Major issues with 2 x 3870x2 under Vista (both 32 bit and 64bit) - 3D

Hello all.

I have been experiencing a major problem with my CrossfireX setup. Essentially I am getting poor 3DMark06 results.

My setup consists of the following:

Q6600 (I think running at stock - see my comments below)
Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS4
2 x 2 gigs of 800mhz Corsair memory
2 x 250gigs SATA drives running in RAID0 of the ICHR9 onboard chip
2 x Sapphire 3870x2 with crossifre cable
1000W Thermaltake Toughpower PSU
Antec P182 case

Now I have spent probably over 26 man hours trying to sort out the problem. I have posted on other forums but am coming here to see if any assistance can be given (this is not to downplay the other forums I have posted on, but they are less the technical and do not have as experienced posters).

I have tried the following:
Placing both cards in, install OS, install SP1, install Cat 8.3 then other drivers (with necessary restarts).
Check CCC to see Cat AI on, Crossfire X enabled etc.

3DMarks06 read initially 9600!!!

After a day or two or trying different installation proccedures, installing one card at a time etc, I decided to O/C the CPU.

Interesting the Mobo read the CPU as running at 1.6ghz (instead of 2.4ghz), I up this to 2.4. I then installed EasyTune5 and saw that the CPU was runnign idle at 1.6ghz still. I set Vista power setting to maximum performance.

3DMarks06 now went up to 13330. An improvement for sure, but no where near the 18000+ plus marks others are achieving (on that point I am not sure if other results are mainly O/C'ed).

So, I am at my wit's end as what to do.

Is it (a) a bios/driver issue (b) hardware (c) some incorrect setting (d) faulty card / crossfire cable?

CCC recognises the 4 GPU's, so it appears not to be a hardware issue.

Some people suggested flashing the bios - the 3870x2's may have a clock issue i.e. incorrect read the 2D settings in the 3D settings.

Your comments are greatly appreciated.

The external Crossfire cable hasn't been used since the X1900 series cards, since then all Crossfire connections have been internal. But the internal connector bridges have been known to get hot, brittle and this can cause the traces in the connector to break.

13000 should be spot on with stock 2.4 cpu and stock cards. To reach 18000+ you need to overclock cpu and your graphic cards.

Idleing at 1.6 is because of speedstep and you can turn it off in bios.

C1E or CE1 one or the other. I would leave it on but thats me. If you turn it off your CPU will ruin hotter at idle.

If you're troubleshooting scores than:

turn off speedstep, C1e
use something like RivaTuner 2.08 to monitor clocks
use CPUZ to monitor CPU freq

1x3870x2 on a 3.6 ghz CPU can score close to 17k
3dmark06 scores are pretty much bunk, but unless the program has a problem with 4 GPUs, then I think you have an issue somewhere. So for this situation, I would worry about your 3dmark score.


Also, what mobo is this?

I missed the mobo in the OP, my bad.

I think I was @14.4K with my 6850@3.0ghz and single card stock.

I also see so many 6600s @3.6 I forget they are only 2.4 stock, another bad.

Are you using Vista? I read somewhere that XP drivers don't support 4 GPUs. Don't know if that's still true with the latest drivers.

Well I'm using Everest. After some more unistalling/reinstalling drivers I am now getting GPU usage for all four GPU cores under 3dmark06 but the scores are still less than with a single 3870x2.

Q6600@3.6GHZ

Single 3870x2 - 17700
Dual 3870x2 - 16200

Dissapointing results.