CROSSFIRE X1900 problems, PLEASE HELP

[icespear]

I have the following Configuration:

Case: RAIDMAX SAMURAI 908 ATX CASE 5X5.25 2X3.5 3X3.5INT PAINT GLOSSY FINISH
RED

Power Supply: Antec True Power II 550W EPS12V 24PIN SLI Ready Power Supply W/ 120MM Fan

Motherboard: DFI LANParty UT CFX3200-DR RD580 Crossfire S939 DDR 2PCI-E16 3PCI SATA2
Sound 2GBLAN Motherboard

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Processor S939 Venice 2.4GHZ 512K L2 Cache 90NM

Cooling: Arctic Cooling Silencer 64 Ultra AMD S754/S939/S940 Aluminum 2300RPM 42CFM
12-23DBA

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB 8.9MS Hard Drive 3 Year
MFR Warranty

DVD: Samsung SH-W162 16X DVD+-RW 5X Dual Layer DVD Writer Black /W SW OEM

RAM: OCZ Performance PC3200 2GB 2X1GB DDR400 CL3-3-3-8 184PIN DIMM Dual
Channel Memory Kit W/ Ramsink

Video Card 1: ATI Radeon X1900 Crossfire 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E Video Card
Video Card 2: ATI Radeon X1900XT 625MHZ 512MB 256BIT 1.45GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I
VIVO HDTV Video Card




Now onto the Problem:

I click on the fancy button "ENABLE CROSSFIRE" then Run 3D MARK 06 - I get only a near 4000 score.

Flustered I disable crossfire and get near the same score. So i was frustrated so I took out the crossfire edition card and ran 3d mark on JUST the X1900 Single card without any crossfire. I scored HIGHER by about 10 points.

then put in ONLY the crossfire edition card and Ran it again and got again around 4000 score.


yes the drivers have been reinstalled
I am using the latest 6.6 Catalyst drivers
I am sure everything is installed correctly


Any ideas?

 

[gR3iF]

your cpu is way to slow to let you see a gain of a x1900 crf setup


buy a betterone

 

[cjoyce1980]

you are gonna need a 4400+ cpu with have setup to see much improvement in 3d mark 06, but try some games like FEAR, NFSMW and Half-Life 2 to see the really difference.

crossfire and SLI only mean better graphics if you have a system free of bottlenecks.

 

[gR3iF]

my choice would be a 3700+ + oc it

 

[cjoyce1980]

overclocking doesnt alway free up the bottleneck as it could make the problem worst. but try overclock and see if it make any difference to your score

 

[icespear]

Seriously??? You should see SOME difference in the Video scores when you change out from a single GPU to a Dual GPU..???

I read on Tom's hardware that Single processors are not out dated yet as not many programs utilize the dual processor to its degree and it could be another year before they are really required, so I bought a pretty fast single processor.

its not the score Im so much sorried about its more the "no change" in the score between single and dual video.

 

[gR3iF]

your cpu is pretty slow beside your graphic


and i tell you to buy a fx-57 or just a lower modell with san diego core and oc it

 

[b1lk1]

your cpu is way to slow to let you see a gain of a x1900 crf setup


buy a betterone

You are kidding I hope............

Anyone that says the CPU is too slow to see a difference is talking out their ass. At stock speeds you should be seeing at least 5K with Crossfire enabled. If you don't run Crossfire don't give bad advice for it. You are either doing something very wrong or that PSU is much too weak for Crossfire. I bet it only has the bare minimum voltage for Crossfire so that can cause issues when overclocking.

You didn't write it so I have to ask. Did you have the Dongle on properly? Some cards it is possible to put it on wrong and some cards are keyed so it can only install one way. Other than that, see if there is something in bios limiting one of the PCI-E slots speed or maybe there is something that must be enabled there for Crossfire to function properly. Either way, you should be seeing 5K+ stock. I have run my 165 @ 1.8GHz and got a 5K score so don't tell me that @ 2.4GHz he won't see a higher score......

 

[icespear]

Thanks B1lk1...

I confirmed that the Antec Truepower 550W should be more than enough power but my quesiton is have you tried running 06 with Crossfire disabled, if so what is your score? and does it dramatically change with Crossfire enabled?

Im not concerened about the end score... I am Concerned that when I run the card x1900 by itself I am getting the same score as when I run with corssfire enabled.

I have checked the power and it does only go in 1 way.. Each of the cards are recognised individually in each PCI-E slot and if the cards were not configured right then I wouldnt be able to enable crossfire....

I am going to upgrade to a x2 4400 soon, but still... is my CPU bottlenecking that bad that i am seeing no benefit from the crossfire? that is hard to believe?

 

[b1lk1]

There is no way you can bottleneck them so badly to see no increase. You should easily be seeing 5K, and most likely 6K @ stock speeds. Once you get a dual core CPU you should see a 1K boost in 06 as well. Also, try running 3D Mark05 and see if the same thing happens.

Also, what I mean by the dongle is the external cable that connects the 2 cards. You gotta have that on to run them in Crossfire mode properly. I am sure your PSU can run them stock, but once you start OCing, you may run out of juice. And yes, I see about a 1k drop @ stock speeds when I disable Crossfire. I am running X1800's so your scores should be even better than mine as well.

 

[noneed4me2]

Also you should be able to crank up the details to highest and that will be where you see a big difference, witthout a big hit on performance. ATI is more about the visual quality versus SLI's higher framerates. On cpu topic any core with 1mb L2 cache is your ideal for gaming, I agree with the others a 3700 Sandy, preferably revision. I have one of these and for gaming its best bang for buck deal around http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539 the other with less reviews is the newer one which is supposedly a dual Toledo core with one core disabled, and a better memory controller.

 

[Urlyin]

A nice read for any DFI 3200 mobo owner here ... on the RDX200 there is a BIOS option to enable CF ... not sure about the 3200 ...

 

[DRDNA]

icespear, Please ignore all post that its your CPU !!!!!!! You do indeed have a problem but it is not yor cpu even at stock it is fine!!!!!! I am thinking that you have not hooked up the needed floppy type power connector .


If you indeed have the floppy type power connected then go into bios and load optimized settings

 

[DRDNA]

And if none of that works you might try this bios setting in the pic belowe.

 

[gR3iF]

his cpu is too slow but if he even did not enable crf like its written in the manual then its bad^^
, but did the bios change something?

 

[KennyT772]

ok go play games such as oblivion. crank up the res and settings then play around with crossfire. u will notice immieditly