Crossfire on X48, a surprise on a Monday morning

[MagickMan]

My brother-in-law turned into an emo little girl and he decided that his non-OCed 5850 isn't fast enough for him. I told him I'd come over and overclock it, it's identical to mine and even purchased at the same time, but in his rage he drops $630 on a new Asus 5970. Oh well, at least he didn't get ripped off.

So, this morning he calls to let me know it arrived, which is a shock to me since I didn't even know he'd ordered one. So I hop in the car and drive on over, but by the time I get there he already has it installed and is playing games (he's on vacation). So I said, "are you happy now?" to which he replied, "yeah, but I think I need a new CPU and mobo". /facepalm Anyway, we sit there and run benchmarks and timedemos, and damn that thing is quick. There's no microstutter that we can see, it's just crazy fast, almost twice as fast as the 5850 in HAWX and Far Cry 2. Later I ask him what he's gonna do with the 5850 and he tells me to give him $200 and I can have it, so I put a pair of Franklins on his desk when I leave. :awe: That was a no-brainer.

Now I'm sitting here wondering about crossfire on my X48 board (see sig). Gigabyte claims it has 32 lanes on the PCI-E bus, so I imagine both should run @16x. Is this correct? My PSU is fine for handling the second card and the bridge I have seems long enough. Anything else I need to think about before just plugging it in? I've never done CF/SLI and want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row.

Edit: I guess I'll have to get another T-Rad2 and VRM cooler... damn, I forgot about that.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Sweet!! Nothing like a good dose of some raw gpu horsepower. Time to dust off and fire up the ole copy of crysis.

 

[f4phantom2500]

hey if your brother in law's current motherboard is better suited for crossfire and/or has a better cpu than you, you'll be so set. of course for the cpu to be notably better than yours itd have to be an i5 quad or i7...in which case him upgrading now would be completely ridiculous...

 

[MagickMan]

We have the same CPU, only his mobo is an EP45-DS3L and has one PCI-E 16x slot. His CPU is overclocked to 3.6GHz, but it'll likely do more. I didn't spend as much time tweaking his as I did mine. I just installed it, set the OC in the BIOS, and let it run.

I think he'll probably buy an i7 before long because he's impatient, I'm going to wait it out and go to S2011 when it's released.

 

[VirtualLarry]

X48 Crossfire is full-speed. On my Q6600/X48 board, with one HD4850, I score around 13500 in 3dMark06. With two HD4850s, I score 19500.

 

[Termie]

To answer your question, the x38/x48 boards could do x16/x16. That was the reason I got an x38 a few years ago, but I never ended up crossfiring anything on it. Now I'm on a p55 so I've lost that feature.

 

[MagickMan]

That was... odd. I plugged the card in, hooked up the power connectors, connected the bridge, and my machine wouldn't start up. By force of habit, I cleared the CMOS and then it was fine. It booted into Win7 and detected the second card. However, when I went in to enable CF in CCC, CCC crashed. So, I uninstalled the drivers, rebooted, reinstalled the drivers, and now it's running properly and detecting the cards in CF. Yay. That wasn't the most user friendly install I've ever done, but it wasn't too bad.

Now time for some benches and overclocking.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hey, in CCC, under the Information section, is the second card listed as Disabled? Mine is, although it is clearly working properly in Crossfire due to the benchmarks, and the fact that CCC prompts me to enable Crossfire.

I think it's listed as Disabled, because of the display outputs - there's nothing plugged into the second card.

 

[aigomorla]

I get there he already has it installed and is playing games (he's on vacation). So I said, "are you happy now?" to which he replied, "yeah, but I think I need a new CPU and mobo". /facepalm

ROFL feels like a conversation i have over AIM with gillbot.
And he probably pulls a face palm everytime i tell him that too.

 

[Gillbot]

ROFL feels like a conversation i have over AIM with gillbot.
And he probably pulls a face palm everytime i tell him that too.

no, i just ignore you. if it were up to you, we'd all be running the evga dual 1366 board with two 980x's.

 

[MagickMan]

Hey, in CCC, under the Information section, is the second card listed as Disabled? Mine is, although it is clearly working properly in Crossfire due to the benchmarks, and the fact that CCC prompts me to enable Crossfire.

I think it's listed as Disabled, because of the display outputs - there's nothing plugged into the second card.

I'm showing that the card is Disabled but Crossfire is enabled and the cards are linked, ATI says this is normal because you can't use the outputs on the second card in CF mode. No idea if it's like that for everyone, but my benches are looking much higher.

Both Single and CF @975/1300

3D Mark Vantage, Performance
Single: P18,325
CF: P24,561

Warhead (1920x1200, Gamer, 4x AA)
Single: 42.1
CF: 54.6 (and it's really damned smooth)

FarCry 2 (1920, 4x AA, Ultra)
S: 64.4
CF: 110.1

That's not a bad bump.

ROFL feels like a conversation i have over AIM with gillbot.
And he probably pulls a face palm everytime i tell him that too.

He bitches about everything (my brother-in-law), but the truth is I don't think he can even tell the difference. He only games on his machine about once /month or he'll DL something new off Steam, play it for a couple hours and never touch it again.

 

[f4phantom2500]

He bitches about everything (my brother-in-law), but the truth is I don't think he can even tell the difference. He only games on his machine about once /month or he'll DL something new off Steam, play it for a couple hours and never touch it again.

That's about my PC gaming habits...only when I got the urge late last year to upgrade I spent weeks looking around til I bought an Athlon II X3 435 with mobo and a couple of new hard drives (all of my good ones were several years old and IDE). Reused everything else. Then, a couple of months later, I decided that my X1900GT wasn't cutting it anymore (in the interim I was using a laptop with intel GMA so the X1900 was definitely a step up), and spent another 2 weeks or so til I convinced myself to spend $85 on a 4870. I wish I had money to throw around like your brother in law, but I'm completely satisfied with what I have. To each their own, I suppose.

Also pretty badass setup you got there, glad the CF worked out well for you.

 

[MagickMan]

Thanks, I'm actually really happy with it right now. There's nothing I want to add or change, a second 5850 was the only thing left on my list. Until S2011 comes out, I think I'm set.

 

[manimal]

Thanks, I'm actually really happy with it right now. There's nothing I want to add or change, a second 5850 was the only thing left on my list. Until S2011 comes out, I think I'm set.

that's what we all say.....

 

[Axon]

Rofl, indeed. I'm totally happy with my system...until a newegg sale.