Sapphire HD3870X2 Low performance

[cadaveca]

Thanks for that info..I'll be checking that out when I get home myself!

[mr2sw21]

Well I got some new discovery, first I am sure my mobo is clean cause it is brand new. However, what I have found is (I returned the hd3870x2 and bought another hd3850 256, just for the heck of it) So I used crossfire which showing in the CCC but not in GPU-Z don't know why, any how I tired to tested in 3Dmark06 any way and this is what I got.

So what I found out it is not the problem of HD3870x2 is whenever I crossfire the CPU seem like lack of power somehow. Everything happen (for the lack) is same part as the hd3870x2. So it is either CCC do not support crossfire in XP or XP problem. Hope they can resolve this soon. I am pretty disappointed with this result

[cadaveca]

Well, I will say this much...it's already been stated the CrossfireX would not be supported in XP....and CCC sports the label "CrossfireX" instead of just "Crossfire"...

[mr2sw21]

so does that mean if I wanna get crossifreX I must use Vista? No other way out?

[everlast247]

Unfortunately that is the case. CrossfireX is supported in Vista only.

I have contacted ATi who have advised that "CrossfireX will not be supported in the up coming releases of CCC" and "I should enjoy my hardware"

So if you have 2 PCIe x16 slots and want to run another card with a X2 then Vista is our only option at this stage. Will CrossfireX ever be supported in XP?

Edit: had PCIe 2.0 but x 16 is all that is required.

[cadaveca]

Unfortunately that is the case. CrossfireX is supported in Vista only.

If AMD is as "Customer-centric" as Hector claims, you'd be dead wrong.








Time will tell.

[Viss]

Get equal scores in 3D 03/05/06 with single 3870X2 in both XP and Vista. I use XP 32b with cat 8.2 and Vista 64b with cat 8.3 (no hotfix). Its due to cat 8.3 for XP if you score less in XP.

[mr2sw21]

oh really good news then. Lets try tonight

[Viss]

XP cat 8.2:


Vista cat 8.3:


XP cat 8.2 (gpuz shows the 3870 thats also in but obviously not running as this is XP)


Vista cat 8.3:


XP cat 8.2:


Vista cat 8.3:

[everlast247]

If AMD is as "Customer-centric" as Hector claims, you'd be dead wrong.








Time will tell.

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...ase_notes.html

CrossFireX™ (Quad) Support 3 or 4 GPUs in CrossFireX™ Mode
This release of Catalyst™ introduces CrossFireX™ Quad support. Users with any combination of a ATI Radeon™ HD 3870, ATI Radeon™ HD 3850, and ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2 graphics accelerators running with 3 or 4 GPUs will be able to run in CrossFireX™ Quad mode (when used in a CrossFireX™ compatible PC). CrossFireX™ Quad will deliver significant performance improvements in a number of applications. Users can expect to see further DirectX 10 QUAD CrossFireX™ performance improvements in future Catalyst™ releases.

Users are now able to run in CrossFireX™ (Quad) mode while running in extended desktop mode on the Windows Vista desktop


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: CrossFireX™ (Quad) is only supported under the Windows Vista operating system

[mr2sw21]

thanks so much for the info hope it will works for me tonight.

[mr2sw21]

Thanks so much loc.o it works great with CCC8.2 It looks great with 2 hd3850 so I will get the HD3870x2 again and see if it improve too. Thanks,

[dsturner]

I am running 1x 3870x2 on a Maximus board and a E8400 0/C to 4.2 GHZ....actualy just read the sig. Vista makes a difference with this card and its drivers as I didn't have a great deal of luck with XP. With the O/C on the card and CPU I can get 20,000 in 3D Mark 06.

Both the card and CPU seem to scale very well togeather wich leads me to believe that some people that are getting lower scores are bottlenecked by there CPU's and XP. I am using Driver 8.3 with the hotfix 8.4. I O/C the card with AMD GPU utility with the fix for the 3870x2 and use Rivatuner to control fan speed. I originaly tried this with an E6600 O/C to 3.5.....there is no comparison A faster CPU made a huge difference with this card.

Thumbs up to INTEL price/performance = :}

I was wondering though as I haven't had a lot of time.....I seem to have hit a wall just higher than 1880 FSB think with this board....has anyone achieved higher on air and how much? I can run at 4.3 GHZ solid but craps out after that......My Cpu temps are fine and running CPU at 1.450 v (cheap if I kill Ill buy another) but it runs fine.... max temp 88c its good for 105 I want to keep going....lol

I would like to know if the card will keep scaling or it will run out of memory.

Anywys any input would be greatfull....

Im buy another 3870x2 next week and will see what that will do....anyone know how to increase voltage besides hard modding?

[Viss]

1.45v might be a bit low for 4.3 threw 3D. Temp already very high though. Board shouldnt have a problem with that FSB at all, ram perhaps? It wil keep scaling for a while

[chris.y2k.r1]

For all you people with XP problems trying to run CrossfireX, just use the drivers that came with the card for XP. For Vista use the 8.3 drivers with the hotfix. I get between 20000 and 22000 in XP and Vista respectively.

If your card won't let you enable crossfire, then you've fubared the drivers (Probably with mixing RivaTuner and the Drivers which doesn't work right anyway thanks to the crappy ass PowerPlay problems. The HotFix seems to correct the Powerplay issue (In Vista) so most people probably don't need to flash their BIOS'). If you look in CCC and there's no "Crossfire Enabled" option checked then you need to uninstall everything (Including Riva Tuner, ATI Tool or whatever you have) Then Reboot and reinstall. Remember, Vista = Use 8.3+Hotfix (Which is actually 8.4). For XP use the disk that came with the card which is 99% of the time 8.2 and 8.2 does have CrossfireX support for XP, trust me - it's there.

Another thing.. If you've made it this far you've probably come accross the problem with overclocking and running the fans at high speeds. I cannot find a combination that actually works (Outside of flashing BIOS with new freqs). I've found that if you want to overclock this card, RivaTuner doesn't work (Even the newest version).. nor does AMD GPU tool.. at least not 100% correctly. I should mention that I'm talking about CrossfireX, a single card may work correctly - I don't know, I didn't bother with just 1 card.

Here's what I did to solve the problems. First of all, I used a fan controller and manually plugged the fans for the GPU into a 3 pin motherboard header that I attached to my fan controller (Some soldering required to retain the original connector on both the card and the fan controller). This should be fairly obvious what to do by looking at it. 2 pins are +12v and Ground. Usually Red or yellow and black. Then the 3rd in line is the RPM sensor and the 4th is for PWM managment. You don't need the fourth. The fans can run either way, either by power variance or pulse width modulation. Then I flashed my BIOS to get rid of that damn PowerPlay crap as that does screw up the OCing. Then I used AMDGPUTool To clock up the cores. Prior to finishing all this my best score was 22K in 06. I will post up a new result when I get home from work today and have a chance to start clocking :-)

[Viss]

For the record, you mean crossfireX as in 3 or 4 or just a single X2 or 2 3870's ? The last 2 wil work obviously in XP, i doubt 3 or 4 cores wil.

[dsturner]

Thanks for the info loc.o. I will try some higher voltages and see if it gets me over the hump. What is the highest voltage you tried (I think I read you have an E8500 ) Think a may have to go to water. I have another one on order so Ill jack up the voltage on the weekend.As far as the ram go I dropped them down into the 900mhz range when I tried 4.5GHZ so I think your rite about voltage....


LOL....I see you have both CPU's....Isn't the RAMPAGE an X48 chipset?

[Viss]

For 3D and air i have used 1.55v bios (load line calibration disabled) max so far, this E8500 runs very hot. Only for some 3D marks that is, daily its set at 1.35v. Formula is X48 yes but this is a flashed Maximus so chipset is stil X38

[sKoToSa]

I just got this card as well and I am a bit confused on how to overclock it?

I ran 3DMark06 with stock clocks and got a score of about 13,600 then I used the latest RiveTuner to Speed UP the fan to 100% (which worked) and increase the clocks to 900/1000. My score actually went down, to like 13,300?

I have even tried flashing its BIOS via DOS and a moded BIOS file I made to clocks of 850/1000 and rivatuner and AMD GPU Clock tool just show its stock clocks? I used GPUz to comfirm that I flashed it and I did indeed succesfully flash it.

So far I believe with RivaTuner it might just be OC one core and when I flashed it via ATIFlash DOS I think only flashed one core as well and not the other, for it did not find another BIOS to flash?

What must I do to correctly make this card Overclock or even to Flash it? I can't find the answer any where.

Also am I supposed to have a CrossFire X Menu with just 1 HD3870X2, cause if so I don't and CCC Overdrive does not work with me even with both 6pin and 8pin molex connecters pluged in? It says That "Overdrive has not been instalized, please try again at a later time" (CCC 8.3 + HotFix).

Thanks again for the thread and further insight on this card.

[ElAguila]

I am not sure what is happening with the ccc. It worked for me. The amdgpuclocktool is the most common for oc'ing. You have to set BN4(gpu2) to the clocks you want and then BN3(gpu1). It will say it failed but it will work.

[sKoToSa]

I am not sure what is happening with the ccc. It worked for me. The amdgpuclocktool is the most common for oc'ing. You have to set BN4(gpu2) to the clocks you want and then BN3(gpu1). It will say it failed but it will work.

OK thanks, what about flashing?

[ElAguila]

I haven't oc'd through flashing yet.

[sKoToSa]

Well I have flashed my Card to 960/1005 and it seems to work fine. It just dosen't want to score high in 3Dmark06!

[efk0nas]

Kotz!

Follow these steps to fix the powerplay issue: I wish ati would fix this though because doing this is a pain in the *** and it MAY void your warrenty.

First download GPU-z 1.7
http://downloads.guru3d.com/GPU-Z-0.....html#download

This tool will allow you to extract your video card bioses..That's right your 3870x2 has two bios files!

When you open Gpu-z it will display your cards info. Next to the bios version number is an arrow. Click it and it will extract the first bios file. Save it to your desktop and rename it "backup0" or whatever. At the bottom of the tool it will give you the option of selecting the second card. Click the down arrow and select the second card then extract that bios to the desktop and name it "backup1" or whatever. Double check the two files: one should be like 44kb and the other should be 64kb. Which ever one is the 44kb file is the (slave) card which we will get into later.

Now that you have those files download the atibios editor
http://www.computerbase.de/downloads...i_bios-editor/

Open each file and change the low power 3d clocks. Make them the same as the high power 3d clocks. Also make the voltage the same. Do not change the 2d or startup clocks unless you want to for some reason. Also make sure your changes are the same for each bios ex. dont make one bios file have a low power 3d frequency clock 300mhz and the other have 400mhz. Save both files under different names like "card0" and "card1" because you want to keep your original bios files in case you screw up your flash. Remember "card0" should be like 44kb because its the slave card.

The bios editor you downloaded should contain the ATI Flash utility.
Next you need to make a windows boot disk in order to get into dos. After your boot disk is created make a folder called "boot" and place the "atiflash" application file in that folder along with the backup bios files and the modded bios files.

Get a pen and paper and write down all your file names from the "boot" folder including their sizes.
card0 = 44kb
card1 = 64kb
backup0 = 44kb
backup1 = 64kb
something to that effect.

Write down the following commands in sequence because you may have to reference them in a "blind flash" This occurs when you flash your bios incorrectly and upon a boot the screen goes blank but everything boots normal. Blind flashing involves booting from your boot disk and typing the commands without being able to see them. That is why you need to write everything down and have your backup files.

Next restart the comp and hopefully your boot disk should take you to the dos prompt.

You should see "A:"
(write down the following commands)

Type "cd\boot" then hit "enter"

Type "atiflash -ai 0" then "enter"
(this command will display the info of your slave card. Make sure file size is about 44kb)

Next type "dir" then hit "enter"
(this will list all the files from your floppy disk. Verify that the file names and extensions match what you have written down. Dos my have displayed the file "backup1" as "b~1". If you blind flash you will use "b~1". Also extensions are files that have like .rom or .bin attached to the name. Ex "card0.rom". If you have extensions then use them when flashing.

Type "atiflash -p 0 card0" or "atiflash -p 0 card0.rom" if you have extensions.
(remember card0 is the name of your bios file)

If the flash was done properly you should see at the end something like "10000kb writen" "10000kb verified".

Now for the master card:
Type "atiflash -p 1 card1"

If the flash was done properly you should see at the end something like "10000kb writen" "10000kb verified".

Thats it your done now just reboot and hope you dont need to do a blind flash.

If you have any doubts or if something is different from what I have written, do not proceed, rather write everything down and post it.

Hi there! Great tutorial, tnx a lot! But i've got one problem: when i start in bios and type "atiflash -ai 0" i get report that the slave card's bios is 64kb (when i extracted it with gpu-z i got 44kb file). Master card reports same 64kb bios size too ("atiflash -ai 1"). What should i do? Should i still flash slave card's bios with modified 44kb file?

[Flameout]

Hi there! Great tutorial, tnx a lot! But i've got one problem: when i start in bios and type "atiflash -ai 0" i get report that the slave card's bios is 64kb (when i extracted it with cpu-z i got 44kb file). Master card reports same 64kb bios size too ("atiflash -ai 1"). What should i do? Should i still flash slave card's bios with modified 44kb file?

I have the same problem, what should I do?