Unable to enable crossfire

banj0chicken

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Jun 20, 2013
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Hello all, I am having a bit of trouble enabling crossfire on my 2 XFX Radeon HD7870 Ghz Edition graphics cards. The option for crossfire just does not show up in the CCC.

http://i.imgur.com/U9hQnhk.png
http://i.imgur.com/AHU9iAY.png
http://i.imgur.com/54MGp9x.png

As you can see my computer detects the 2 cards just fine.

I have the crossfire bridge installed my motherboard is an Asus P8Z77-V which has 3 PCI-E slots
and I have one card in the blue slot and the other in the white slot.

Link to motherboard: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77V/

I could just be missing something obvious as this is my first time installing duel graphics cards.

My motherboard box says that it supports ATI CrossFire and SLI Bridge so I just don't get why the option is not showing to enable crossfire.

Do I need to edit some BIOS settings to get it working?

Appreciate any support on this issue.

Thank You.
 
Solution
Wait a second, your GPU-Z images may have solved this. One is listed as a Pitcairn GPU, and the other is a Tahiti GPU. This would suggest that one of your 7870 cards is a 7870 XT, and is based on a cut down Tahiti chip, called the Tahiti LE (Tahiti was the chip used in the 7950 and 7970), as opposed to the Pitcairn GPU that powered the normal 7870 and 7850. The differing numbers of shaders between the two cards confirms it.

There were some very confusing naming schemes when the Tahiti LE based cards were released, such as calling them 7870 XT, or 7870 PCS+ Myst edition - really they should of just called it the 7930, or something similar. Sadly this naming situation has led you to your current predicament, as unfortunately...


Hi,

If you previously had one GPU installed and just recently installed the second you will need to reinstall the drivers and reboot for it to pickup the CrossfireX configuration
 

banj0chicken

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Thanks for the tip will try that now.
 

banj0chicken

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Well I uninstalled the drivers and the AMD CCC and even used AMD Clean Up Utility to make sure everything was gone. Then I reinstalled the drivers and AMD CCC from driver disc and It looks like I do have more options in my CCC than I did before but I still don't see a CrossFire Option.

http://i.imgur.com/rOBAFfH.png
 
Install the latest drivers from AMD's website, not the ones from the driver disk as those are most likely out of date (possibly heavily). Make sure that you uninstall the ones that you just reinstalled first though.

If that doesn't help, try reseating the Crossfire bridge and cleaning the contacts too
 


Install the 14.4 drivers and see what happens, or try installing the Leshcat drivers.
 

banj0chicken

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I deleted the drivers again and CCC with AMD Clean Up and installed the drivers from the AMD website still no change.

EDIT: Just tried the 14.4 drivers still no crossfire option.
 


Are both of your 7870s identical?
 

banj0chicken

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No they are both XFX HD7870 GHz edition cards however one is the Black Edition and the other is the Double Dissipation Edition. But I was told that as long they are the same GPU R7870 then they should crossfire just fine.

The clock speeds are different also but again when you crossfire I thought that one card will raise or lower its clock speeds to match the other one.
 


Clock speeds generally aren't a problem, but installed memory is. Are they both the same in that regard?
 

Shadowblade2652

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Actually @OP, check the BIOS. There may be a setting under PCI peripherals or something like that that may help you.
 

Shadowblade2652

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Yes but do they share the same style of connector, with just a different number of pins?
 


I actually have no idea, and I'm too lazy right now to look :p
 

banj0chicken

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Thanks for all the suggestions guys I do have another Crossfire bridge I will try. I will also check the BIOS and report back what options I have for PCI-E settings.
 

banj0chicken

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Okay so I tried another Crossfire bridge and still no change but I took some pictures of my PCI-E options.
Here they are:

http://i.imgur.com/ZShyAkU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/HzoSK5T.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/y5txGEf.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/H7DT4VK.jpg
 


Disable that LucidLogix thing
 

banj0chicken

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Jun 20, 2013
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I know its been a while but I gave up for quite a bit and now I'm coming back to see if I can get this problem sorted.

So far I have installed latest drivers 14.4 and also tried the older 13.9 drivers. None of them work. I have tried different CrossFire bridges and also tried installing drivers with 1 card in and then adding the other card.

Something else to note is that although both cards are HD 7870 the Black Edition has x2 6 pin PCI-E power connectors and the other card which is the Double Dissipation Edition has x1 6pin and x1 8pin PCI-E power connector.

I am also using a Corsair PSU 750Watt maybe its not powerful enough to handle both cards?

Any ideas?

Thanks.

EDIT: Screeshots from GPU-Z:

http://i.imgur.com/WiYJGPQ.png

http://i.imgur.com/n0q4s74.png
 

Damn_Rookie

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Wait a second, your GPU-Z images may have solved this. One is listed as a Pitcairn GPU, and the other is a Tahiti GPU. This would suggest that one of your 7870 cards is a 7870 XT, and is based on a cut down Tahiti chip, called the Tahiti LE (Tahiti was the chip used in the 7950 and 7970), as opposed to the Pitcairn GPU that powered the normal 7870 and 7850. The differing numbers of shaders between the two cards confirms it.

There were some very confusing naming schemes when the Tahiti LE based cards were released, such as calling them 7870 XT, or 7870 PCS+ Myst edition - really they should of just called it the 7930, or something similar. Sadly this naming situation has led you to your current predicament, as unfortunately you cannot crossfire those two cards as they have different GPUs powering them.
 
Solution

banj0chicken

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Wow you would of thought something like that would be made clear. As both cards were labeled as HD Radeon 7870 Ghz Edition and as shown on this chart it says the Ghz edition can be cossfired.
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachments/amd_crossfirex_chart_1618w-jpg.56836/

The only difference was that one said Double Dissipation Edition and the other said Black Edition. A linus tech tips video showing off 2 cards both Radeon 5870's but they both had different amounts of video RAM and different manufacturers convinced me even more that these 2 cards labeled as HD 7870's should work with Crossfire just fine.

Well I guess I should of looked into it a bit more but at least I finally know now what the problem is.

Thanks for clearing this up for me. I think I will just sell both cards now and buy a single card to the same value as the 2 I sell.

Thanks Again.