Help with ATI 3870 512MB and Crossfire????

I was a longtime ATI user with multiple AGP based ATI cards like the old AIW
Radeon 32MB , then went to a 9800 Pro on 2 different machines. Then I won a
Nvidia card thru the now defunct PCCLUB stores and eventually bought an
Nvidia 8800GTS.

Well I now have in my posession a pair of MSI branded ATI 3870 OC 512MB DDR4
(Overclocked) PCIe that I wish to use in my ASUS COMMANDO motherboard.

<http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.
asp?model=RX3870-T2D512E_OC&class=vga>



The Motherboard has 2 PCIe slots, but the secondary slot only does PCIe-4x .
I have the 2 cards installed, but there was no documentation as to how the
little bridge ribbon cable must face. And how to test to verify if they are
indeed running in crossfire mode. According to CCC, i have crossfire enabled,
but when i run Tech powerups GPU-Z program, it says its not enabled??????
How to verify????? I have ran 3DMark06 and see a slight increase in
performance, but I am not convinced that I have crossfire turned on.....


I am starting to wonder since these cards are CrossfireX , that maybe my
motherboard is slightly too old(2 years) to support them. CCC says that my
secondary card is disabled, but after reading about crossfire, that appears
normal. Also SYSTEM INFO in XP says it sees the card there. These are
identical cards, right down to the firmware revision and manufacture date.

Still confused as hell and I still dont know which way is correct for the
Crossfire cable to face.

In article <g8k2dn$2fb$2@news.xmission.com>,
glenzabr@nospam.xmission.com says...
> I was a longtime ATI user with multiple AGP based ATI cards like the old AIW
> Radeon 32MB , then went to a 9800 Pro on 2 different machines. Then I won a
> Nvidia card thru the now defunct PCCLUB stores and eventually bought an
> Nvidia 8800GTS.

What's defunct about PCCLUB?

http://pcclub.com/

>
>
<snip>
Sorry can't help you with the rest.

Bill

In CCC there should be a Crossfire tab. Make sure it is checked. Orientation
of the ribbon cable shouldn't matter

The surest way to verify that Crossfire is active is to run the
Fillrate-Multitexturing test in 3DMark. Ensure FSAA is disabled in both CCC
and 3DMark's options. The 3870 does 16 texels/clock and the MSI OC card runs
at 800 MHz, so a single card should get close to 16x800 = 12,800 Mtexels/sec
in the fillrate test. If your result is significantly higher than 12,800
Mtexels/sec, then Crossfire is working.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"GMAN" <glenzabr@nospam.xmission.com> wrote in message
news:g8k2dn$2fb$2@news.xmission.com...
>I was a longtime ATI user with multiple AGP based ATI cards like the old
>AIW
> Radeon 32MB , then went to a 9800 Pro on 2 different machines. Then I won
> a
> Nvidia card thru the now defunct PCCLUB stores and eventually bought an
> Nvidia 8800GTS.
>
> Well I now have in my posession a pair of MSI branded ATI 3870 OC 512MB
> DDR4
> (Overclocked) PCIe that I wish to use in my ASUS COMMANDO motherboard.
>
> <http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.
> asp?model=RX3870-T2D512E_OC&class=vga>
>
>
>
> The Motherboard has 2 PCIe slots, but the secondary slot only does
> PCIe-4x .
> I have the 2 cards installed, but there was no documentation as to how the
> little bridge ribbon cable must face. And how to test to verify if they
> are
> indeed running in crossfire mode. According to CCC, i have crossfire
> enabled,
> but when i run Tech powerups GPU-Z program, it says its not enabled??????
> How to verify????? I have ran 3DMark06 and see a slight increase in
> performance, but I am not convinced that I have crossfire turned on.....
>
>
> I am starting to wonder since these cards are CrossfireX , that maybe my
> motherboard is slightly too old(2 years) to support them. CCC says that my
> secondary card is disabled, but after reading about crossfire, that
> appears
> normal. Also SYSTEM INFO in XP says it sees the card there. These are
> identical cards, right down to the firmware revision and manufacture date.
>
> Still confused as hell and I still dont know which way is correct for the
> Crossfire cable to face.

Bill wrote:
> In article <g8k2dn$2fb$2@news.xmission.com>,
> glenzabr@nospam.xmission.com says...
>> I was a longtime ATI user with multiple AGP based ATI cards like the old AIW
>> Radeon 32MB , then went to a 9800 Pro on 2 different machines. Then I won a
>> Nvidia card thru the now defunct PCCLUB stores and eventually bought an
>> Nvidia 8800GTS.
>
> What's defunct about PCCLUB?
>

I was thinking about asking the same question. The local store is
trying to recover from the sale but is definitely still in business.

> http://pcclub.com/
>
>>
> <snip>
> Sorry can't help you with the rest.
>
> Bill