Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Carl
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Carl

Would 2x 3870X2 cards work in an Asus Maximus Formula board, or is Crossfire
X available only on AMD chipset?
 
Yes, the Maximus Formula supports crossfire.

I ran that combination and you might want to think twice. The second
gpu doesn't scale very well at all. This is most likely driver
related. Catalyst 8.3 was supposed to resolve this issue but initial
reports in various overclocking forums have not indicated the addition
of a second 3078X2 to be very beneficial.

In fact I'm returning my 2 3870 x2's today for credit.

I'm very happy with my 2 8800GTX's but they are not supported in SLI
on your board. I had to go 780i (Striker II Formula) to get SLI.

Good luck,

Al
 
I have seen reports that an X2 and an ordinary 3870 scale well, sorry, but i
can't remember where, the game was crysis, and it scaled well with 3 GPU,
the fourth hardly anything at all.
 
Carl said:
I have seen reports that an X2 and an ordinary 3870 scale well, sorry, but
i can't remember where, the game was crysis, and it scaled well with 3 GPU,
the fourth hardly anything at all.
Click to expand...

I wish I had heard this before I bought my second HD 3870, I should have got
an X2. I really don't see big gains with two single GPU HD3870's Crossfire
in Crysis at all. Matter of fact I can overclock both my cards in Crysis
alone and they will run without a crash. As soon as I play with Crossfire I
have to drop down the OC to default speeds to keep it from crashing in
Crysis. Weird! The new Crysis patch should be out soon so I will see if that
helps any.
 
First of One said:
CrossfireX works on any Crossfire-compatible chipset, including the X38,
according to this chart:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/images/crossfirex/CF_combo_chart_Dec07.jpg

You will need Catalyst 8.3 or higher, and Vista.

Besides Crysis, though, do you have any other game that cannot run at max
settings with a single 3870X2? Crysis actually sucks as a game and is not
worth upgrading for, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I think Oblivion (or at least certain areas of the game) will bring
any current video card to its knees when set to highest quality.

And IMO you're right, Crysis sucks compared to ES4.
 
Besides Crysis, though, do you have any other game that cannot run at max
settings with a single 3870X2? Crysis actually sucks as a game and is not
worth upgrading for, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I enjoyed Crysis a lot, right up until you get to the alien ship. Everything
past that point is utter repetitive crap, point and shoot, zero strategy or
fun. I've replayed it many times approaching each goal and area with a
different strategy and weapons. After the mine entrance, it's time to quit.
 
RE: Besides Crysis, though, do you have any other game that cannot run at
max settings with a single 3870X2?

FSX, The Witcher, Gears Of War,World In Conflict, CoD4, Tabula Rasa. I think
that most of these may be driver related, but I haven't had time to check
them yet. Certainly, there is an issue with Tabula Rasa that has yet to be
rectified with a patch according to their site. I'd like to see Sapphire
release an X2 with that vapour chamber cooler on it.
 
First of One said:
It does qualify, depending on how often that minimum is reached, and what
percentage of time is spent there.

Looking at the graph:
http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTE4OTg4MzQ0MEdoRjFPajFUaTBfM183X2wuZ2lm

Only a few spikes dip below 30 fps over 10 minutes of game play. Keep in
mind Oblivion does load from the hard disk very often.
Click to expand...

Do you actually have the game? I do, and I stand by my claim.
I've yet to find any non-SLI system that plays certain areas of
ES4 without frequent stuttering, most notably the forest area.

Also, using Shivering Isles to make assumptions about ES4 is
a bit misleading. From your cite: "The new area is slightly less
graphically intensive as the classic Oblivion content, so players
that currently enjoy Oblivion with good performance should
not need to lower their playable settings to experience the
expansion pack."
 
One last parting shot from your cite:

"When we increased the resolution to 1920x1200 from 1600x1200,
we did not experience a significant enough performance penalty to
require is to lower our playable settings. The game remained firmly
playable and there was merely a slight reduction in framerates. Image
quality was still as good as it gets, and in Oblivion, that means it was
excellent.

After we found performance to be so good at this higher resolution,
we revisited our playable settings at 1600x1200 to see if we could
improve upon them, and check to see if there was, perhaps,
something we overlooked. However, all we could do was to
increase the AA setting, and that resulted in the game becoming too
choppy to be playable. Using either 8X TR MSAA or 4X TR
SSAA, framerates were too low and there was an unacceptable
amount of input lag. Therefore our highest playable settings at
1920x1200 were still 4X TR MSAA and 16X AF which looked
fantastic."

Or in other words, my original claim.
 
So at some point 1920x1200 with 4X TR MSAA and 16X AF suddenly is no longer
considered good enough? Keep in mind this is with all in-game options set to
maximum. Also keep in mind this was with Vista 64 drivers from Sept. 2007.
The game is probably faster now.
 
Carl said:
Would 2x 3870X2 cards work in an Asus Maximus Formula board, or is
Crossfire X available only on AMD chipset?
Click to expand...


It might do, why not buy one and find out?
 
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