I was running 3870's in Crossfire since earlier this year. I was thinking of an 280GTX and gave that a try several months ago and found out that I would need a new PSU if I wanted to continue to use it so it went back (it would power off after playing for a while in a game).
The interesting thing I found was my 3DMark results. They actually dropped slightly (several hundred points) from the 3870 Crossfire (with no change in anything else...actually ran 3DMark between the swap out). I had fully uninstalled drivers, used driver cleaner, ccleaner, etc. before continuing with the nVidia card. I wouldn't have imagined the PSU would cause a "brick wall" effect but would just shut off it it were a power issue. I found that troubling but didn't have the cash for PSU and the card, so I returned it.
3 months later (late November) I picked up a 4870 1GB card and a Corsair 750w PSU. I got things together and it's the same situation. The results on my 4870 are less than my 3870CF configuration even on the same driver version.
The only caveat that I have is that I noticed that even on default configuration/speeds (I typically run at 400 FSB and keep my PCI-E at 100) my NB voltage is over the default limit (in PC Probe) and it seems to stay around 50c idle and around 60c when under load (this has been happening since I've owned the board). All other temps stay in the 30's and things seem well cooled. I figure the NB could be a culprit but that's why I'm here.
As for testing, I've ran 1920x1200, 8xAA so I'm not running the default 1280x1024 where I could potentially see a bottleneck. I've tried at various resolutions/settings and it's always lower or about the same.
I'm just wondering if anyone has any kind of clue on why this "brick wall" seems to be appearing. :disgust:
The interesting thing I found was my 3DMark results. They actually dropped slightly (several hundred points) from the 3870 Crossfire (with no change in anything else...actually ran 3DMark between the swap out). I had fully uninstalled drivers, used driver cleaner, ccleaner, etc. before continuing with the nVidia card. I wouldn't have imagined the PSU would cause a "brick wall" effect but would just shut off it it were a power issue. I found that troubling but didn't have the cash for PSU and the card, so I returned it.
3 months later (late November) I picked up a 4870 1GB card and a Corsair 750w PSU. I got things together and it's the same situation. The results on my 4870 are less than my 3870CF configuration even on the same driver version.
The only caveat that I have is that I noticed that even on default configuration/speeds (I typically run at 400 FSB and keep my PCI-E at 100) my NB voltage is over the default limit (in PC Probe) and it seems to stay around 50c idle and around 60c when under load (this has been happening since I've owned the board). All other temps stay in the 30's and things seem well cooled. I figure the NB could be a culprit but that's why I'm here.
As for testing, I've ran 1920x1200, 8xAA so I'm not running the default 1280x1024 where I could potentially see a bottleneck. I've tried at various resolutions/settings and it's always lower or about the same.
I'm just wondering if anyone has any kind of clue on why this "brick wall" seems to be appearing. :disgust:
Facebook
Twitter