[catchthefloaty]

i have two sapphire hd 4850's and and not exactly satisfied with it. so before i make the swtich to nvidia becuase ill be honest, i have never been happy with ati cards. lets see if we can revoke it. my main issue is that despite ccc saying that cf is active, i usually get better fps by disabling it. especially in crysis. so lets round up all the minds of this forum and help me.lol

i appreciate anybody who even reads this, im desperate.

heres the system specs:

abit ip35-p mobo, e5200, 2 sapphire hd 4850's, g-skill ram ddr2-800, and winxp sp3 32-bit. using ccc 9.11(the newest as of 12/9/09)

 

[ghettogeddy]

i wouldn't go nivida at this time there just not there yet/anymore im jumping to the red soon, and ive never been a true fan of 2 cards i bought 2 7600gt's 4 years ago and was disappointed with them from the get i got better frames and more stable play with one card

 

[Derp]

17" monitor? what resolution?

 

[catchthefloaty]

1280*1024. and with a high level custom config in crysis, it runs silky smooth with cf disabled. ive tried noth 2 bridges and one, not much diffrence from what i can tell.

actually, i forgot to mention, the moniter in my sig went bad... im on a 19" now.

 

[Nautilus]

4850 Crossfire has to be better than GTX 285. The problem is your rig and your monitor. Firstly you should have researched a little bit before buying second 4850 because of your P35 motherboard. With a P35 mothboard the maximum PCI-Express lanes you have is 16x/4x so that means your second card is severely crippled. That is reason #1 why you have poor performance. When it comes to second, i think you should have again read forums,reviews and learned as much as you can about crossfire. Crossfire scales well only at high resolutions. For example: (estimated values)

@1024x768: 10% performance increase
@1280x1024: 35% performance increase
@1600x1200: 70% performance increase
@1920x1080: 85% performance increase

I think you get how it works. The higher res you have the more performance you get. With that 17" monitor of yours your options will be limited.You need at least 1680x1050 resolution to see benefits of crossfire.

I suggest you to sell your mobo, add some cash and buy yourself a nice P45 mobo. It is more than capable of running two 4850s on crossfire (even 4870s). And for the last a wide screen LCD (with at least 1680x1050 or 1920x1080 resolution support) or a 19" CRT monitor with higher resolutions.

Good luck

 

[catchthefloaty]

thanks for a response. i knew about the 4x slot btw, i was on a budget oc build when i bought this setup. but if i were to get a new mobo with 16x and 16x. would i see godlyness in my computer? lol also is there anything i can do to make this function better on my current setup?

 

[Nautilus]

lol godlyness.

i'm not sure about that but the difference would be noticeable. my mobo has 16x/16x lanes and pci express 2.0. So it's OK even if I go with 5970 Crossfire lol

To make CF work better, you can play games always at highest resolution as much as possible. What's your highest resolution anyway? I guess it's 1600x1200.

And you can overclock your PCI Express slot to increase data flow. I don't recommend anything above 110Mhz (default clock is 100Mhz) though because it may be dangerous for other components like your harddrives.

 

[catchthefloaty]

hmm.. my highest resolution is what its currently at actually. its a cheapo moniter cause my old other cheapo mionter broke.lol (yes im very cheap when it comes to moniters....
im thinking about saving up money and going i7 soon... anysuggestions on a mobo with two 16x? i found one that did but it also had a third slot. i only want two so theres more pci slots. lol

 

[catchthefloaty]

hmm.. my highest resolution is what its currently at actually. its a cheapo moniter cause my old other cheapo mionter broke.lol (yes im very cheap when it comes to moniters....
im thinking about saving up money and going i7 soon... anysuggestions on a mobo with two 16x? i found one that did but it also had a third slot. i only want two so theres more pci slots. lol

 

[Penicilyn]

well you can save a little money and go with i5

Foxconn Inferno Katana
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16813186175

 

[catchthefloaty]

im considering messing with the pcie clock slightly. i know single cards dont see an improvement, but would a 16x/4x cf setup see any boost?

 

[Penicilyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catchthefloaty im considering messing with the pcie clock slightly. i know single cards dont see an improvement, but would a 16x/4x cf setup see any boost?

Nope, all you'll end up doing is frying your cards. Don't do it.

 

[catchthefloaty]

hmm.. maybe if i come along a spare moniter il just run that situation. lol
would that work without to much trouble?

 

[ZainyAntics]

Well, on my old e8400 system crysis ran terrible with 2 4890s (15fps) and when I upgraded to x58 my average fps went to 67....

 

[catchthefloaty]

well im just asking at this point that untilll i upgrade, if i come across another moniter i plug it in for dual display non-crossfire, will that work fine?

 

[ghettogeddy]

i would upgrade that monitor before going with a new chip

 

[HondaGuy]

Sapphire HD 4850 here CF.... With Phenom II 550...