7970 crossfire, bad performance XFX

[mossiprose]

I have a problem running my 7970 in crossfire and actually get any performance increase out of the cards.

specs:

2 AMD 7970 XFX OC
AMD FX-8150 no OC
8gb ram
1000 watt ps
Crosshair V board latest firmware


I show that my cards are enabled, and in crossfirex mode in control center, also, in GPU-z I get 2 cards showing at x16 x16 2.0 mode, no ULPS showing either.

However, when I run benchmarks, I see no performance increase and also in games, its all single card performance. So I am a little confused as to what I am doing wrong. Examples, I get single card performance in Far cry 2 benchmarks, BF3, Saints row 3, and unigine heaven 3.0 doesnt show great performance. I just dont know what I am missing. Everything looks great, but its just not getting dual card performance. I have never had this happen on my other machines, and I ran crossfire great

 

[monu_08]

what psu u have using did conncet all power connector to 2 7970

 

[mossiprose]

Ok, yes, valid question. Ideally, I want to use a 750 watt dual rail as it should be enough power. And I started with a corsair 750 earthwatt power supply. But that didnt work so I thought, hey lets switch it out, so I bought a Coolmax ZP-1000B Power Supply which should have enough power to run three of these cards and then some. But its exactly the same. The 750 never went over on power either and should have been enough, but no change when switching the power supplies at all

 

[mossiprose]

Oh sorry forgot to add that my friend also brought over his which is a Thermaltake TPG-1200M which is made for 4 cards, and no change as well

 

[monu_08]

ok let see did you conncet all pci power connctor to both gpu

 

[mossiprose]

I have to LOL a little bit, but yes, both connected

Yes, one 8 pin, one six on both. plus crossfire bridge, only one.

It spins up, shows correctly in GPU-z
says they are both running x16 x16 2.0

so it does imply that they are running and connected properly at the moment.

 

[monu_08]

okay that fine what your ram specification

 

[mossiprose]

Ram is just plain old 8gb of Kingston, or the blue stuff.

or this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7104115&CatId=4534

 

[monu_08]

did you overclock both cards you wrote on description

 

[xtreme5]

is your mobo bios up to date?
Also try to removing the current video driver and download the new one?

 

[mossiprose]

Ok, both cards are factory OC. so they hit the 1ghz. but I have not modified it in anyway from original settings.

As for xtreme5s question, I was having issues when troubleshooting this myself, however, I did reinstall windows and drivers to ensure I was not missing anything. It installed the one driver itself, so there isnt some weird crossfire driver or anything is there? They both show in device manager separately, so I assume they are good.

Mobo bios was updated. And I did want to note that the current version is the only one that worked for the crosshairv to enable dual x16 on multiple cards. Otherwise it was x16 x1, which clearly wasnt going to work.

 

[xtreme5]

ok, change the position of cards put the 1st one in 2nd, and 2nd one in first slot.

 

[monu_08]

may be your fx 8150 bottleneck dual 7970 oc

 

[mossiprose]

Thanks xtreme5

Yes, I have given that a shot, and they both still work, no change. However, I have also tested the cards individually without crossfire and they do seem to work without issue on games.

As for monu_08, I cant see how my processor would bottleneck a 2 gpu setup given the 8 cores and 3.6 ghz respectively. I know its not a six core Intel chip, but its still no slouch either. Should push it fine

 

[xtreme5]

could you please post your benhmark results?

 

[mossiprose]

Will do, I will post them when I get home tonight. I am going out and buying a new power supply to see if that makes a difference. Its only money I suppose.

 

[neopunx]

maybe stupid, but make sure your games are running in full screen mode, not windows or fullscreen window.

 

[cooldudesubho]

why u wanna buy new psu?Your cpu is the botteneck.What is your res btw?

 

[mossiprose]

Ok first off, CPU is not the bottleneck. At all! Not even a little bit. 8 core running at 3.6 is not going to bottleneck two cards. Second I am basing my numbers off of what other have achieved in a very similar setup. So while I appreciate the assistance, it is not my cpu causing a bottleneck

 

[mossiprose]

maybe stupid, but make sure your games are running in full screen mode, not windows or fullscreen window.

Yeah, full screen mode. Crossfire does not work in windowed mode. Valid question.

 

[bystander]

Did you install the CAP profiles when you installed the drivers?

When you said Unigine Heaven didn't show great performance, what was the difference between single and dual cards?

 

[mossiprose]

Did you install the CAP profiles when you installed the drivers?

When you said Unigine Heaven didn't show great performance, what was the difference between single and dual cards?

Yes latest cap profiles are installed. I have done this once before with 6950s as well in crossfire.

Unigine Heaven shows about 56fps on single card and 54 with crossfire enabled. Which is where I get a little worried. I have tried both cards in single config and they both do 56fps or so on Heaven. (Keep in mind I am at work currently and dont know exact. This is from memory,)

The other big one that seems to have no gain or worse performance was Far Cry 2 bench which showed similar maybe 60 fps max on single and less in crossfire..

It does suck to see so much money invested in building my system and cant get any performance gains on 2 $500 cards...

 

[mossiprose]

OK so new power supply 1000w OcZ Fatality and finally real framerates in games. Unigine shows well over 100fps, same with Far cry 2 benchmarks. I tried Saints row three, but no go. But meh, its saints row 3.

Thanks for all your assistance, u guys all rock for tryin to help.

So if u are running a crossfire 7970 setup, make sure u have the power to draw. Or one card just doesnt perform.

750 wasnt enough, or not enough power on the rail...

 

[nanoz619]

So I'm having a similar problem as the guy above ^... Although I don't think (or at least hope) its the PSU. I'm running two 7970's in crossfire,

1. XFX black edition dual dis fans.
2. Sapphire OC with the bios set to 1000 mhz.

Thus both cards should be identical?

I have a 2500k running at 4.3 ghz

8 gbs Vengeance ram

and a 850w bronze corsair psu. (just got off amazon)

My problem is as follows,

I ran this bench mark prior to installing the 2nd card (Sapphire)

http://unigine.com/products/heaven/

My results were:

FPS 49.7
Scores: 1251
Min FPS: 22.6
Max FPS: 123.4

Than I installed the 2nd card:

FPS 88.4
Scores: 2228
Min FPS: 25.5
Max FPS: 219.8

However, when I run games like bf3, bc2, Crysis and Arma 2 I see no gain whats so ever. I still get 60 fps in bf3, bc2....

What am I doing wrong here?

 

[nanoz619]

3dmark 11 scores

3DMark ScoreP12956
Graphics Score16989
Physics Score7773
Combined Score7278
Graphics Test 176.88 FPS
Graphics Test 284.86 FPS
Graphics Test 3104.81 FPS
Graphics Test 450.46 FPS
Physics Test24.68 FPS
Combined Test33.85 FPS

It also says my card is running as expected and the graph shown shows my card on par with others with "similar setups". It also shows the the core clock and memory clock on both cards are identical.