Long story short, it flat-out doesn't work on any PC game. SURE, MSI Afterburner shows both cards working, HOWEVER, it's not really. I still get the exact same results running two ATI Radeon HD 4850s compared to one. There's zero difference. I have been trying to get the fkr to work for well over a month now and I'm pretty sure I've tried and tested just about every thing except tinkering with the mobo's bios. I recalled reading something about how I'm supposed to enable something through the BIOS to get CrossFireX to work but I cannot remember what. Not sure if that's the prob but who knows. I am sick and tired of this BS and I need help. Also, I have tried using Radeon PRO and all sorts of profile configurations with zero results. Here is all my PC info: ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo Motherboard Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit (Build 7600) Corsair 750 Watt Power Supply Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3 GHz / 1333 FSB ATI Radeon HD 4850 1 GB VRAM x2 (CrossFireX Enabled) Corsair 2 GB x 2 (4 GB total) 800 MHz Seagate 750 GB HDD @ 7200 rpm DirectX 11 Catalyst Control Center ver. 10.11 BOTH the SFIV and FFXIV benchmarks only shows that one video card is present. I have been trying to get it to work on the following PC games with no results whatsoever. Street Fighter IV Street Fighter IV Benchmark Call of Duty: Black OPs Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Final Fantasy XIV Final Fantasy XIV Beta Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark Assassin's Creed 2
Any CPU limited games that utilise less than 50% GPU (max) in crossfire will probably run faster with a single card. Xfire uses a bit of CPU. However, those games that arent CPU limited are where Xfire shines. ATIs drivers arent the best for showing off crossfire though, try TwL or Von Dachs driver mods. http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=322616 http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=331759 Benchmarks/games that dont run full screen will only use one GPU.
the final fantasy xiv benchmark only ever showed one of my gpus when i had my 5850x2 setup so i dont think thats an issue. from what i can see, your cpu is a bottleneck. crossfire setups require more cpu overhead. if you overclock that cpu, you should see more performance at all resolutions. does msi afterburner show both cards at full load or half load? which driver set are you running? have you got the latest crossfire application profiles?
Yeah I got to agree, your cpu isn't up to snuff for a crossfire system really these days. You could always try the highest res and maxed out eye candy and see if you notice any kind of difference, but with that cpu, I'm doubtful you will notice much gain even then. Time for a upgrade.
I see. Well, I was planning to upgrade to an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @2.83 GHz. That's the best I can do with my current mobo.
If I were you I'd overclock the E8400. It's a great chip to overclock, and you'll see quickly if the problem is here or not. I can't believe an E8400 can bottleneck a 4850 Xfire that much. Remember that when 8800GTX came out, many persons did SLi them with some 65nm C2D and gains were absolutely normal (with a bad scaling, but big gains). 8800GTX and HD4850 have ~the same performances, so there's a problem for sure. Don't play anything in windowed mode and try 3Dmark 2006/Vantage. If you have like ~13000 GPU score in Vantage, crossfire is working. Oh, and don't disable Catalyst Ai because it will disable Xfire too.
Just give up crossfire and go with a single high end gpu. ALL benchmarks show big gains in crossfire because they are coded to take advantage of multi gpus while most games are not.
You are CPU bound, Overclock that C2D and see what happens... Although it is still time to start planning an upgrade...
Just wondering ... is your crossfire bridge secured properly? And no, His E8400 shouldn't be a 'CPU bottleneck' for HD4850 that cause it not working at all. Al tho if he OC it he would see less of that happening in certain games.
It used to be the case that high end CPUs were easily fast enough for most games. I'm seeing more games now that are too much for even my quad at 4.2GHz. Some games cant even push a single 5770 to the max due to lack of cpu power/bad optimisation. Bleeding crazy it is!!
There is no way that a C2D can feed two 1000 Gflop cards, Im sorry even at 4.0 ghz the cards would still have more left in them...