[Solved] I am so unhappy with crossfire hd6950

I purchased 2 xfx 6950 cards and did crossfire but performance is really poor.I installed a fresh win7 64bit..installed drivers 11.1 though i earlier i tried on 10.12 catalyst too and in CCC it shows crossfire is enabled but when i play Bad Company 2 my fps around 30-40.I am playing on low settings still no increase in fps.earlier i had xfx5870 and with high settings i use to have above 80 fps.in both the cards screen resolution is 1900x1080.I tried with 1bridge and 2 bridge too but there is not much improvement.And to my surprise with single card in Team Fortress 2 with highsettings i have above 80Fps in hd6950 but with crossfire performance decreases and fps is around 40-60.I did surfed many other forums but haven't find any help.I hope somone with right answer there to help me.:\

Asus P5Q-PRO Q8200 2.33GHz ,4gb Gskill Pi Black,Coolermaster 1000w silent pro ,HX CoolerMaster HAF 922
Seagate HDD-500+250 +1Tb
XFX RADEON 6950x2 Crossfire,Asus XOnar d2x, Logitech G500,Razer Destructer
Dell- ST2410 ,Roccat Valo ,Belkin-n52te, Logitech Z5500D, SennHeiser-595

What are your system spec's? (make sure you include PSU make and model).

i tried with one card too....as i mentioned with one card fps above 80 with high settings

If u say so ...i try to overclock cpu too and update here again. but i must add while playing bc2 i did check on my g15keyboard cpu and ram usage is not more then 50%.Do u still thinkg its bottleneck

It is your cpu, just the clocks alone are to weak for the demands of going crossfire. You have no choice but to overclock but the gains are not going to be a sure thing. 3ghz for a 775/am2 system is really a requirement if you want to get the most out of your system.

It doesn't matter who much are the usage levels but also system I/O has a Major factor in over all system performance of a multi gpu system. Your cpu doesn't cut ir period, it doesn't matter if is has 4 cores or 16 or any other number but if performance per clock per core is low in current applications it isn't going to perform very well nor is it when the system i/o isn't good enough to meet the needs of the cards when moving data between the cards and the rest of the system. Using these two cards on your friends system will perform very differently than on yours.

all you guys, yes he has a cpu bottleneck. I agree that even a single 6950 is being bottlenecked by his cpu and he should return one of the cards and buy a new cpu. even if crossfire was working properly, he would see littel if any performance increase with that cpu. but that would NOT cause performance to drop to 1/2 with a second card in xfire. Also, when in xfire mode your pci-e slots only run at 8x on that board ( http://www.overclockersclub.com/re [...] _pro/5.htm ), which will limit performance, but only by 5-10% or so. This problem has come up before enven on higher end systems, its a crossfire problem, maybe video, motherboard driver related, bios related there are a whole lot of things to try.

today i am goin to see on my friends i7 how things work but i want u guys to suggest me cpu and mobo for what i want.I am goin for eyefinity ...already have 3 monitors ..2x22inch and 1x24inch.Reason for goin to crossfire 6950 is to have good fps in eyefinity.My major concern in mobo is that i want PCI Express x1 interface for asus xonar d2x hand it should not be between crossfire.Rest i am very thankfull to all guys for helping me it ...and i will update how it worked on i7 too...one more thing i like to ask is that6950 supports pci express 2.1...though i also be looking at them but i just couldn't find such mobos.And should i be looking for intel or amd?though i prefer intel but its nice to ask for advice from u guys

thx marney thats comforting

Right, but the Q8xxx series even had less cache and less clock for clock performance, so I would imagine that its even worse.

he did mention he wants to run eyefinity..........which makes the second card necessary.

That is why most avoided that series or stuck with decent dual cores that could easily reach 3.4ghz+ on the fly. The multiplier is far to low to make the 8xxx series quads worth much of any thing. It was usually either a q6600 or nothing as far as quads were concerned except for those who had deep enough pockets for the 9xxx series.

OP: If you need to do an overhaul might as well check out i5 2500k or i7 2600k. It'll be a retardedly huge difference compared to your current CPU. Of course you can save a bit without the K series... but why? 4.8ghz on air, with turbo... awesome.

yeah id go for a 2500k, new motherboard, etc if your going to spend 600 in gpus...

No idea. I only know of the SATA controller issue on motherboards, which they're recalling.

why dont u guys suggest me since u all what i need...i can spend around 700$-750$ on both cpu and mobo...rest u guys tell me which one to buy...i am new to i7 so no idea which one is better...thx again to you all guys who posted to help me

why i5 instead of i7?

The i7 has hyperthreading, i5 doesn't. For gaming that won't change anything performance wise.

Also, unlike previous gen i cores, the i7s aren't on a high end platform yet, they're on the P67 same as i5 so you don't benefit from more PCIe lanes or anything (which IMO was a main selling point of X58+i7 vs P55+i5)

okay guys i am back after trying crossfire on i7 930 2.8ghz on intel dx58so mobo with 4gb ram.I must say difference is huge as compared to q8200.I started from low to high and then advance settings enabling everything including HBOA and vsync and experience was very good.Fps was above 70 on 1920x1080 on high settings which is very good.But only problem i had is that sometimes there is sudden drops in fps like from 120 to 70 and it felt like a so much lag though i tried on different servers but result is same..Even with low settings in bc2 lag or jerk whatever u call is there.One more thing i would like to notify that will i was monitoring cpu usage on other screen the seventh core is almost 96% even 98% while while other cores are above 80%.

Another question which is better choice CF 6950 or goin for high eng gpu like 6970 or some black edition for EYEFINITY???

You can't really blame a GPU for online FPS. More often than not you get lag from internet/server. Play singple player games, if the FPS is good then definitely the online thing is not fixable on your end. Also, Vsync limits your FPS. If you're really concerned turn it off and if it still happens like that then you know even moreso that it's not your fault. Thirdly, your monitor is probalby 60hz like the rest of us so I'm certain you wouldn't see a difference between 120 and 70.

As for your GPU question, the 69xx series has 2gb memory already. That is sufficient for eyefinity. IMO you could try BIOS flashing your 6950s to the 6970 BIOS. Do it one card at a time tho. And yeah read up on it... google it and you should find a bunch of info on it.

And anyway, there's no way in hell CF 6950s are goign to be beaten by any single card out there. Not even a 5970 is as fast as CF 6950s.

So now you know your CPU/platform is the issue not the cards. You'll either have to upgrade the whole system (CPU, mobo, RAM) or else return one card and just deal with what it gives you.

bad news and maybe u guys already know about it....Intel Sandy Bridge chipset flaw identified.


hmmm thats why its not even available in newegg
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/01 [...] ransistor/

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news.php?newsid=2125

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technolo [...] t-chip-fix

now i wonder which cpu and mobo should i go for??or should i wait???

i am not good with overlclocking ...last time in try to OC the one system i am using and i doubt that my sound card is burnt because of OCing which was xifi- forte...so now i am not sure...One more thing is i5 760 future proof also?cuz i bought this q8200 back in 2009 May and now it seems outdated...I mean i should be buying such combo which should be good enough for few more years.rest as u say

And advice regarding mobo if goin for i5 760?

You mean u would wait one more month for it??I believe it might take this much time though not sure

why not just run one 6950 and a single monitor until a month down the road or whatever then go for your upgrade and reinstate your eyeinfinty

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey