. Together the two 380 cards bring in about 9700 score in FireStrike. By comparison the Fury X scores 14,000ish. That's a big difference, and worth the extra $100 outlay over the dual 380 cards I currently have.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-r9-fury-x-review,25.html


Rack me up as one with a failed Crossfire venture. Thanks for the help guys.
 
Crossfired 380's on paper looked awesome. I don't fault you for trying it....
 
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