Why is Crossfire not working with games?

[jonyaple]

Hello,

I recently installed a second 7870 graphics card. There is no performance increase in games but I get a significant fps increase (80 fps to 120 fps) when running Heaven Unigine benchmark. Is there any reason for this? Could my CPU be bottlenecking my GPU? I have an AMD FX-4170 processor. I have installed all the latest drivers (CCC 13.1) and CAP. The games I've tried it on are BF3 and Skyrim which both run at around 40-50 FPS. I also have them in fullscreen mode.

Thanks

 

[jonyaple]

The cards are the XFX 7870 Core Edition and Double D

 

[EzioAs]

Your CPU is the bottleneck of the cards as we speak. Try running other games as well

 

[jonyaple]

Is there any reason why there's a performance increase with the benchmark but not games? And which CPU would you recommend that I get to prevent bottlenecking?

 

[EzioAs]

Either the FX8320 or FX8350.

 

[ifreakyftw]

Check your cpu load while playing, if its in the 90-100's that's a bottleneck right there, my x6 is close to bottlenecking my two 6950's aswell, even at 4.1ghz. I recommend you get the FX8350.

 

[ifreakyftw]

Or try overclocking if you haven't tried yet, it will improve the situation a little

 

[DarkSable]

...why did nobody ask what games he was playing yet?

OP, you're probably playing games that don't have crossfire support.

 

[jonyaple]

My CPU is at 80-100% load when I play BF3 so I guess it is bottlenecking. I will probably upgrade to the FX-8350. Is there any reason why the benchmark has a performance increase when the games don't?

 

[jonyaple]

Anyone know why?

 

[maph3rs]

Hey, I run a AMD A10 5800k and a HD 6670 on crossfire. Getting 70 - 80 fps but then dropping down to 13fps. I disabled cross fire and it runs at about 50fps on "auto" settings with no lag. Some games just dont like crossfiring. I would disable that before investing in another piece of hardware.