Crossfire HD 5870

[erocker]

I followed that guide, but thanks!

I'm going to try re-seeding the card.

Still nothing showing in CCC.

Hmm... Do you have 2 CF bridges? If so, use them both.

 

[Raijian]

I just took the card out, put it back in perfectly and put both bridges across the cards.

Still no crossfire tab >.<

Gah


Edit: CCC found my second card and is now set as "linked adapter"

Awesome!

There was a sata connector in my mobo going to my CD drive which I never use so I unplugged it because it was underneath the end of the 2nd card I was trying to seed in. It wasn't in all the way I guess, yet windows still detected it.

Anyway the cd drive still works without the plug into the mobo which is strange but whatever no loss lol.

I'm gonna try out BF3.

 

[Raijian]

Battlefield 3 runs better, but my first graphics card gets up to 85 degrees celcius unless I put the fan on 55-60%

This is because the two graphics cards are basically touching, blocking one of the fans. I don't think I can use the other two PCI-E slots near the bottom, or at least I won't get good performance out of using them.. will I? I believe the top ones give me the max bandwith.

 

[Darkleoco]

Idk about different bandwidth with the other slots but if you are able to keep the temperature down by cranking up the fans I would definitely do that, however those temperatures seem rather high unless those cards usually run hot.

 

[erocker]

On a Crosshair IV there should be plenty of room between the cards. You have your 2nd card in the wrong slot. As it says in the manual you want to use PCI-E slots 1 and 3.

 

[Raijian]

Oh, shit.

I have one in the last PCI-E slot nearest to the CPU and such, and one in the next red PCI-E slot down.

I can't find my manual, I left it at my parents' place.

Ugh, I can't find that heads up display view of what pci-e slot is what.

UGH!

And the pdf from asus.com is crashing!

Whyyyyyy -.-

 

[rampage]

@ OP, i have a very simlar rig to yours but my 1090T is at 3.6>3.7GHZ TC turned off and i am getting 45>70 fps on metro on a single 5870, i am not quite on ultra settings dut damn close,

once you work out the crossfire try upping the CPU and see if that helps out with the frame rate.

 

[Raijian]

Ok i see pci.e slots 1 and 3 but the crossfire bridge is very small.. Not sure why they made it so damn small. You have to have them touching to crossfire them. Any ideas?

 

[Bundy]

I suggest you get MSI afterburner, install that and set a fan profile that more agressively cools your cards. It means they will be more noisy and cool when gaming, but quiet all the rest of the time.

 

[Raijian]

I need a longer bridge.

 

[Darkleoco]

It might be inconvenient but you can always buy them online.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003NLGR7I/?tag=tec06d-20

2 seconds on google popped that up so it shouldn't be too hard to find something priced better hopefully.

 

[Raijian]

Too bad it would take a month to ship to canada

 

[Darkleoco]

Too bad it would take a month to ship to canada

I meant for you to find something more local, Amazon was just to demonstrate what a single google search could find in 2 seconds.

 

[Raijian]

Oh i know. Thanks for giving me a link. I'm grumpy. Amazon.ca has no bridges

 

[Mussels]

Oh i know. Thanks for giving me a link. I'm grumpy. Amazon.ca has no bridges

try your local ebay

 

[SK-1]

I get 80min to well over 100 max.

 

[Raijian]

Yeah, until I get a long bridge (I only have the 2-3 inch one that came with the cards) I won't be cross firing these guys. I don't like having the fan noise that high and the temperature that high either.

Bleh, oh well.

Thanks for all your help.

Just bought a 100mm bridge off ebay.

 

[mastrdrver]

If you have an XFX card they will send you the long ones for free. Seen a few people over on [H] mention this.

Alpha builds generally tend to precede the Beta builds. They usually don't offer open public alpha builds. Hence the beta.

They will optimize things further though before they get closer to release.

Your absolutely correct.

But DICE has stated that the "Beta" build is over a month old. So it then goes back in to the Alpha build time frame. Hence why I said it was more an Alpha build then a Beta.

 

[Raijian]

I have two Radeon cards, but thanks for the tip! I didn't know that.

I ordered a long bridge from Cali with regular shipping.

I'm guessing 3-4 weeks!

Oh well, haha.

Do graphics cards stutter when they get to 85+ degrees? I was getting some stuttering while adjusting fan speed while playing BF3. It would make sense since one of the card's fan was completely blocked, almost touching the back of the other card.

Maybe I have a long bridge in my motherboard box? I'll look tomorrow when I have access to it.

 

[Darkleoco]

I have two Radeon cards, but thanks for the tip! I didn't know that.

I ordered a long bridge from Cali with regular shipping.

I'm guessing 3-4 weeks!

Oh well, haha.

Do graphics cards stutter when they get to 85+ degrees? I was getting some stuttering while adjusting fan speed while playing BF3. It would make sense since one of the card's fan was completely blocked, almost touching the back of the other card.

Maybe I have a long bridge in my motherboard box? I'll look tomorrow when I have access to it.

From what I can tell it's just the build itself stutterring mostly but their is some limited stuttering when running Crossfire in some games.

 

[repman244]

85C is nothing to worry about, mine spent a lot of time around 87C with no manual fan enabled.
I've also seen a lot of people having no problems running around 90C.

It would probably take around 100C-105C before throttling would kick in.

 

[Raijian]

Thanks for all your help.

Even if the card is running at 85 degrees + and that's sort of normal (from what I gather from many people), I really don't like them being so close.

I have the card now, so I just need to wait for the bridge which might take a while but whatever haha.

I guess what I'm worried about most is cooking my card.. I don't think keeping it at 85+ for long periods of time would be smart. I remember in my first computer, I had an 8800GT and after a year or so it was burned out due to overheating constantly. I had it in a pre-built HP computer though. That could have been a power supply issue or something. I remember playing WoW and seeing giant triangles across my screen and strange artefacts everywhere, and when I took the card out after getting a new computer, it smelled toasty which gave me the indication that something inside was burning or something.

I'm terrified of that happening to one of my Radeon 5870's.. especially since you can't buy them anymore (I got my 2nd one from my father who just got a 580 ti) and they are/were pretty expensive at the time.

I could be over reacting but I like being cautious about my stuff.

 

[Raijian]

Update.

Seeing some very strange activity.

While playing multiple games, (WoW and BF3 and I saw it again in Deus Ex) my fps is 60 with the settings cranked, and all of a sudden my fps drops to EXACTLY 40 fps for 3-5 seconds, then goes back to normal for 5 seconds and them back to 40 fps...

Not sure why it's doing this. I never had this issue with one card.

Is this bottlenecking? What's causing this?

I have the 11.10 preview drivers, used driver sweeper and such to make sure they installed correctly.


Edit: Video card fans are pretty loud, they're also fluxuating back and fourth between high and low, but not an intense differnece, just noticeable.

 

[erocker]

If you're running your CPU/NB frequency at stock (2000mhz) yes, it could be bottlenecking your CF setup.

 

[Raijian]

Would bottlenecking cause that sudden short period of time fps drop to exactly 40 fps? With one card I never had this issue.