13 replies to this topic

[Bumblebee]

Ok so suddenly I am having... negative performance when crossfire is enabled, and i mean like shit piss poor 10 to 15 fps on a $5,000 computer. When I disable crossfire I get stellar fps card runs perfect. Has anyone encountered this before? This happens in all games not one or two. Windows will run choppyish and not so smooth. In full screen mode the fps for anything is horrible with crossfire, when you run it in windowed full screen works a bit better but not a whole lot. Ive tried the last 3 versions of drivers and nothing. Im going to try rolling back to 12.3 and see if that helps. This is bull shit.... not had any problems for years and now bam.. shitfire.

[SoulWind]

Ok so suddenly I am having... negative performance when crossfire is enabled, and i mean like shit piss poor 10 to 15 fps on a $5,000 computer. When I disable crossfire I get stellar fps card runs perfect. Has anyone encountered this before? This happens in all games not one or two. Windows will run choppyish and not so smooth. In full screen mode the fps for anything is horrible with crossfire, when you run it in windowed full screen works a bit better but not a whole lot. Ive tried the last 3 versions of drivers and nothing. Im going to try rolling back to 12.3 and see if that helps. This is bull shit.... not had any problems for years and now bam.. shitfire.

try the 12.11 beta4's usually much better than any previous

the issue you report is always a driver issue

[DarkShadow]

try the catalyst 12.11 beta7's, because Soulwind is out of date and doesn't pay attention to AMD updates as well as he should. and grab the latest CAPs while you're at it. these are the only drivers you should be using, rolling back causes more problems than it fixes.

[Bumblebee]

Well I did the 12.10 and 12.11 beta drivers and the beta fixed this windows explorer crashing crap. The cards still suck in crossfinity at 5760X1080. A single 6970 plays everything like flawless in eyefinity mode. I emailed XFX, EVGA, and AMD. EVGA tells me i can run two X16 lanes on 4 and 6, im like, SWEET... Tried that out, no go. I know its not a lane issue, even at X8 there is no loss in performance that is noticeable, i think its 4%. XFX is like... durrrr i dont know. I emailed AMD and I get this response....



I had told them in my email i had 6970's. Obviously this person cannot read. Then they say I have a bottleneck.... a fucking bottle neck. Im not that stupid. Im running a 2600k at 4.5ghz and 8 gb of 2133 ram on a SDD drive and a 1000 Watt Corsair PSU. What a joke.. Probably had someone that came in that day to work like.. fuck it, i just dont care. lol

Oh and if AMD cant figure out their own issues or as to why this is happening.. im either going to sell one of those fucking cards or both and go back to nvidia.

[DarkShadow]

can run two X16 lanes on 4 and 6?

AMD is right, no Socket 1155 CPU will run dual 16X with PCI-E 3.0, that's what X79 is for. the best you can get is 16x on one slot and 8x on the other, otherwise go into your bios and set it to run GEN2, Gen2 will run 16x for both slots (which is the same speed as 8x/8x gen3).

however you aren't even explaining your problem or what applications the problem is occurring with so its quite difficult to help you. is ULPS enabled? disable it and see if it helps.

also, I just re-read your original post again to remember what you were on about, lol @ you spending 5000 on system and only having a 2600k.

[Bumblebee]

Both cards are running at X16 lanes and its a gen 3 version of it. Still I dont see that much difference going from 2 to 3 unless you are running something like a 690 gtx or a 7990. Oh and my pc cost a lot due to custom liquid cooling and other shit that went into it aside from the actual pc hardware. That liquid cooling works so damn well though... never going back to air!

Any way I got another email from AMD they moved me up to a higher level of technical support or whatever. They asked me for screen shots of running in X16 x 2 mode with both cards and they are. I still think its drivers but I think if after AMD looks at this and they find nothing Im going to sell these bitches and get a 7970 and just one, fuck the crossfire, one 6970 is running my games better than the two!

As far as whats happening, degraded performance in any 3d application, any game only in eyefinity mode with crossfire enabled. Crossfire works with single screen resolution, single card powers eyefinity like a mofo which is what im using at the moment. Im talking 1/3 the performance of a single card, 10 fps, graphically so horrible it makes you want to rip your eyes out.

[DarkShadow]

that makes more sense, but still 5000$ ? I've got a 7970 Lighting, a couple of good 256GB SSDs and an amazing 3930k build up in this bitch and that only cost me around 2200 for everything including the case.

Did you try disabling ULPS? it could be making the 2nd card goto into low speed states, thus bringing the first one to the exact same speeds during 3d applications (have two GPU-Z windows open, set it to record even when minimized, then look at the clock speed and whatnot after playing a game). I'd be willing to bet its something silly like that, otherwise I dunno, but for me I'd rather have a nice big 27" 2560x1440 screen to play wise instead of fucking bezels getting in my way.

there are still a few 7970 issues, but none that really fuck me over except for platform specific (x79) bugs that need to be worked out, which AMD has acknowledged and are fixing.

[Bumblebee]

Unfortunately it wasnt ULPS, it spins up to full speed as it should. Crossfire works on the single screen resolutions and like melts everything but eyefinity is the problem. I just think its shitty drivers or a flawed driver design. AMD hasnt emailed me back now in about 10 days ive responded a couple times to them and nothing after a series of questions and responses. Its like they dont give a fuck. The cards work but eyefinity is shit in crossfire, im just using one card at the moment and its working wonderful. You think it would be worth the upgrade to a single 7970 for eyeinity? I know if the 6970 can do it, it can do it much better. Just pisses me off I got two cards and I cant fucking utilize them the way they were made. And yep im in dual X16 lanes no bottle necks, this really pisses me off. Im about to sell them on ebay and just get a 7970 or the 680. Tired of this shit!

[DarkShadow]

are all 3 of your monitors hooked up to the first card? because their supposed to be, otherwise you may well be software-rendering 3d applications.


it doesn't matter what card you buy, the drivers are poor in both camps with this generation of cards. some games just don't support crossfire so you need to use some hacks to enable it, just make sure you always install the latest beta drivers and CAPs. 12.11 b11 has been pretty good to me so far since they got around to fixing the freezing issue with X79.


you still haven't really mentioned what applications are causing the issue though.

[Bumblebee]

you still haven't really mentioned what applications are causing the issue though.

Sorry, its everything man, every game I play no matter what it is, new old, all does the same with eyefinity/crossfire. Shit piss poor fps in everything. One of the reasons im considering a 7970 or the 680 because ill just stick with a single graphics card. Just one of these 6970s are playing everything damn well at 5760X1080 resolutions, just not maxed out lol Its why I think its something to do with the drivers, if it is effecting all games no matter what. And yes I have all 3 screens on the same card, two dvi and one mini display port.

I think the drivers and the hardware got a long way to go for eyefinity and crossfire, eyefinity works great on single cards but ive had no luck with crossfire, now on a single screen the crossfire setup MELTS everything i have on max settings. Its awesome, but I have become addicted to the 3 screen setup with a huge range of view in games. Especially Battlefield 3.... nothing like seeing some bitch trying to sneak up on your right and you take his head off with a rifle.. lol I think ill wait for the next round of graphics cards though from nvidia and amd if the drivers suck as I keep hearing on both sides. For now a single 6970 is working well and I just got a back up one if it dies... heh.

[DarkShadow]

why not use just a single 7950 for the time being? its like 5% slower than a 7970 at best.

[Bumblebee]

Im probably gonna put these on ebay together and get some of the money i spent on them back should be able to get a 7970/7950 and still have money left over, quite a bit actually. Now that grahpics cards are powering multiple screens without having a second one, no need for two really. Plus you dont have to deal with microstutter. Never know this time of year someone might really want those 6970's, last time I sold my 5870's after a year of having them for literally what I paid for them new! The sad part was i had a low buy it now and the bids when over the buy it now price, i lol'd.

[DarkShadow]

I haven't had too many problems with the one I'm using, MSI R7970 Lightning but if I were to do it again I'd probably consider one of the better VaporX cards from Sapphire because they run cooler. either way works.

[Bumblebee]

AMD sent me an email weeks after the last one ive got and they have told me they are moving my issue up to their engineering team... so maybe I will get a better idea of whats going on, maybe they will figure something out, its gota be the drivers, and in the end if it isnt, totally selling them. lol