Quad-SLI was a failure. How about X1900XTX+X1900CF?

[rob[GL]]

So, after the massive flop of that quad 7800gt setup, I get to play with;

AMD Athlon FX60
ATI Radeon X1900XTX 512MB
ATI Radeon X1900 Crossfire 512MB
DFI CROSSFIRE LanParty UT RDX200 CF-DR
2GB OCZ Platinum

And a bunch of other goodies...

I realize that the RD580 is less than a month away from retail shelves... The Asus A8R32MVP-Deluxe has been promised to me mid-march... But for now, this dual x8 board will have to do. I don't know how much of an advantage x16 slots will make... We will find out soon enough.

Anyways, I wont be taking many pictures of the actual hardware this time, it's not going into a big watercooling rig or anything special... Just a generic black atx mid tower case with the Enermax liberty 620w, and all stock air cooling for now.

For now, I haven't tried much overclocking... FX60 @ 3.0GHz for now (12x250 @ stock volts) and tried to overclock the crossfire... But using CCC overdrive (haven't tried ATI TOOL YET) I get artifacts like crazy...

Will keep you all posted.

Any suggestions would also be appreciated. :)

[althes]

have fun

[perkam]

NO rd580 :(

Perkam

[JasonDTM]

I believe the RDX200 will run 16/12... :/

[G H Z]

NO rd580 :(

Perkam

Huh?

[JuanFlaiter]

RD550?

I've seen working samples of RD580 :)

[Plywood99]

I believe the RDX200 will run 16/12... :/

as in 16x/12x on the slots???:stick:

[Daveb2012]

any new cards in a quad configuration will be a failure ,I think at a very consistent rate. Some seem to think when faster CPU's catch up, quad cards will then be effective. But by then the video cards will be much faster also.

[CrashOv3r1De]

Good luck with the RDX200, many people said its the worst board they ever used but if you set it up right, you will love it

What happened to quad SLI? why didnt you like it

[Dynasty]

I have two rdx-200's here being used constant.
One for benching and one for everyday desktop stuff they run solid.
Had few minor little issues at first with hang, but since last two bios
updates they run very well.
Doing an droop mod to these boards helps achieve an nice max. overclock. :)

[[cTx]Philosophy]

Is the customer overall happy with their setup rob?
Is this a new pc in the shop?
fire it up dawg..

[rob[GL]]

Will have some screenshots of the crossfire setup this week.

Just as a quick update, we ran some initial benchmarks with everything close to stock setting...

3DMark2006 - 10,000 points
3DMark2005 - 16,000 points

Having some difficulty trying to overclock the cards when in crossfire mode. Any slight overclock results in baaaaaaaaaaaad artifacts...

Anyone here experienced with crossfire overclocking?

[J-Mag]

what PSU are you trying to run that machine with?

[macci]

Anyone here experienced with crossfire overclocking?
enable crossire
disable ati2evxx services (2) (ctrl+alt+del)
open atitool beta 12 or later
select first card
adjust fan speed (70-90%)
adjust GPU voltage (1.5V should do it ok)
overclock (700/800 is an ok start I guess)
do the same for the second card

run benchmarks

overclock more

[d94]

what PSU are you trying to run that machine with?
wonderin that myself

[SlackeR]

Enermax Liberty 620w he said.

[ahmad]

Do what macci says, and

']Will have some screenshots of the crossfire setup this week.

Just as a quick update, we ran some initial benchmarks with everything close to stock setting...

3DMark2006 - 10,000 points
3DMark2005 - 16,000 points

Having some difficulty trying to overclock the cards when in crossfire mode. Any slight overclock results in baaaaaaaaaaaad artifacts...

PSU is a big deal. If you still followed what macci said, then you need to get something with more balls.

[Xenogias]

its a shame the last setup didnt work. I bet when nvidia makes its official quad-sli drivers that 2x asus dual7800gt cards will work, of course then there will be 7900gtx sli cards around which will put it to shame.

[cyron1]

have fun rob!

[rob[GL]]

I'm having a big problem with X1900 crossfire as well... When everything is stock, no overclock in CCC or ATITOOL, and cpu run stock... Game Test 3 in 3DMark2005 near frame 3000 starts to jerk and jump and artifact really bad... Just like the Quad-SLI problem...

I don't know what to do.

[ahmad]

']I'm having a big problem with X1900 crossfire as well... When everything is stock, no overclock in CCC or ATITOOL, and cpu run stock... Game Test 3 in 3DMark2005 near frame 3000 starts to jerk and jump and artifact really bad... Just like the Quad-SLI problem...

I don't know what to do.

Turn down Catalyst AI or try different settings for it.

[G H Z]

You never answered the PSU question rob ;)

[robberbaron]

You never answered the PSU question rob ;)

As mentioned the original post and repeated by a later reply, it's still an Enermax Liberty 620W.

[G H Z]

Right, well I'd say thats the problem then.

[Dumo]

Right, well I'd say thats the problem then.Enermax 660W here and its dying a slow death with CF:(
Run with Zippy now.

[Revv23]

yeah from what im hearing dual rail psu's are causing problems, look for a single rail psu maybe.

[PlatoonSgtElias]

what is availible? New ones have four rails... but one rail? I need a new PSU and I dont want to buy anything crap.. was planning on that Enermax 620W but why u guys say it is not good? Is modular Enermax or anyother psu good?

My new setup is Yonah2600, aopen mobo, x1900xtx+ another

[Rodzilla]

OCZ 600W should be able to push it...

[eva2000]

Enermax 660W here and its dying a slow death with CF:(
Run with Zippy now.
1KW http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=88695 even though it has 3x 12v rails, the 36A 3rd 12v is where PCI-E would draw from... enough for X1900XT CF ?

[rob[GL]]

You guys are hilarious. I don't think we have a more expensive PSU in the store... The 620W Enermax Liberty is $200CAD. It's the highest we have.

Anyways, for the record, we wiped the hard drive, did a clean install of windows, all new drivers, and the artifacting is gone!

Our first stock run was high 15,000's

We cranked the FX60 up to 250x12 for 3000MHz, and we got up to 16,000, then we started trying to overclock the video cards...

I am thinking the crossfire master card is bad? We could not do 720MHz on the memory, anything above stock 700MHz on the memory caused a lot of square artifacts, even just in windows... :(

Going to try to exchange the card from ATi and get another.

[cadaveca]

Make sure the power area of the cards is cool too(red heatsink)...i find anything over 50c is BAD. I've got the same problem...dumped a 120mm fan over the ends of the cards, and it went higher. Running 600W ocz. pretty sure you can run the ATI cards on own PSU...just het x8xx series and earlier had issues....the ASUS-top x1800 card confirms this, IMHO.

[rob[GL]]

lol

the voltage regulators on my X1800XT 512MB run at like 80c under load, and I've never had a problem :P

guess i got lucky
good clocking card

[cadaveca]

Maybe. Seems the cards coming into town lately are ALL crap. Or I'm doing something majorly wrong...which wouldn't surprise me.

[situman]

Not sure why everyone is underestimating the Enermax. Many reviews gives it top marks for power and stability.