I experience half the FPS of one card with a crossfire R9 290 setup.

[Aquinus]

I agree with that part. He said his frame rate improved going from the 2500k to the 3770k. But because you said it was resolved I didn't want everyone to forget his single vs CF issue. I tried to press the OP for a response straight away with "What frame rate are you now getting with 1 GPU only? Is crossfire now outperforming it?". But it got mixed up in the shuffle. I was trying to avoid an early celebration.

But I apologise if it came across as rude it wasn't my intention.

It was a 2500 not a 2500k.

 

[Dent1]

It was a 2500 not a 2500k.

Heh. That the only part you disagree with?

Isnt the 2500 clocked lower than the 2500k?

Same frequency clock. The main difference is the K version is unlocked and uses the integrated HD 3000 rather than the HD 2000 GPU.

 

[eidairaman1]

Isnt the 2500 clocked lower than the 2500k?

 

[Shambles1980]

same speed. but not unlocked.
but i still dont see how its going to cause such a HUGE bottle neck.
to get 1/2 the fps with 2 cards compared to a single card is simply rediculous..
and even the upgrade didnt help any as now its just running at same speeds as a single card.

Personally, i would have reinstalled windows 1st. a clean install. install .net frame works. c++, java downloaded all the dx redistributables and installed them. installed my gpu drivers. and then installed the 2 games that were causing the issues.
If that didnt change things (or the changes werent as great as i had hoped for) i would have considered an upgrade "honestly though if i had the money i would have gone for the i7 any way"
but i would have wanted to test the setup els where too..

i would also use occt to monitor my PSU power and check for any serious ripples.
i would test a single card in the secondary slot. make sure it works at 100% (not fluctuating every where) even if it was forced to 8x.

i would run memtest.
i would check my hard disk with spinrite or similar.
I would make sure that my Base clock was set to 100
I would also check the temps of my components "n-bridge. s-bridge. vrm"
and if it still wasnt better i would have to blame the boards pci-e slot's

 

[Aquinus]

same speed. but not unlocked.
but i still dont see how its going to cause such a HUGE bottle neck.
to get 1/2 the fps with 2 cards compared to a single card is simply rediculous..
and even the upgrade didnt help any as now its just running at same speeds as a single card.

While I agree, he did get a huge boost in performance with just a single card by upgrading to the 3770k, forget CFX. Your advice is solid though. He should have at least re-installed Windows and installed just enough to get the games to work. I've found a lot of the other things you describe, like memory errors, PCH temp, or bad PCI-E contact usually results in a BSOD or the machine not booting at all, not usually poor performance. Also more often than not, I see PSU issues restarting the computer on people and BSODing, not resulting in poor performance either.

With that all said, I definitely think the first thing the OP should do is re-install Windows and I feel kind of stupid for not recommending that earlier.

 

[eidairaman1]

While I agree, he did get a huge boost in performance with just a single card by upgrading to the 3770k, forget CFX. Your advice is solid though. He should have at least re-installed Windows and installed just enough to get the games to work. I've found a lot of the other things you describe, like memory errors, PCH temp, or bad PCI-E contact usually results in a BSOD or the machine not booting at all, not usually poor performance. Also more often than not, I see PSU issues restarting the computer on people and BSODing, not resulting in poor performance either.

With that all said, I definitely think the first thing the OP should do is re-install Windows and I feel kind of stupid for not recommending that earlier.

Did he ever state he tried reinstalling the game?

 

[Shambles1980]

I know that my overclocks can be stable but achieve a lower bench result score with lower voltages.
a ripple on 12v down to as little as 11v shouldnt cause a bsod. but could cause bad performance.
the pci-e slots should really report running at the wrong speeds though.. (if one pin is busted it would be 4x instead of 8x "depending where the pin is"
over heating voltage regulators can and often do result in throttling.
over heating n-bridge and s-bridge can cripple a pc. but will usually result in a crash.
Not so sure why his 2nd gpu is so erratic though..
The only thing that seems to make sense regarding that would be a software issue. or voltages dropping.

 

[Final_Fighter]

i sayed the op should try making another partition for windows earlier in the thread to see if it was driver issues. but regarding it being fixed the op stated it was working fine and I haven't been back sense but after going through the thread i am starting to see some of the same stuff re surfacing to fix his problem. i was a little worried about cpu usage being in the 90% range thats why i asked if it was more like 50~60 normally.

as far as psu i couldn't recommend a good program in windows that's why i said through bios.
it would also seem Shambles1980 has had some of the same problems with poor power supply as me before.

before the op does anything else i strongly recommend to create another partition and all drivers. also

 

[yogurt_21]

same speed. but not unlocked.
but i still dont see how its going to cause such a HUGE bottle neck.
to get 1/2 the fps with 2 cards compared to a single card is simply rediculous..
and even the upgrade didnt help any as now its just running at same speeds as a single card.

Personally, i would have reinstalled windows 1st. a clean install. install .net frame works. c++, java downloaded all the dx redistributables and installed them. installed my gpu drivers. and then installed the 2 games that were causing the issues.
If that didnt change things (or the changes werent as great as i had hoped for) i would have considered an upgrade "honestly though if i had the money i would have gone for the i7 any way"
but i would have wanted to test the setup els where too..

i would also use occt to monitor my PSU power and check for any serious ripples.
i would test a single card in the secondary slot. make sure it works at 100% (not fluctuating every where) even if it was forced to 8x.

i would run memtest.
i would check my hard disk with spinrite or similar.
I would make sure that my Base clock was set to 100
I would also check the temps of my components "n-bridge. s-bridge. vrm"
and if it still wasnt better i would have to blame the boards pci-e slot's

seeing as you all seem to have COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT we'll try this again.

OP has 2500 on a Z77 board with R9 290 with a decent 850w psu.

OP gets second R9 290, no one he asked thought it would be an issue.

OP gets terrible gaming experience. He starts taking a look at his system, tries removing and installing games, tries uninstalling reinstalling drives, tries new drivers, makes sure the games are patches, etc.

No change, terrible gaming. He checks frames and sees in some titles a single card is faster. Checking out his cards via GPU-Z = mostly normal, but the pci express link keeps changing mode and speed (some times 8x 1.1, sometimes 8x 2.0, etc)

Looking at his board and card he sees they both support PCIX 3.0. However he's limited by his 2500 cpu which can only support 16x 2.0, when two cards are plugged in, 8x 2.0 each is the max.

Any other attempts at troubleshooting were in vain, looking at his rig he did nothing wrong with setup, physical or software. Everything should have worked.


This led the OP as well as a few of the rest of us to speculate that the cpu simply isn't functioning properly or the pcix lane restrictions are causing a compatibility issue with the cards in crossfire. This is especially possible considering the 290's have no crossfire dongle, that is now passed through the pcix slot.

We speculated that an upgrade to Ivy Bridge might resolve the issue. Supporting native 3.0 of course gives more speed, while that may or may not be relevant it allows it to be 3.0 card -> 3.0 slot -> 3.0 lane for maximum compatibility. The OP thus go a 3770k and reported better gaming, much better. You'll have to forgive him. He can't pay attention to your need to continue posting in his thread. He's too busy gaming.

 

[Random Murderer]

There are only 2 slots available for the GPU on the ASRock Z77 Extreme 4, and both are occupied by my GPUs

and there are no other PCIe cards inserted. no sound card/usb/wifi card

When I run the render test in GPU-Z, they seem to be near enough 100% usage with crossfire:

When I ran Furmark 15min Benchmark test, they were both around 100%, then it changed:

Weird, though. GPU 1 had a temperature of 94 degrees so it eventually throttled back (which made my score worse) and apparently it ran at 100%. GPU2 max temp was 83 and apparently the usage was all over the place:

Both GPUs seem to be fine, then. (At least according to afterburner). As far as I'm aware, possibly the CPU is fine (but I will still try and run tests since people think it's possible there is a memory leak), but that still doesn't explain the exact same FPS whether it's 1 card, or 2 :/

Is ULPS still enabled? If it is, your second card is shutting off when the primary card throttles. I've read the entire thread and it seems like you're dealing with overheating power sections here. The render test in GPU-z is not an actual full-load on the card(s), just enough to kick up the clock speeds and link width. Furmark, however, now that is 100% load, and probably the most load you can put on your cards short of mining. Notice in your temps graph that as soon as GPU1 throttles, GPU2's temp sensor reports 0C? That's because in ULPS mode, the second card is completely shut off(including most of its sensors) except for the fan(s) and maybe LED(s). While the second GPU shutting off is definitely an issue in your case, its cause is the scary part. GPU1 should not be getting that hot during gaming.
You may want to pull your cards and check the cleanliness of the fins of the heatsinks. It could also be that you have the DDs that didn't have VRM heatsinks and your VRMs are overheating, as someone else mentioned.

The OP thus go a 3770k and reported better gaming, much better. You'll have to forgive him. He can't pay attention to your need to continue posting in his thread. He's too busy gaming.

I lost it there. Nice one, Yogurt.

 

[Shambles1980]

seeing as you all seem to have COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT we'll try this again.

OP has 2500 on a Z77 board with R9 290 with a decent 850w psu.

OP gets second R9 290, no one he asked thought it would be an issue.

OP gets terrible gaming experience. He starts taking a look at his system, tries removing and installing games, tries uninstalling reinstalling drives, tries new drivers, makes sure the games are patches, etc.

No change, terrible gaming. He checks frames and sees in some titles a single card is faster. Checking out his cards via GPU-Z = mostly normal, but the pci express link keeps changing mode and speed (some times 8x 1.1, sometimes 8x 2.0, etc)

Looking at his board and card he sees they both support PCIX 3.0. However he's limited by his 2500 cpu which can only support 16x 2.0, when two cards are plugged in, 8x 2.0 each is the max.

Any other attempts at troubleshooting were in vain, looking at his rig he did nothing wrong with setup, physical or software. Everything should have worked.


This led the OP as well as a few of the rest of us to speculate that the cpu simply isn't functioning properly or the pcix lane restrictions are causing a compatibility issue with the cards in crossfire. This is especially possible considering the 290's have no crossfire dongle, that is now passed through the pcix slot.

We speculated that an upgrade to Ivy Bridge might resolve the issue. Supporting native 3.0 of course gives more speed, while that may or may not be relevant it allows it to be 3.0 card -> 3.0 slot -> 3.0 lane for maximum compatibility. The OP thus go a 3770k and reported better gaming, much better. You'll have to forgive him. He can't pay attention to your need to continue posting in his thread. He's too busy gaming.

i think you missed the part where he said he still had issues. because you were to busy patting your self on the back.

but that's not a problem.. now you made him buy a new cpu maybe the rest of us can try and figure out what the issue is.

for any one who wants to help the op.
here is the latest issue..

I seem to have run into a "new" problem :/ I thought I had run the game both in Crossfire mode and single-gpu mode(hence why I posted the Crossfire results), but it seems I didn't.
I seem to be getting the exact same FPS with one card as I do with two cards...

Since I have swapped each GPU so that it has had time in the primary slot, each works fine, so I'm sure we can rule out a GPU issue ( but I'd be happy to run some tests, if you want ).
In terms of CPU, I ran the intel processor diagnostics test and it passed(not surprising since it's a new CPU).
I will be running the 'Hot CPU Tester Pro 4' to see if there are any other problems, memory etc (although it's very doubtful), but it's a 6 hour test so I probably won't reply for some time.
I can also run Prime 95, if you want.

Could it be a PCIe issue? E.g. the 2nd slot is not functioning properly? Is there anyway to test this, such as running 1 GPU from the second slot, rather than the first?

I apologise for misleading anyway as I genuinely thought I had tested both circumstances (single/multi-gpu mode), but at least my FPS is a massive improvement from before.

 

[JaredzzC]

Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool Test: Ran without any errors
Hot CPU Tester 4 Pro: Ran without any errors
Prime95 (Blend + Small FTTs): Ran without any errors
Memtest86: Ran without any errors
Process Explorer: Seemed to eliminate any theories about 'memory leaks'
GPU-Z Render tests report that both cards are running at x8 3.0 so at first thought, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the motherboard.
My PSU seems to be fine; I haven't received any random crashes when playing games at full load, running benchmarks, or stress testing.

As I've mentioned before, I've tried a few different drivers, I've tried each card on their own in the primary slot and they perform completely fine.

Firestrike Graphics Score (1GPU): 10422 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3790152
Firestrike Graphics Score (2GPUs): 20118 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3790193

Furmark average 1GPU: 62FPS
Furmark average 2GPUs: 124FPS

My Firestrike Graphics Score seem absolutely fine for 2GPUs; fullinfusion received a score of 20035 with 2x R9 290 like myself -> The scores are similar so based solely on that, there's no need for worry about the GPU.

During Furmark, if the temperatures are fine, then both GPUs are steady at around 100% usage:

As soon as GPU1 hits 94 degrees, it throttles back and yet it still tries to push to 100% usage. However, when GPU1 throttles back, even though GPU2s stats haven't decreased(core+memory), the usage fluctuates... 37%,65%,72%,50% etc.....................................(To 'Random Murderer', ULPS is not disabled)

Although, realistically, from all the games I have played, GPU1 hasn't gone above 80-85, and GPU2 hasn't gone above 70-75 so this throttling issue shouldn't affect the FPS I get in games.

FPS With 1GPU (Highest settings unless otherwise stated):

Battlefield3: 85-100
Battlefield4: 80-95 (MANTLE)
Crysis3: 85-110 (No AA)
NeedForSpeedTheRun: 60-90
F1 2013: 95-130

FPS With 2GPUs

Exactly the same... (The games are played at full screen)

I honestly have no idea what is wrong....
The benchmarks and tests conclude that there is nothing wrong (as far as I'm aware) with my computer, so it doesn't make sense as to why I wouldn't gain any advantage using the second card.

 

[Aquinus]

Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool Test: Ran without any errors
Hot CPU Tester 4 Pro: Ran without any errors
Prime95 (Blend + Small FTTs): Ran without any errors
Memtest86: Ran without any errors
Process Explorer: Seemed to eliminate any theories about 'memory leaks'
GPU-Z Render tests report that both cards are running at x8 3.0 so at first thought, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the motherboard.
My PSU seems to be fine; I haven't received any random crashes when playing games at full load, running benchmarks, or stress testing.

As I've mentioned before, I've tried a few different drivers, I've tried each card on their own in the primary slot and they perform completely fine.

Firestrike Graphics Score (1GPU): 10422 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3790152
Firestrike Graphics Score (2GPUs): 20118 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3790193

Furmark average 1GPU: 62FPS
Furmark average 2GPUs: 124FPS

My Firestrike Graphics Score seem absolutely fine for 2GPUs; fullinfusion received a score of 20035 with 2x R9 290 like myself -> The scores are similar so based solely on that, there's no need for worry about the GPU.

During Furmark, if the temperatures are fine, then both GPUs are steady at around 100% usage:

As soon as GPU1 hits 94 degrees, it throttles back and yet it still tries to push to 100% usage. However, when GPU1 throttles back, even though GPU2s stats haven't decreased(core+memory), the usage fluctuates... 37%,65%,72%,50% etc.....................................(To 'Random Murderer', ULPS is not disabled)

Although, realistically, from all the games I have played, GPU1 hasn't gone above 80-85, and GPU2 hasn't gone above 70-75 so this throttling issue shouldn't affect the FPS I get in games.

FPS With 1GPU (Highest settings unless otherwise stated):

Battlefield3: 85-100
Battlefield4: 80-95 (MANTLE)
Crysis3: 85-110 (No AA)
NeedForSpeedTheRun: 60-90
F1 2013: 95-130

FPS With 2GPUs

Exactly the same... (The games are played at full screen)

I honestly have no idea what is wrong....
The benchmarks and tests conclude that there is nothing wrong (as far as I'm aware) with my computer, so it doesn't make sense as to why I wouldn't gain any advantage using the second card.

Have you re-installed Windows yet?

 

[JaredzzC]

Have you re-installed Windows yet?

Not yet. If I were to re-install windows then I would want that to be the absolute last resort; if people have nothing else to suggest (and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't), then I guess my only choice left would be to re-install windows.
I've got a lot of stuff on my PC (almost 3TB) and I don't have the space to back most of it up, even the important stuff which take quite a lot of room.
I know it's possible to save stuff in windows.old, but even so, it's a hassle having to delete stuff from the folder just to re-install it again to get it working properly which is why i'd prefer not to do it.

 

[Aquinus]

Not yet. If I were to re-install windows then I would want that to be the absolute last resort; if people have nothing else to suggest (and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't), then I guess my only choice left would be to re-install windows.
I've got a lot of stuff on my PC (almost 3TB) and I don't have the space to back most of it up, even the important stuff which take quite a lot of room.
I know it's possible to save stuff in windows.old, but even so, it's a hassle having to delete stuff from the folder just to re-install it again to get it working properly which is why i'd prefer not to do it.

Why the heck did you just buy a 3770k then?! Get your ass back to the store and get yourself a backup before something bad happens. I can't tell you how dangerous what you're doing is because not only do you not have a copy of your stuff, but you can't format or do a full re-install without losing data.

There is a really good reason why I have 4x1TB drives in my tower and another 3x1TB drives in my server. Not only can I backup all my stuff, but 4 drives of the 7 must fail for me to lose all of my stuff.

 

[64K]

Why the heck did you just buy a 3770k then?! Get your ass back to the store and get yourself a backup before something bad happens. I can't tell you how dangerous what you're doing is because not only do you not have a copy of your stuff, but you can't format or do a full re-install without losing data.

There is a really good reason why I have 4x1TB drives in my tower and another 3x1TB drives in my server. Not only can I backup all my stuff, but 4 drives of the 7 must fail for me to lose all of my stuff.

Agreed. JaredzzC, Always keep a back up of important files, pics etc. Any drive no matter how high quality it is can fail and everything could be lost forever.

 

[JaredzzC]

Yea, I am fully aware that I should back up/save my important stuff.
I bought an external hard drive a while back to do such a thing, but then recently it just randomly stopped working, so I need to get around to buying another one, or another few.

It shouldn't be too bad, though. windows.old takes round 330GB and my recorded gameplay videos alone take 1.07TB I just realised that half my hard drive is of stuff that I don't necessarily need. Makes life easier, I guess, but I still need to get around to buying another external hard drive.

 

[Final_Fighter]

wow!! theirs an easier way without loosing your data or loosing your current install. let me get some instructions here.

totally free also

 

[Final_Fighter]

1.) first You will Need a Copy of windows 7 if thats what you re using (steps should be the same from control panel in windows 8). preferably the same version you are running

2.) next go ahead and navigate to control panel. if the view by in the top right corner is set to large set it to small icons.

3.) Next click Administrative tools then a new window should pop up then click on Computer Management

4.) once you are in Computer Management there will be drop down lists in the right tab. expand the one that says STORAGE

5.) You should see in the expanded list Disk Management. click it. now in the right you will see a bunch of stuff like this

Right click on the disk you wish to make a partition and click on SHRINK volume. for an example to show i will choose disk d:

now enter the amount you want to shrink it this picture does not show how much i shank mine. i shrank mine 50gbs but took the image before entering my amount just for this purpose. now hit shrink after you desides how big you want your new partition.


6.) a new partition like this will a.

now right click the black one and click new simple volume. it will show some extremely self explanatory screens. just click next next next next. but please read to make sure everything looks righ you can name the volume choose ntfs or whatever then format the new created partition and done!!!

now install windows on the new partition. you keep your old windows install all your data and get a new install of win!!!


EDIT: if this doesnt fix the problem and you dont like having another partition just go pack to disk management and right click the newly created partition and click delete partition. this will erase everything on the NEW partition NOT YOUR OLD DATA SO YOU WILL NOT LOSS ANYTHING JUST WHAT IS ON THE NEW PARTITION

Then click the original partition that was split and click extend this will recreate your old disk. with everthing back to norm

i mean extend

no data loss but only do this from your original install.

 

[Final_Fighter]

How many Hard drives do you have? if its just 1 then you will need to free up some space before doing this. windows wont let you delete it it would only let you make a really small partition if you dont have the room

plus windows wont delete itself so no worry there


also i did not ask but what windows are you using 7 or 8?

if its 8 i will see what ican do . will need to boot up my 8 pc for that so could take a while

 

[JaredzzC]

How many Hard drives do you have? if its just 1 then you will need to free up some space before doing this. windows wont let you delete it it would only let you make a really small partition if you dont have the room

plus windows wont delete itself so no worry there


also i did not ask but what windows are you using 7 or 8?

if its 8 i will see what ican do . will need to boot up my 8 pc for that so could take a while

Windows 7 with 2 HDDs (1x1TB and 1x2TB) thanks for your help!

 

[Final_Fighter]

Windows 7 with 2 HDDs (1x1TB and 1x2TB) thanks for your help!

in rare cases windows boot manager after installing a new windows will just forget about the old one but if this is the case just post back here and i will walk you through how to boot back into your old install. again no data is deleted. also DO NOT Re-merge or expand your hard rive into ONE again From the new Partition. THAT WILL DELETE YOUR DATA. re-merge or expand from original install of windows or from the partition that you shrank.


HOPE IT WORKS OUT AND GOOD LUCK!!!!

 

[Aquinus]

The point of starting on a clean partition is so you don't have anything remaining from the last install that could have caused issues in the first place. Re-installing on top of an already existing Windows installation on the same partition isn't recommended for this reason. Once again, backup your stuff before you make any changes to your hard drive's partition table.

 

[Final_Fighter]

The point of starting on a clean partition is so you don't have anything remaining from the last install that could have caused issues in the first place. Re-installing on top of an already existing Windows installation on the same partition isn't recommended for this reason. Once again, backup your stuff before you make any changes to your hard drive's partition table.

hes not installing on top of it, hes installing along side it. no drivers or anything is loaded from his secondary windows. plus the newly created partition is free space from his already existing hard drive partition that is set aside and gets formatted clean. i have done this a couple of times to pin down software problems on friends, family ,and my own pc's. if his hard drives don't have any data corruption or faults than hes fine and this will work flawlessly.
(if windows detects any problems with the hdds it will not proceed or let him go through this process!)

but i do agree backing up data is always recommended. but with that many hard drives and space he might be able to clean one up by offloading data to one of his other drives, then performing what i outlined on one of his other hard drives while the others are disconnected, if he wants to be safe.<=(i have never had to do this to be safe) i would not recommend this process or go through the trouble to outline it if i have never done this and if it was not safe, considering i have worked on more pc's as long as i can remember.

 

[newconroer]

Crossfire works in benchmarks. I'm done with this thread, too many people getting a little too angsty for my liking, and hardly anybody is reading the entire thread before posting.

Good luck to OP.

All due respect brother, it looks as if the people who haven't been following it properly, are those whom within the first ten posts, had managed to look at THIS situation and somehow come to the conclusion that it was a CPU bottleneck. I actually read the first page about six times, making sure I didn't miss anything as I couldn't believe the posts.

There are only 2 slots available for the GPU on the ASRock Z77 Extreme 4, and both are occupied by my GPUs



Both GPUs seem to be fine, then. (At least according to afterburner). As far as I'm aware, possibly the CPU is fine (but I will still try and run tests since people think it's possible there is a memory leak), but that still doesn't explain the exact same FPS whether it's 1 card, or 2 :/

And certainly doesn't explain why you'd had LESS with two cards than one.
I really want to post a picture with the caption TOLD YOU SO, but that seems immature and not helpful.


EDIT: Screw it, it's Friday.