CrossfireX and Lucid Logix MVP on z77 mobo

[fencer55]

I recently built a new system and I was planning to use my old HD5870 graphics card with the new system to conserve money. Upon further thought, I saw great deal on the HIS iceQ X Turbo hd6850's at only $139.95 a piece, so I bought 2 of them to run them in crossfire. After I was messing around with my new system:

Asus Sabertooth z77
i5 3570k processor
Coolermast Hyper 212+ heatsink with 2 fans
2 x 4gb Patriot Viper Extreme memory
A-data 120gb SSD boot drive (gen 3)
2 WD 1tb Cavier Blacks with 64mb cache,
Raidmax 730 watt crossfire ready powersupply

I discovered that the new z77 chipset comes with Lucidlogix MVP, which makes the iGPU on the i5 work in concert with the discrete video card to improve gaming performance by as much as 30%. Sounds great! Sign me up.

Turns out that Lucidlogix does not support crossfirex or SLI and they have no plans to ever support it. I would've been better off keeping my 5870 or upgrading to a single video card for about $280, using LL MVP rather than going with 2 cards in crossfire. So a word of warning to anyone considering a new system...2 cards is not always better than one.

 

[vegettonox]

The lucid software was simply designed to allow discrete power when using the onboard connector or being able to use quicksync while connected to a discrete graphics card. It was never designed to improve the performance of dual card systems, if you had wanted to use this you should have read up on it first, no offense.

 

[smorizio]

also the mvp chipset is a joke. i have the same mb and a 550ti card...the mvp software just locks up windows. your better off making sure the mb bios is up to date and use the xmp profile for the ram.

 

[fencer55]

2 HIS HD6850s in crossfire still gives a better score in 3DMark11 than a single 5870 with MVP support, so it was still a perfomance gain, just not as much of LLMVP supported dual cards...that might've been truly epic. Haters need not respond. This is friendly post.

Actually, MVP is not a joke, when I was only using 1 x 6850 and MVP, my 3DMark11 score went from 4800 to 5600 while only recognizing one card. That is a statically significant gain.

But, while using both my cards in crossfireX, my 3Dmark11 score went over 7000. SWTOR is awesome now and I really love my new setup. If you want a small or mid-size system, get a $300 vid card and use MVP. If you don't mind a full ATX with room for 2 vid cards, you will have a much cheaper upgradability in the future and MVP won't make the difference. 2 x 2nd gen vid cards in crossfire or sli, will almost always keep up or exceed the bang for buck of a newly released 1st gen card. SLI and Crossfire will always be more upgradeable and "bang for buck" than a single card, at least for the foreseeable future. Why else would you pay more for a dual PCIe mobo if you couldn't make it sing louder than a single card. The industry works together to set rational pricing.