View Full Version : Crossfiring two ati 4870
The two cards are in place, they both show up in device manager, but i cant find any option in ccc which says anything about crossfire. I read that it's there you start the whole crossfiring thingie :P
Oh, and I also only have one bridge between the cards, but if I understand it right, I only need one?!
Comments??
Storm_Seraphin
06-07-2009, 21:52
ok m8, make sure that your bios is set to both cards on pci-bus & set x16 for master(pcie1) & slave(pcie2), mind you if your picking them up in device manager it should be.
In ATi's Catalyst Consol, under graphics settings you should have a tab that says Crossfire, somewhere under ATI overdrive or VPU recover, open the tab, there's only a check box, tick on or off. note: ATI catalyst consol won't / may not show a crossfire tab if it doesnt see both cards, also if you adjust Catalyst AI tab settings to advanced instead of standard, it messes thing up a little, the same as if you try & overdrive / overclock the cards. (pretty much has to be standard clock speeds to work well).
check Catalyst; information center, see is it shows both cards (memory size) to see is its showing both cards as one lot of total ram. catalyst may have changed im not sure that once cards are bridged they permanently act as one card.
http://game.amd.com/us-en/crossfirex_about.aspx
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
Thanks :) im experimenting here... drivercleaner, here i come :P
Now it's in ccc and box checked, but in there it says x8 is max :/
it's 4870 512mb gddr5 on a p5q pro.
Storm_Seraphin
07-07-2009, 01:26
not sure what your x8 means, but if its the pci -bus, it shouldnt be limited to that on or off crossfire, those cards are x16 on a pci 1.1 & 2.0 bus.
catalyst:
AA smooth= x8 @ 24x samples, sounds right, (most games dont go further than 4 ;) "yet" & when they do they'll update the catalyst
adaptive AA = quality
Anisotropic filtering = x16
:good2:
Hm.. in ccc under graphics hardware it says, on both cards;
maximum bus setting PCI express 2.0 x8
i'll go into bios again it seems...
Well, it works, at least in x8.
Testing with Fallout 3 and the new card is working and puffing hot air out of my black box :)
Storm_Seraphin
07-07-2009, 23:52
always a good sign, lol hot lil buggers :) maybe its to do with the dual, shareing system, i know i had two 1650's both running x16 , unbridged , but i upgraded to 1 4850 -512mb, does the same job as two of the others :good2:
Hehe, yep! Gonna see if my psu can support them both if I max out in Crysis too! Got the original psu that came with my antec sonata 3 case..
I have a 512 1950pro (i think :P) in my slightly modded shuttleXPC (Dont know how I manage to fit it in there nor how the psu can handle it) and THATS a hot card if any, and no extra fan on it either.. gees :P
Thanks for your help this far, i'll be back for more when time comes! lol :)
So my first problems appeared now :P
I'm pretty sure it has to do with the psu.. The rig is much more instable now and ctd sometimes (in fallout3, civ4 (!?) and today bf2142 when piloting a crowded transport :P) and after a looong gaming session it might even restart the whole computer..
I THINK it's an earthwatts 450 inside but i'm not sure, i'll come back to that later. I thought it would be sufficient but appearently not..
Ok, next on the issue list was a pitch black inside of the titans. I could only see my gun, all forcefields and windows and the other players. When I googled my problem peeps said lower your settings one by one and find out (I don't think the graphics are to high for me), so I just maxed everything up and voilaŽ now I see inside titans again ;)
How much power do RAM take? I installed more of them as well but again, I thought 450w would do :P
*edit* it's an Earthwatts 500w that is preinstalled with my Antec Sonata III.
Its not just the wattage of the PSU tho m8, if u can, check the amps on each 12v RAIL of your PSU
and make sure these can cope with the 4870 on each rail.
RAM is hardly anything 5 to 10 watts, mobo around 20-30, your concern will be on those
2x rails to run these 2 cards and of course the total wattage of them during peak play ;)
EDIT: the earthwatts 500 psu has 2x 17amp rails and i think you will need 24 to 32 amps per card here
Storm_Seraphin
13-07-2009, 08:01
IMO, a real half decent 550 watt psu minimum is where i'd start with a crossfire. (but hey thats me :p ).
Most ram is still only 3.3v
you can try your cards on seperate 12v output, (single supply) 1 line per card, if possible, nothing else.
Antec's calculator for psu's http://www.antec.outervision.com/
I'm buying a new psu when money is present :P
Hornet gave me a tip ;)
This http://www.dustin.se/pd_5010114408.aspx
and this http://www.dustin.se/pd_5010117513.aspx
I've actually never had any problems with psu's accept maybe one that died in a strange plastic smell after a couple of years in duty on my first rig.
Hell, the one in my shuttle couldn't handle a x1950pro peeps told me, but the shuttle support just said, if I can fit the card in there the power should not be a problem, and he was right :)
I bought the second one, 750w, and have used it for two days now and no crash in any game so far :)
CaptPlissken
23-07-2009, 07:47
PSUs are a key reason when games crash alot. The 4870 requires a 600+ unit for one card. I had the same problem when I was upgrading, although I had a good 500w unit but now have an 850 corsair one which is excellent - especially for Empire total war ;)
A good quality PSU will have good rails.. If you got a 1000 watt psu with 18amp rails
its never gonna run the 2 4870's but something like the corsair 750 or 850watt (i recommended the 750w) will.
Cheap PSU's are useless and many case manufacterers don't supply PSU's with their cases
anymore as these PSU's are costly. A very good sign of a good PSU is its weight, if i have a choice
of 2 PSU's (at a market or pc fair) for some cheap PC i'm building i would blindly go with the
heavier PSU.
Good choice gunfood, i spoke with you a lot about this and all is well now :cool: