4870X2 + 4870 Tri-Fire testing

[adadk]

Just thought I'd share my personal 4870 Tri-Fire benchmarks with the rest of the Rage3d community.
I didn't bother to do a lot of things that most review sites do. Didn't defrag my harddrive. Didn't perform a clean install of Windows. Didn't shut off a whole bunch of apps
that use up system resources. After all, do we really do all this when playing games?

System:
Asus P5E (bios 0702)
Intel C2D E8400 @ 3.6Ghz (9x400)
4GB Mushkin Redline PC8000 (480Mhz / 5-5-5-18 2T)
WD VelociRaptor
Sony DVD-RW
Creative Xtreme Audio PCI-E x1
Antec Quattro 850W
Windows Vista 32-bit with current updates.

Sapphire Radeon 3870 512MB
Sapphire Radeon 4870 512MB
Palit Radeon 4870X2 2GB

3870 was tested with Catalyst 8.6 and OC'd to 860/1150.
4870 tested with 8.7's and OC'd to 790/1050.
4870X3 tested with the 8.7 hotfix.




All games are played with a screen res of 1920x1080. I used a moderate 4xAA in in-game settings where applicable.
Benched minmaxavg with Fraps 3 times, then averaged.
(card) - min / max / average

Games:

Crysis (DX10)
ET: Quake Wars
STALKER (Oblivion Lost Mod 2.1.1)
Bioshock (DX10)
Call of Duty 4
GRID
__________________________________

Call of Duty 4:
Played through entirety of Mission 2 "Crew Expendable".

3870 - 29 / 108 / 51.162
4870 - 40 / 171 / 100.794
4870X3 - 32 / 398 / 172.478

Crysis:
Beach landing to Aztec's body cutscene.

3870 - 0 / 25 / 14.958
4870 - 14 / 49 / 29.038
4870X3 - 23 / 90 / 44.884

Bioshock:
Plane crash through to room with 4 elevators.

3870 - 0 / 354 / 75.168
4870 - 0 / 372 / 93.919
4870X3 - 0 / 333 / 103.308

GRID:
One full race.

3870 - not tested.
4870 - 61 / 133 / 91.431
4870X3 - 53 / 108 / 68.828
Results are borked I think.

ET:Quake Wars:
Played online on full 24/24 Ranked server.

3870 - 23 / 117 / 57.552
4870 - 22 / 152 / 86.783
4870X3 - 18 / 305 / 145.219

STALKER:
First mission. Trader to Nimble (USB key) back to Trader.

3870 - 16 / 81 / 59.411
4870 - 0 / 537 / 271.213
4870X3 - 31 / 909 / 270.968

3DMarkVantage:

4870 - P8112
4870X2 - P10384
4870X3 - P11565

Maybe I did something wrong when trying to get CrossFireX enabled. I did have some problems getting things recognized, so it could be affecting my results negatively.

[Greasy]

Damn nice results. Kick up the AA next time around. I don't think it will hurt you too much.

I'm really considering getting an X2. Guess I'll get a visiontek since they are the only one with a lifetime warranty. (I think)

[jam2k]

Damn nice scaling there.

Try some 24xAA next time

[adadk]

COD4.

CCC - Wide-tent AA at max. 16x AF.

14 / 64 / 37.526

Gameplay felt really sluggish though, like i had a bit of movement/firing lag.

[caveman-jim]

wow, nice! appreciate the time and results adadk!

[adadk]

I still think my setup is borked though. I dont see the option in CCC about choosing my Render GPU combinations. Perhaps this is because of the X2? Or is this option solely for those with 3 or more actual cards?

[SSXeon]

Tri-Fire is kinda borked like you said. Try 8xAA if you could.

[-n7-]

X3 minimum fps ftl

Thanx for all the testing.

[Xion X2]

You need to update to the latest driver (8.8 beta). It has better support for the X2 and CrossfireX.

I just don't get guys who buy a brand new card and run older drivers for benching.

[adadk]

Latest drivers on AMD's site is the 8.7's. I'm not in the habit of using beta drivers.

[Viral]

Thanks for this.

Clearly X3 isn't worth it, at least with a 512MB 4870 anyway. It's clear in GRID that extra VRAM is very much worth it.

[Treeckcold57]

Originally Posted by Viral

Thanks for this.

Clearly X3 isn't worth it, at least with a 512MB 4870 anyway. It's clear in GRID that extra VRAM is very much worth it.

Right. 4870X2+4870 can't made it. But 4870X2 CF would.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15293/9

But adadk is running on different resolution is at 1920x1080. Only GRID that affect tri-fire.

[adadk]

Now now...as i said, i was having issues getting CFX set up. This is the first time i've had a multi-GPU setup. Maybe i did something wrong. I'll be tearing the machine open today and reinstalling the cards. If I get it right, then hopefully we'll see some improvement.

[bill dennison]

i think you need to perform a clean install of Windows and i don't think the 8.7 drivers are set up for 3 and 4 way cf with the 4000's

[adadk]

I tried the 8.8's and benching CoD4 and Crysis actually resulted in lower scores. COD4 dropped horribly.

Crysis 8.7 - 23 / 90 / 44.884
Crysis 8.8 - 17 / 40 / 30.895
COD4 8.7 - 32 / 398 / 172.478
COD4 8.8 - 38 / 152 / 77.664

Vantage gave me bad corruption right at the start of the Jane Nash test. Numerous reboots, putting my CPU back to stock, even the Vantage 1.0.1 update didnt help.

I took out the single 4870 and am now just running the X2. Vantage still gives me the corruption, although i'm using the Cats provided on the Palit CD. (Driver Package 8.52.6)

Thanks for the user title -n7-!

[SSXeon]

If you dont mind report your issues using the link in my sig. I was very pissed to see tri-fire working so poorly.

[adadk]

Just gonna have to wait and see what 8.9's bring. I dont think the issue with GRID has anything to do with a lack of VRAM, since my single 4870 averaged 91 fps, 20+ fps better than X3 on the same settings.
It's really hit-and-miss with Tri-Fire right now.

Reported it SSXeon. Do they actually read those though?

[SSXeon]

Originally Posted by adadk

Just gonna have to wait and see what 8.9's bring. I dont think the issue with GRID has anything to do with a lack of VRAM, since my single 4870 averaged 91 fps, 20+ fps better than X3 on the same settings.
It's really hit-and-miss with Tri-Fire right now.

Reported it SSXeon. Do they actually read those though?

Thanx. Yeah grid is fine on 512MB cards till 8xAA and higher res. Benchies show tri-fire the same as crossfire, or worse.

[jpelosi2002]

I'm 90% certain that by using a 512 MB 4870 card, Crossfire automatically limits the gpu ram to 512 MB for EACH gpu on the x2 card or what ever other card you have in there. In other words the gpu memory is always limited by the lowest common denominator. If I'm stating the obvious I apologize.
Jim

[SSXeon]

Originally Posted by jpelosi2002

I'm 90% certain that by using a 512 MB 4870 card, Crossfire automatically limits the gpu ram to 512 MB for EACH gpu on the x2 card or what ever other card you have in there. In other words the gpu memory is always limited by the lowest common denominator. If I'm stating the obvious I apologize.
Jim

Yeah but it should still scale better then it does. Even at lower res it is fu*ked.

[bill dennison]

Originally Posted by SSXeon

Yeah but it should still scale better then it does. Even at lower res it is fu*ked.

true, and 2-x2's don't scale that well yet
if they get 3 way working better with a x2 and a 4870 i'll get a x2 but for now i'll stick with my 2- 4870's

[adadk]

I never put faith into the driver team to actually work on 3-way CF right out of the gate. It would have been a nice surprise if they had had, but they didn't. I understand that priorities go to 2-way and 4-way before 3-way, since Tri-Fire would be the least used mix. Oh well.

I'm just gonna have to save up for another X2 thats all.

[Sudz]

At least you got your tri to work on the 8.7's.
I spent hours trying to get this to work.. The only catz it would work on were the 8.8's. Got better bench's on just the 4870x2 and the catz from HIS. Could be my dfi x38 with the new bios fix for the mult-gpu cards.
I was using a HIS x2 and a Visiontek 4870.

[Sudz]

Can you do this crossfireX in XP or just vista?
I know you can do a crossfire setup in XP.

[spyre]

XP supports 2 GPU's in Crossfire only, you can use more not crossfired though (for lots of monitors for example)

You would need Vista to Crossfire more GPU's than 2.

[SSXeon]

Originally Posted by spyre

XP supports 2 GPU's in Crossfire only, you can use more not crossfired though (for lots of monitors for example)

You would need Vista to Crossfire more GPU's than 2.

Well tri-fire is borked, so you mean 2 or 4 GPUs.

[Sudz]

Originally Posted by SSXeon

Benchies show tri-fire the same as crossfire, or worse.

Gee, and I thought I was doing something wrong. This was my first time setting up a 3 gpu.
Not too rewarding for all the effort.

[SSXeon]

Originally Posted by Sudz

Gee, and I thought I was doing something wrong. This was my first time setting up a 3 gpu.
Not too rewarding for all the effort.

Sadly no, but i dont think ati thought people were going to tri-fire as much.

[Sudz]

Personally, my rationalization for trifireX was close to the performance of 2x 4870x2 but of coarse cheaper. Judging by Anandtech article on the 3870's crossfireX http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3256&p=1

[adadk]

That was my basis as well. Tri-Fired 3870's was the sweetspot for CrossFireX, and I assumed that the 4870's would provide a similar scaling trend.