Solved Upgrade from a GTS 450 to an HD 4870 x2

[shawnglory]

X2 is a single card solution and as far as I know it should be fine even if it's 2 gpus.

600w is plenty by the looks of the spec but u can never be too safe. Try googling psu calculator. First result should be by CM.

 

[Chalky Emultion]

the calculator says I need 466W total...

 

[shawnglory]

Yeah there ya go. Remember psus are extremely susceptible to aging. Having a 100w overhead on a brand new psu may last longer and would be a nice investment. 2nd hand works too

 

[shawnglory]

Of course second hand ones won't last you as long but seeing as to how this is a lan comp and prone to environmental exposure spending less would be ideal. That's my concept of a lan comp at least

 

[Chalky Emultion]

Yeah there ya go. Remember psus are extremely susceptible to aging. Having a 100w overhead on a brand new psu may last longer and would be a nice investment. 2nd hand works too

i bought this PSU 9 months ago when i bought the GTS 450...

 

[Chalky Emultion]

finally, tomorrow i'll buy the HD 4870 x2 for 80€...

I'm expecting a performance boost in heavy graphics games

 

[bobkn]

finally, tomorrow i'll buy the HD 4870 x2 for 80€...

I'm expecting a performance boost in heavy graphics games

Please let us know how it works out.

 

[shawnglory]

Yeah keen on finding out how those ol beasts will perform now. I used to have em too

 

[Chalky Emultion]

I installed the new card:

It's really noisy, it produces a lot of heat, but using only 1 graphic core i'm seeing a nice performance increase in some 3D games. Now I'm going to use also the second core, but how can I enable CrossfireX in 3D games?
Oh, and like in Skyrim I have a strange issue... in main menu the screen flash and it becomes green, but only on main menu.

Should I let games detect the new graphics card?
And, I'm thinking that my C2D E6300 is bottlenecking the HD 4870 X2 really a lot

So, that is for now:
using only 1 core, Radeon 4870 X2 > GeForce GTS 450

 

[Chalky Emultion]

and i noticed that both core clock and memory clock are locked to 500 MHz when i'm playing 3d games!

 

[shawnglory]

Yeah definitely the 450 or x50 in general is entry level where as the x870 or now x970 would be high ends. Check the ccc over clocking section you can unlock the option to set the clocks for your cards through one of the buttons there including fan control.

 

[shawnglory]

The e 6300 shouldn't be a problem though with bottle necks maybe aging perhaps but try giving it a boost in speed through bios? What are your full specs Atm?

 

[Chalky Emultion]

Yeah definitely the 450 or x50 in general is entry level where as the x870 or now x970 would be high ends. Check the ccc over clocking section you can unlock the option to set the clocks for your cards through one of the buttons there including fan control.

...but a GTS 450 is fater than an HD 3870, maybe than a HD 3870 X2 too. It depends from the generation of the GPU.
My specs are under my signature (2nd pc):

Core 2 Duo E6300 @1.86GHz
Asus P5LP-LE motherboard (locked, no way to overclock NOTHING, bios updated)
3 GB DDR2 Dual Channel
600W PSU
Windows 7 32bit SP1
and now... Radeon HD 4870 X2

Overclocking did nothing, the card is still locked at 500 MHz:
GPU 1: http://i50.tinypic.com/34e9sgx.png
GPU 2: http://i50.tinypic.com/v6ep.png


I'm also encountering 3 more issues:
- I can hear a "beep" in the card when i try to use GPU-Z render test in fullscreen... However, here it seems that both GPUs are working here!
- WEI dropped by 7.2 (GTS 450) to 7.1... and that's why I'm thinking I'm using only 1 GPU...
- Card is working at PCI-Express x16 @2.0 since I have PCI Express x16 @1.1!!: http://i47.tinypic.com/1pe2yu.png


I'm using catalyst 12.6
And yes, I cleaned and removed all Nvidia drivers.

 

[Chalky Emultion]

solved the frequency problems!

I enabled Catalyst AI on advanced settings!

 

[shawnglory]

Yeah generation of the cards can really boost a difference. I'm not really sure on the beeps but if the temps are good its more likely a load warning or something like that. Glad you manage to get it working. Cheers.

 

[Chalky Emultion]

Load warning? The second GPU isn't used by 3D games...

I e-mailed AMD, they will send me a hotfix soon...

 

[Chalky Emultion]

Solved:

I reinstalled Windows and now CrossfireX works! With Catalyst 8.12!

The card provides awesome performance