Crossfired HD 3850, can my system handle it?

[Leecifer]

Hey guys, I'm currently using 2 crossfired HD 3850 256MB cards and they really don't seem to be working up to scratch. The frame rates have barely changed from when I was using the cards separately. I'm using the 8.2 catalyst drivers, I've overclocked the cards with barely any improvement. Crysis is only playable at medium settings at the mo and with a single card it was decent on high.

I'm not sure whether its my PC setup thats the problem or something else, I'm using:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (O/C to 2.9Ghz)
Arctic Cooler Freezer Pro 64
4GBs PC2-6400 Elixir RAM
MSI K9A Platinum Mobo
500W EZ Cool Super Silent PSU
2x PowerColor HD Radeon 3850 (Crossfired)

I wasn't sure if I need a beefier PSU or if theres anythin else you guys can see that looks off. I'm also unsure if I should be using both crossfire bridges or just one?

My cards get up to about 56 degress during crysis and it regularly crashes when I've been playing a while.

Any advice or questions would be great, cheers!

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

You system shouldn't have any problem handling CF'd 3850's. You should be seeing something as far as and increase...

Of course, I'm going to suggest you follow the steps to enable Crossfire as outlined HERE.

Make sure you do a thorough uninstall of you current drivers.

Start with the Crysis Hotfix drivers and see if you can make it work that way FIRST.

 

[Leecifer]

I've tried this method before and the latest ati drivers seemed to cause really bad corruption with my graphics. Are u suggesting installing the latest 8.3 driver and then the hotfix after? or is the hotfix the fully working driver in itself. Sorry if its a dumb question, I've tried so many different ati drivers and the omega drivers, I've just started confusing myself lol

 

[Leecifer]

oh and also, iv installed al the latest crysis patches but it still says version 1.1.1.6....

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

You've got to get your system "clean" of ALL these drivers you have loaded. They will conflict and wreak havoc with this process.

The Crysis Hotfix driver is standalone. No need for anything else. It's linked in the thread. Start with those since the latest Cats are finicky.

The Crysis patches are another animal altogether. If you are making Crysis your point of reference, you have to approach this sytematically. That means: Clean all drivers and their "residue", stock Crysis install, Crysis Hotfix drivers, follow the steps EXACTLY.

If any parts of the install have problems, start over. That means check the Device Manager after each step to make sure everything is good before moving to the next step.


The corruption could be from the driver conflicts OR a bad setting in CCC (like Cat A.I. @ Advanced-try Standard.)

 

[trog100]

if your psu has two rails with say 15 amps per rail the pair of cards could be overloading one of the rails.. one rail is more than enough for the cpu but if its 15 amp rails on the edge for the two grafix cards..

with two rails the power isnt split how it should be.. the cpu gets more than it needs the two cards coming off the other rail dont get enough..

they probably draw 8 amps each.. it all depends how your psu is set up..

trog

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

In regards to the crashes, are you using any program or special BIOS to help the fan speed?
You might want to load RivaTuner and set both the cards fans to 60-100%.