Issues with Crossfire (AMD Radeon HD 7950)

[tyson505]

So my second 7950 just came in the mail today (bought it for $105 shipped). I've put it in my system, done a clean driver install, and made sure the crossfire bridge is properly installed. However, playing multiple games, I've noticed poor performance. I just installed the 15.5 driver for Witcher 3, but I still get around 40 fps (which is what I got with a single card). Looking at MSI Afterburner's on screen display, it shows both cards only doing about 30-50% usage. Not to mention, it shows GPU2 going into power saving mode and underclocking. This is the case in other games as well, such as Battlefield 3, GTA V, Metro Last Light, Dying Light, etc. I've never seen the cards go above 70% usage. My CPU is not bottlenecking, as it's a 3570k overclocked to 4.5 ghz. CPU usage in games is only 50-80% across all four cores in games. My PSU is rated at 1000W and is 80 Plus Bronze certified. What is causing this terrible performance? VSync was disabled in all games. Neither card got above 70 degrees in any game, and power limits were set to +20 on both cards. GPU-Z reports both cards are running in PCI-E 3.0 8X speeds. This performance is disappointing, and makes me wish more and more that I bought an Nvidia card when I first built my rig. 

[Kyuubixchidori]

So my second 7950 just came in the mail today (bought it for $105 shipped). I've put it in my system, done a clean driver install, and made sure the crossfire bridge is properly installed. However, playing multiple games, I've noticed poor performance. I just installed the 15.5 driver for Witcher 3, but I still get around 40 fps (which is what I got with a single card). Looking at MSI Afterburner's on screen display, it shows both cards only doing about 30-50% usage. Not to mention, it shows GPU2 going into power saving mode and underclocking. This is the case in other games as well, such as Battlefield 3, GTA V, Metro Last Light, Dying Light, etc. I've never seen the cards go above 70% usage. My CPU is not bottlenecking, as it's a 3570k overclocked to 4.5 ghz. CPU usage in games is only 50-80% across all four cores in games. My PSU is rated at 1000W and is 80 Plus Bronze certified. What is causing this terrible performance? VSync was disabled in all games. Neither card got above 70 degrees in any game, and power limits were set to +20 on both cards. GPU-Z reports both cards are running in PCI-E 3.0 8X speeds. This performance is disappointing, and makes me wish more and more that I bought an Nvidia card when I first built my rig. 

holy crap that used to by exact same old set up, besides i was at 4.4ghz.

 

make sure games are running in full screen, and test bf4. i know that games works perfectly in crossfire if you can

 

have you tried both individually? 

[sgloux3470]

Do another driver reinstall.

Try disabling ULPS mode with MSI afterburner

[tyson505]

Do another driver reinstall.

Try disabling ULPS mode with MSI afterburner

I've disabled ULPS, but looking back after reinstalling it's been reenabled. After disabling it and restarting, both GPUs are sitting at 100% usage 1030mhz core clock in Witcher 3, but I'm still getting worse framerates than I did with a single card?

[CoolaxGaming]

M8, never ever CFX the HD 7XXX cards. Unless it is a 7970.

For some reason the scaling sucks shit

And it seems to be a prob with JUST the 7850, 7950

[tyson505]

Not to mention in other games such as dying light, I'm getting the same framerate I'd get with a single card, both the GPUs are not at 100% usage (only around 70 max), and neither is the CPU. Again, power limits have been set as high as possible so that they don't limit their performance. 

[tyson505]

M8, never ever CFX the HD 7XXX cards. Unless it is a 7970.

For some reason the scaling sucks shit

And it seems to be a prob with JUST the 7850, 7950

Is there any particular reason scaling sucks with these specific cards? Lol 

[CoolaxGaming]

Is there any particular reason scaling sucks with these specific cards? Lol 

idk.

I owned 7850 cfx, and I can tell you that one card performed 20% better than the two..

[sgloux3470]

I've disabled ULPS, but looking back after reinstalling it's been reenabled. After disabling it and restarting, both GPUs are sitting at 100% usage 1030mhz core clock in Witcher 3, but I'm still getting worse framerates than I did with a single card?

 

Not to mention in other games such as dying light, I'm getting the same framerate I'd get with a single card, both the GPUs are not at 100% usage (only around 70 max), and neither is the CPU. Again, power limits have been set as high as possible so that they don't limit their performance. 

 

 

Dying light has terrible scaling for everybody.

 

Can you test something like Battlefield Or Metro?  Tomb Raider if you have it would be perfect as well.

 

Also i will say I ran a crossfire 270x rig (7870's) and it worked perfectly fine.  

[TheAmazingCookieFromSquare]

Maybe it's just witcher 3

[tyson505]

Maybe it's just witcher 3

 

Yeah, I think that's the case. 

Dying light has terrible scaling for everybody.

 

Can you test something like Battlefield Or Metro?  Tomb Raider if you have it would be perfect as well.

 

Also i will say I ran a crossfire 270x rig (7870's) and it worked perfectly fine.  

Dying light is terrible for me, there's flashing and artifacting. However, the few times it works, I only get about a 10 FPS increase. Battlefield 3 isn't even taxing, with both cards at 70% usage they push out 90fps. Metro Last Light is still having an issue where whenever there are NPCs on my screen, the FPS goes from 60-70 down to 25-40. Although this is probably because I have Advanced PhysX enabled on CPU (but CPU usage doesn't ever go above 70%?) I don't have tomb raider, but I just tested GTA V now that ULPS is properly disabled, and I get 60-80 fps now, so that's great. 

[sgloux3470]

Yeah, I think that's the case. 

Dying light is terrible for me, there's flashing and artifacting. However, the few times it works, I only get about a 10 FPS increase. Battlefield 3 isn't even taxing, with both cards at 70% usage they push out 90fps. Metro Last Light is still having an issue where whenever there are NPCs on my screen, the FPS goes from 60-70 down to 25-40. Although this is probably because I have Advanced PhysX enabled on CPU (but CPU usage doesn't ever go above 70%?) I don't have tomb raider, but I just tested GTA V now that ULPS is properly disabled, and I get 60-80 fps now, so that's great. 

 

That's really strange with dying light.  I would recommend verifying the integrity of your game cache to make sure it's not missing game files or something. You would be amazed with how steam can fuck this up.  RE6 let me play 14 hours until a specific campaign mission wouldn't load for me but worked for my friend until I did this and I was somehow missing 16 files.  This can cause a lot of graphical and performance issues but the game may still run somewhat in the broken state.

 

 

Definitely take physX off, CPU usage does not need to be maxed to cause serious bottlenecking.

 

Seems like it's working more or less, it's just an unlucky set of games to test on.    

[tyson505]

That's really strange with dying light.  I would recommend verifying the integrity of your game cache to make sure it's not missing game files or something. You would be amazed with how steam can fuck this up.  RE6 let me play 14 hours until a specific campaign mission wouldn't load for me but worked for my friend until I did this and I was somehow missing 16 files.  This can cause a lot of graphical and performance issues but the game may still run somewhat in the broken state.

 

 

Definitely take physX off, CPU usage does not need to be maxed to cause serious bottlenecking.

 

Seems like it's working more or less, it's just an unlucky set of games to test on.    

I seem to have gotten witcher 3 to work, as you know, crossfire doesn't work when a game isn't in fullscreen, and witcher 3 decided to default to borderless window even though I previously set it to fullscreen. But for some reason MSI Afterburner still read both cards as 100% usage even when crossfire wasn't doing anything, which is why I thought it was broken. 

[sgloux3470]

I seem to have gotten witcher 3 to work, as you know, crossfire doesn't work when a game isn't in fullscreen, and witcher 3 decided to default to borderless window even though I previously set it to fullscreen. But for some reason MSI Afterburner still read both cards as 100% usage even when crossfire wasn't doing anything, which is why I thought it was broken. 

Oh yeah afterburner has a stroke sometimes and doesn't read cards properly.

[bouek]

Hey,

 

Sorry to bring this old topic back but I'm actually planning to set up a very simmilar rig to the OP's.

@tyson505, you said that you've managed to get your W3 working with the HD7950CF - what framerate are you getting @ what res @ what details level?

 

What's your general opinion on CF-ing these cards after a couple of months?

 

Thanks!

[xAcid9]

Hey,

 

Sorry to bring this old topic back but I'm actually planning to set up a very simmilar rig to the OP's.

@tyson505, you said that you've managed to get your W3 working with the HD7950CF - what framerate are you getting @ what res @ what details level?

 

What's your general opinion on CF-ing these cards after a couple of months?

 

Thanks!

 

I read water quality and ingame AA kill Crossfire scaling for Witcher 3 so you might want to disable/lower those and use Reshade.

[bouek]

Thanks, xAcid9. I'm however also interested how it went for @tyson505? How well did your Witcher 3 perfom?

[Lawliet93]

idk.

I owned 7850 cfx, and I can tell you that one card performed 20% better than the two..

You owned them... nowadays, CF scales much better, even better than SLI.

[CoolaxGaming]

You owned them... nowadays, CF scales much better, even better than SLI.

Do understand that scaling is very bad for any "mid" tier card