XFX 5870 Crossfire Problems

Hello and welcome to the forums
What resolution do you play at? and also what are your other system specs?

Its critical to have your other system specs, if you have a low end processor than that would be limiting your FPS, also if your motherboard has a PCI-E 1.0 slot and install the other card makes it run at 4x instead of 16x, depending on the chipset.

One you tell us your full system specs we will be able to help you better.

Sorry. Didnt have my signature set up when i first respnded. I play at 1920x1080. My specs are -
Asus Crosshair IV Formula Motherboard
AMD Phenom II x6 1090T
16GB 1333MHz Ram
2x XFX 5870
1.5TB 7200RPM Cavalier Black.
Thanks

Both cards run at x16

Test some other games(new FPS titles) and check your performance again.
Also how much FPS do you get with 1 5870 in BC2?

The only game i have seen run correctly in crossfire is Medal of Honor, which should run very similar to BC2. I run Medal of Honor anywhere from 70 to 140, averaging around 80 fps. Where in BC2 i run it at about 50 with a single card and only 55-60 with crossfire, both dropping as low as 40 and with crossfire it should not drop to 40 with crossfire on unless there is a huge explosion. In crysis, with crossfire i run the game around 25-30 fps. Now i know crysis doesnt get along so well with AMD components but it should be well higher than that. All of this is even with the newest Crossfire Application Profiles.

Is V-sync disabled in BC2 and Crysis ?

Yes. I play without v-sync. Hate the way the sensitivity feels with it on. So no, its not capped at 60

Do you have the latest drivers(catalyst 10.10) installed?

Yes. I have 10.10 and have tried all the way back to 10.3. I also have the latest Crossfire Applications. I had an Alienware that i got before this for a real good deal which had two 5870s as well and very similar hardware to my current build. I sold it for more than i paid for it and built this computer, but my framerates were much higher with that system which is what sparked me asking this question

Download and install GPU-Z and go to the "Sensors" tab(open 2 copies of it in order to monitor each card).Then run a game for 10-15 minutes,then minimize it(don't close), and check the sensor's tab and the clock speed should be "850/1200", if its lower,then your cards have downclocking issue in CF mode.

I ran the trial version of 3DMark Vantage and recieved a graphics score of 24585, and after overclocking my processor and testing agian, a gpu score of 26155. The benchmarks for these two cards is around 24000 so the crossfire is obviously working. I would love to blame it on drivers but the same games ran significantly better on my old system. Unless my i7 920 at 3.2 made that much of a difference over my 1090T at 3.7. Im confused and dont know much about this stuff.

Try the method i posted to check your clock speeds.You have to check whether your cards downclock in games or not.
Also,revert back your OC to stock speeds and see if it helps(your OC may not be stable)

When playing games, both cards run at 800Mhz core and 1200Mhz memory so both cards are running at their full speeds. This is the first time i overclocked the processorjust to make sure that wasnt bottlenecking the games but that wasnt the issue so already went back to original processor settings. No change

Sorry, meant 850Mhz

hmm,it's really strange.
Is it possible for you to test the cards in another system?

My old system was an i7 920 overclocked to 3.2ghz, 2x asus 5870s, 12gb 1333mhz ram, and 825W PSU. I have a 750W PSU in this system now which is about as low as i could have gone. I do a lot of 3d modeling and rendering so thats why i chose the six core but now im thinking i should have got the 965 Black series. I know crysis doesnt scale well with the ati cards or even run well with amd components, but the fact that it runs 30 fps under what the benchmark is, i didnt think my cpu could bottleneck it that bad. Im playing the same games from my old system and some games like Bad Company 2 pretty much run the same fps. And i heard BFBC2 was pretty cpu dependent. Im also running GTA4 at about the same fps as my old system which is super CPU dependent.

Ya, but i made $400 by switching to this one. I guess if both cards are running at their max clock speeds and my benchmarks are on the dot i guess there is no problem so i wont waste your guys time anymore

How did your cards run with your older rig? did they run at their full potential ?

Ya. They ran about 15 to 20 fps better. If i overclock my 1090T to around 4Ghz thats got to eliminate it as a bottleneck right. I mean i love amd but i might sell the whole system and rebuild one with an i7. Out of money though

hmm,you can get a decent CPU cooler and OC your CPU instead.Also enable AA/AF in order to put more pressure on your cards.(makes them less dependable on CPU)

Ya, i got 6 core because i built the computer mostly for rendering and 3d modeling but put those cards into it so my old games wouldnt go to waste. Im going to buy a new cooler around Christmas because ive heard these amd processors overclock very well and you can get this thing to over 4Ghz easily. Any recommendations for a cooler for this thin. AM3

Have a look at this 2 threads for CPU cooler recommendations
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261963-29-phenom-1055...
http://www.overclock.net/air-cooling/735667-air-cooler-...

i dont think that there is proplem with your cpu its not bottlenecking your cpu can handle more threads than you can imagine but the clock speed is depenable use amd fusion utility you have everything it need amd cpu/gpu it will free the cpu cache for you