EAH3850 X2 Question

[opteron]

Hi all.

A few days ago I bought an Asus / ATi EAH3850 X2 gfx card to replace a single EAH3870. Not the latest and greatest card I know but it was only £55. Anyway, I only play 3 games, Trackmania United Forever, GTA IV, Tomb Raider Legend, that require any kind of GPU oomph.

The problem I have is this, everything seems to recognise the card as only having 512MB RAM, not 1024MB. Trackmania and TRL dont matter much, but GTA IV really needs 1GB to run nicely (really why i bought the card). The dual GPU's have stopped the stuttering I was getting, but I really want to turn up the shiny stuff and I am physically disabled from doing so as it only recognises 512MB ram. Is this right?

Do I have an error on the card, or is there a workaround. If I were to buy another HD3850 X2 and go quad gpu in crossfire X would I still only end up with 512MB useable ram or am I missing something?

Any advice greatfully recieved, here's the tech specs...

Windows XP Pro 32Bit
Intel E8400 3GHz @ 4.1GHz + Xigmatek Dark Knight Cooler
4GB DDRII OCZ Platinum 1066 (@ ~900Mhz)
Asus P5KC Mobo
ATi EAH3850 X2
Hiper-X 580W PSU (crossfire certified ed)
LG Blu Ray / HD DVD Drive
6 HDD's of varying size, non RAID (I can list individual specs if needed but they seem pretty irelevant to the problem to me)

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
Your card is fine and it should report 512MB in GPU-Z:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=556&type=expert&pid=3

and:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=556&type=expert
"On the back of the card you can see the location of the two HD 3850 GPUs and half of the 512MB of memory surrounding each. "

So HD 3850X2 is made of 2 HD 3850 512MB cards and since SLI/CF doesn't double the memory it shows 512MB in GPU-Z,and don't worry its a good card and can handle GTA IV fine

 

[opteron]

Thanks for the response. Yeah GTA plays beautifully, its just that it checks the amount of memory and will only allow settings that use that amount of memory and a nominal amount more. So I cant force the settings higher than they are despite the fact I think the card(s) can handle even more. I am stuck on "medium" textures, I wanted at least to go to High

So what does it do with the second 512MB RAM then? is it actually used but not recognised, or is it used as a repeat of the first 512MB?

From what you say, would I be right in thinking that adding another 3850 X2 wont help?

Again thanks for the response. Is there a good techy guide anywhere on what's actually happening in a dual GPU card or SLi/Xfire setup?

 

[Maziar]

All you need to know about SLI/CrossFire:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245454-33-crossfire-faqs

"Do SLI or CrossFire double the memory ?
This is one the questions that many people make mistake understanding it .
The answer is NO , SLI or CrossFire doesnt double the memory , You have a 512MB card , adding another card wont make your memory 1GB, it still will be 512MB,so both cards will use 512MB of RAMs but the memory won't double.
Another example :
A game needs 512MB card to run at maximum settings , and you have a 256MB card , and you think if you add another 256MB card , your memory will be 512MB and thats not true."

Well don't worry so much about GTA IV,its not optimized well for PC that's why many users ran in to performance problems,i myself have a 4870X2 and can't max it out as well.

 

[opteron]

Ah ok, seems a bit much that they put 1GB on the box when you cant use more than 512MB.

Anywy not your fault, thanks for the replies

 

[Maziar]

No problem glad i could help