Asus p5q-e motherboard and XFX HD 7770 crossfire

[DigitalDog]

Hi,

I have an asus p5q-e that I was running with two Saphire 4850 cards in crossfire config. One card pooched so I went and bought two XFX HD7770 cards to replace them. I think my mobo will not support the cards in crossfire (can only see data on one). Was I a bit hasty in my purchase. Time for a total upgrade? I think the cards will not reach their potential in this configuration (old). What can I do to fix this?
Thanks

 

[THE UNKNOWN]

imo Upgrade

 

[the great randini]

how big is your power supply?

 

[4745454b]

You should be fine. If you ran 4850s you should be able to run 7770 as they use less power.

Whats changed is the 4850 didn't support Eyefinity. You said "can only see data on one" so I'm assuming you are using more then one monitor? If you have CF enabled you might have Eyefinity enabled as well. Meaning you only have access to one of the cards outputs. Eyefinity will disable the outputs on the second card. I would look into making sure Eyefinity is off.

 

[suteck]

You are definitely not going to get the full potential even out of one of them. They use the new pcie 3.0 and that comes with a little performance boost. Each card only uses about 200 watts in the overclocked state under full load (stats taken from airman on the overclockersclub forum) so running 2 of them in crossfire won't use twice that but I wouldn't recommend anything less than 600W if you're going to use the two. While your motherboard only runs dual cards at 8X speed and the cards are capable of 16X speed you're loosing out there as well. Not by much, people will argue and facts will show there's only a small difference in performance but there IS a difference so you might want to capitalize on that. So you will at lease need an upgraded motherboard and in able to use the 3.0 pcie capabilities you will also need the newer versions of the cpu's. If you're not interested in that then if you tell us what your current cpu is we can tell you if it's going to bottleneck there if you only upgrade your motherboard to something that can use dual X16 lanes. And, As the Great Randini mentioned, what's the brand and model of your psu?

If you only see one card you will probably have to go into catalyst control center and turn crossfire mode on. Missed that myself the first time. Have you tried both cards separately to make sure they both work correctly, probably so buy I gotta mention it lol.

 

[4745454b]

I would double check your math. The slot provides 75W and the 7770 only comes with a 6 pin plug. At most they could draw around 150W, not 200W.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7770-7750-benchmark,3135.html

That 80 W rating exceeds the PCI Express bus’ 75 W limit, so the Radeon HD 7770 does require one six-pin auxiliary power connector.

The 7770 is also too weak to max out the bandwidth provided by PCIe 2.0, so moving to 3.0 will provide exactly nothing. He can get the full potential out of both of them, assuming his CPU is up to the task. (meaning quad core and OC'd as high as he can get it.)

 

[DigitalDog]

Hi Everyone, thanks for the quick replys and suggestions.
I was running Crossfire before. I have a 750 watt PS (Antec) ddr2 ram 8gb and an older Intel processor.
Right now Crossfire is activated monitor is plugged into card in bus slot 2. At one point I had info on both the primary and secondary and then it was gone (much like my bank account is soon to be too ... read...upgrade lol ). Interestingly, I run MW3 (love it or hate it, your choice) and when I turn the pc off I do a touch test of the too cards and one is almost cool enough it seems like it wasn't working (or perhaps effort wise if my resources are so restrictive it probably doesn't have to work - lazy vidoe card!) while the other is warm to the touch. Of course the next challenge will be upgrading, I have 3 1TB drives in RAID 5, so hoping that can swap over to a new machine if necessary. Gee now I am talking updgrade versus a fix.

Any further input greatly appreciated! Regards and thanks to all.

 

[4745454b]

I don't think the monitor should be plugged into the card in slot 2. Try it on the card in slot one.

 

[suteck]

^+1 on the monitor plug-in, first card.

I used this article - http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_sapphire_hd7770/15.htm - to get the power consumption and the 200w was only if he has it overclocked. Didn't know the newest cards weren't capable of using all the available bandwidth of a 2.0 slot and then tapping into the 3.0 availability. Do you know what cards, if any, do? Good thing I mentioned the other alternative for only the motherboard upgrade.

 

[DigitalDog]

Thanks. I did have it that way when I had then lost the Catalyst info so I switched them around. A bit of trial and error. Interestingly enough, in "information" each piece of hardware shows, as well as in device manager. So, they exist, it just seems either crossfire is just not "sticking" or I have mobo issues, and underutilized cards. I will do some more trail and error, including rebooting when enabling/disabling crossfire. Thanks again. Regards

 

[4745454b]

From your link;

Power consumption of the system will be measured at both idle and loaded states

I'm assuming they are listing system draw there. Does sorta make sense as the 6790 at stock load is listed at ~300W. It is not a 300W card. It also doesn't make sense as the 6790 is supposed to be a 225 or 250W card, and that doesn't leave enough for the rest of the system. Those numbers for all the cards don't match with what I know of the cards power draws. To much for just the card, but not enough for the entire system.

No card really needs all the bandwidth provided by PCIe 2.0. I read that Nvidia dropped the old bridge chip for the GTX690 and used a PCIe 3.0 chip, but not sure if its because its needed or for marketing reasons. We will probably need a generation or two before needing the extra that PCIe 3.0 provides.

Have you tried testing each card by itself? Perhaps one of them isn't working right.

 

[DigitalDog]

HI, and thanks again to all of the feedback and information. An update. I removed the drivers and reinstalled (disconnecting crossfire connector when I loaded the drivers).
reboot and each card worked, independantly. I shut down, connect crossfire, start up, and then enable crossfire, with monitor connected to bus 1 video card. Well, it worked for a bit. I could see both cards info, operating temp etc.. Then after about 10 minutes in Catalyst i could no longer see the info for the card in bus 2. I disable xfire and can get video output from both, and in Catalyst I can see info for which ever card I am connected to. So, I go back to bus 1, enable xfire and info on only one card. In Information, hardware, both cards show. When xfire is off, and I am connected to the bus 1 card Information for card 2 shows "disabled". Of course, if I connect to it, it isn't. I can also activate xfire from card 2 via Catalyst. All very confusing. Even my desk top fonts now leave something to be desired, fuzzy, shadow. If I didn't hug my pc everyday I would say it has issues with me! lol I am at a loss. At least I can still game though!, just with some wasted hardware hanging about. I will try a game in xfire, then disable and see if operating temperatures are similar, they should be if the 2nd card is contributing (my theory). Thanks again. If I decide further action (upgrade) or if someone here helps me out or if I find a solution I will post what it was. Thanks again.

 

[4745454b]

Very odd. Not sure if this applies but one bridge or two? Can you try a different CF bridge? I've seen forum posts where people fix their issue with a new one. It's a simple device so I'm not sure how it can break.

 

[suteck]

As for the Temps, it has been my experience that the second card will always run cooler the the primary card. The primary usually handles most of the work with the secondary picking up the slack. it is not distributed evenly.

 

[DigitalDog]

All, just a quick update. I reinstalled the driver. I had Catalyst showing info on both cards when in xfire. Then it was gone. I did do some gaming and was able to see info on both cards when I disabled xfire (and plugging the hdmi cable into the respective card). Temperatures were up on both over their typical idle temperature, so as far as I can determine my xfire works. My ability to see both cards, mainly the second one, when in xfire config is limited or nonexistent. This means I can't adjust fan speed or play with overclocking using Catalyst. The second card does show up though in the "Information" tab under Hardware. Go figure. Strange things indeed.
I do understand what I am giving up by not upgrading to pci-e 3 and ddr3 ram, and will need to decide how much further I want to open my wallet or kill my bank account. I have heard that an AMD processor would work best with my AMD/ATI video cards, although I have not seen or heard anything that would substantiate that. Time for a bit of research as I am not in the panic upgrade mode; but the thoguht is nice! lol Thanks again everyone. Regards

 

[zigax]

Hello digitaldog, can you tell me if you have figured out, whats the lack of performance because of 2.0 on single card. I am considering buying this card and hooked it on my p5q pro, but i am afraid, that because it runs on 3.0 pci e port it will not work good.

Does anyone have any clue how much downgrade in performance will you get when applying 3.0 card to 2.0 slot?

I am considering buying this card for the future, in one year i will probably replace mainboard, so the card will be handy then...

THX :=)