Is it logical to upgrade from hd5770 Crossfire?

[murphy_30547]

Hello all,
I am running 2 5770s in crossfire and I have been having numerous problems with the stability of my system and I am getting quite tired of it. I have read somewhere that running crossfire comes with boatloads of problems. Unfortunately I had already built my system by the time I found this out. The setup is fast and fun, but I can't play games for more than 20 minutes and have a crash or a lockup and even have crashes when surfing the net. I have tried all the remedies, and nothing seems to work. I am considering giving up on crossfire and going to a single card. Not leaning towards AMD or nVidia at the moment. I really need to know is it even logical to upgrade to a single card on the market <$400 to achieve stability and quite a few more FPS in some games? I have been eyeing the 6970 and gtx 570. I have run 3dmark11 and it seems in some cases my setup is close to performance with these cards. and also my scores are better than a 5870 with the same processor. I really don't need the upgrade, but I am just tired of the headache and want to off these cards and get a single good comparable or better card. or should I suffer and wait it out? Thanks for any input and opinions you can offer. Here is some info on my system.
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/211181 Entry 3dmark11 Score
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/211121 performance 3dmark11 Score
The system info is not listed due to the program not wanting to finish if scan system is checked, system specs as follows(maybe this will help with some opinions as well)
i7-920 D0 OCed to 4.0gHz
Asus P6T
6 Gb Ram
2x xfx hd5770s not overclocked(can't seem to overclock in crossfire)
Power supply(not sure if this info is needed, but) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

Thanks, Murph

 

[jryan388]

I vote for a 570. If you are having that much trouble, it seems that it would be more than worth it to move to a single-GPU setup. Of course your problems might be fixable, but I don't know much about troubleshooting crossfire.

 

[murphy_30547]

I vote for a 570.

Not necessarily doing a pick that gpu poll here but, go ahead and explain your decision, why that over any other pick, and would I actually see gains coming from a xfire 5770 setup? or do you just have one and love it? I can understand either way. Thanks

 

[nforce4max]

For quality of drivers and just being stable Nvidia does deliver even when performance isn't all that great. The ATI cards have a lot of raw performance however as you have already learned first hand don't play very well except on older cards.

 

[murphy_30547]

For quality of drivers and just being stable Nvidia does deliver even when performance isn't all that great. The ATI cards have a lot of raw performance however as you have already learned first hand don't play very well except on older cards.

Yeah I have always had nVidia in the past and never had a problem with them and never had any issues when updating a driver. hmm. May be the time to switch again. never know. I do like AMDs price points though. Keep the opinions coming.

 

[nforce4max]

Yeah I have always had nVidia in the past and never had a problem with them and never had any issues when updating a driver. hmm. May be the time to switch again. never know. I do like AMDs price points though. Keep the opinions coming.

When is comes to cpus AMD is my opinion is what I like but when it comes to graphics cards one has to know what they are doing and must be able to make a good choice even if it were to be quick. Nvidia will certainly give you quality drivers even when ati offers more raw performance their drivers are no ware near as good. People bitch and moan about not being able to play a certain game due to crash or crossfire not working very ect.

 

[murphy_30547]

When is comes to cpus AMD is my opinion is what I like but when it comes to graphics cards one has to know what they are doing and must be able to make a good choice even if it were to be quick. Nvidia will certainly give you quality drivers even when ati offers more raw performance their drivers are no ware near as good. People bitch and moan about not being able to play a certain game due to crash or crossfire not working very ect.

I am here for help in making a good choice of whether or not I should upgrade or wait it out. I didn't realize I was bitching and moaning.(sorry if it seems I was) and I certainly have no problems playing games. Been going 9 months on this setup, it just gets irritating at times. At the time I built the computer, the crossfire 5770 was the best and cheapest option against the mega expensive 5870 at the time. I prefer to have a trouble free system. This is the only obstacle in my 12 years of building computers that I just cant get right, and I am tired of fooling with it. Murph

 

[nforce4max]

I am here for help in making a good choice of whether or not I should upgrade or wait it out. I didn't realize I was bitching and moaning.(sorry if it seems I was) and I certainly have no problems playing games. Been going 9 months on this setup, it just gets irritating at times. At the time I built the computer, the crossfire 5770 was the best and cheapest option against the mega expensive 5870 at the time. I prefer to have a trouble free system. This is the only obstacle in my 12 years of building computers that I just cant get right, and I am tired of fooling with it. Murph

You weren't but most people don't stick around here very long, we get a lot of complaints time to time about crossfire not working ect and general issues with games not working correctly. On Nvidia it is rare but it does happen. As for the 5870 I agree and hell there is but loads of them that are still floating around the $400 mark

 

[CG_Gamer]

not to bust anyones balls but all ive seen come out of the last few nvidia firmware updates were sli enhancments, and the fact of the matter is nvidia puts out updates so slow that by the time ati has a problem its already having an update to be fixed

Murhpy-you have a great setup man, if you dont have any problems running games then look at your clocks, more than likely its a heat issue or a clock instability, make sure you have plenty of air circulation in your case, i used to run a 4770xfire and my case had 1 fan, overheated always at stock and crashed after about 20 min with fans on 100%

if you can stand the noise pump up your fans, down your clocks and there should be no reason for you to change your setup for another 8 months

 

[murphy_30547]

not to bust anyones balls but all ive seen come out of the last few nvidia firmware updates were sli enhancments, and the fact of the matter is nvidia puts out updates so slow that by the time ati has a problem its already having an update to be fixed

Murhpy-you have a great setup man, if you dont have any problems running games then look at your clocks, more than likely its a heat issue or a clock instability, make sure you have plenty of air circulation in your case, i used to run a 4770xfire and my case had 1 fan, overheated always at stock and crashed after about 20 min with fans on 100%

if you can stand the noise pump up your fans, down your clocks and there should be no reason for you to change your setup for another 8 months

I have two front case fans, and massive top fan, rear fan, and two massive fans moving air on my cpu cooler. all air that blows out of the top and front is cool. not sure what you mean by clock instability considering I am not overclocking. I monitor the temp and usage alot in games and it doesn't even peak 70C in games
Murph

 

[CG_Gamer]

well then from there i would suggest toying with your crossfire bridges, every system is different, sometimes you need 2 bridges to be stable sometimes you have to use just one, i for one need 2 bridges whereas my friend loses stability if he uses 2

 

[murphy_30547]

well then from there i would suggest toying with your crossfire bridges, every system is different, sometimes you need 2 bridges to be stable sometimes you have to use just one, i for one need 2 bridges whereas my friend loses stability if he uses 2

interesting, now that I have never heard of. I thought it was a big no no to use more than one bridge, besides, if I remember correctly I don't have two xfire 'tabs' on my cards. just one per card. good suggestion though. still leaning toward upgrading. hmmmmm need more info. thanks

 

[CG_Gamer]

every card capable of quad fire has 2 tabs because they have to alternate to cover all 4 cards, i know for a fact that the 5770s have 2 slots, try getting another bridge

http://benchmarkreviews.com/images/reviews/video_cards/HD5770_CrossFireX/Radeon_HD5770_CrossFireX_Scaling_Installed_2.jpg

 

[iam2thecrowe]

are you certain that the crossfire is the cause of your issues? maybe you should do some elimination like ram test, hard drive test, etc... before you go and potentially waste your money and still have an unstable system. There are plenty of people running dual 5770's without major issues. I would invest a bit more time investigating the problem before narrowing it down to crossfire = unstable.

 

[murphy_30547]

every card capable of quad fire has 2 tabs because they have to alternate to cover all 4 cards, i know for a fact that the 5770s have 2 slots, try getting another bridge

http://benchmarkreviews.com/images/reviews/video_cards/HD5770_CrossFireX/Radeon_HD5770_CrossFireX_Scaling_Installed_2.jpg

Scroll down to the picture, thats the exact card(s) I have. http://www.overclock.net/ati/598020-club-5770-a-338.html

 

[nforce4max]

How much use does your machine get during any normal day?

 

[CG_Gamer]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=14-150-447-Z09&SpinSet=14-150-447-RS&ISList=14-150-447-Z07,14-150-447-Z08,14-150-447-Z09,14-150-447-Z12,14-150-447-Z10&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16814150447&Depa=0&WaterMark=1&Description=XFX%20HD-577A-ZNFC%20Radeon%20HD%205770%20(Juniper%20XT)%201GB%20128-bit%20GDDR5%20PCI%20Express%202.0%20x16%20HDCP%20Ready%20CrossFireX%20Support%20Video%20Card

it has 2 bridge connections same card?

 

[murphy_30547]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=14-150-447-Z09&SpinSet=14-150-447-RS&ISList=14-150-447-Z07,14-150-447-Z08,14-150-447-Z09,14-150-447-Z12,14-150-447-Z10&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16814150447&Depa=0&WaterMark=1&Description=XFX%20HD-577A-ZNFC%20Radeon%20HD%205770%20(Juniper%20XT)%201GB%20128-bit%20GDDR5%20PCI%20Express%202.0%20x16%20HDCP%20Ready%20CrossFireX%20Support%20Video%20Card

it has 2 bridge connections same card?

Yes that is the same sku number I bought, but it is a different version. Someone else explains here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282556-33-help-crossfire-5770
Both of mine have just one crossfire connector.

 

[murphy_30547]

How much use does your machine get during any normal day?

hmm hard to answer, maybe the average is
1 hr gaming
3-4 hrs web surfing
.25-.50 hrs viewing 'pron'
and 30 minutes trying to fix that damn graphics cards(yes almost everyday)

 

[CG_Gamer]

if gaming doesnt take up a good 50% of your time then i wouldnt even bother upgrading, it would end up being wasted money, i would suggest that you completely uninstall the drivers from both cards ( disable crossfire first, then uninstall the secondary card, then the primary) restart, then install the newest drivers, and restart your pc

i was having some instability but then i did that, fixed everything, also make sure you dont have any conflicting utilitys running, i.e. MSI afterburner and catalyst

your system wont respond well to 2 utilities trying to give it different settings

 

[Bredtoaster]

Hi.

Ehm.. It's your PSU, you need at least a PSU with 2 12V rails 0f 25 amp's each.
Your problems will be a thing of the past. It's a great setup 2X5770's.

My setup:
Antec 1200 case.
Antec Cp - 1000 PSU.
Asus M4A79XTD EVO Mobo.
Phenom II X4 955.
16GB Kingston valueRAM.
2X Asus CU Core 5770's.
2X Samsung spinpoint F3 1TB Raid 0

 

[7Gradok3]

hmm hard to answer, maybe the average is
1 hr gaming
3-4 hrs web surfing
.25-.50 hrs viewing 'pron'
and 30 minutes trying to fix that damn graphics cards(yes almost everyday)

I have pretty much the same set up as you including the same motherboard. I was having problems with my cards for like the first month i had gotten this computer. It kept telling my cards would not crossfire. Come to find the ATI Catalyst kept trying to update my system with the 32bit version as opposed to the 64bit version my system requires. Once i fixed that issue and got the 64bit drivers and updates the issues were a thing of the past. Personally i am only running like a 700 or 800watt psu and it does fine. I have like 3 120mm fans running and a liquid cooled system which keeps between 40C to 60C. I am not for sure if this is your issue, but it could be. My fps almost doubled after this. Hope this helps.

 

[esrever]

the psu is fine. The 5770s draw max 500w together.

crossfire has always sucked and so does sli to some extent. I'd way at least a few day to the 7950 release to decide if I was the op.