Overclocking CF 290's

[Necrodead]

EDIT: You can overclock your amd crossfire set-up independently using catalyst control centre 

 

I recently added a 2nd r9 290 to my rig. Question is, how can I overclock my cards to their respective highest overclocks? I read somewhere that using MSI afterburner that this was possible, rather than just setting them to the lowest of the two overclocks. So far all i've done since I added the 2nd card was to 'disable ULPS' option in afterburner as that seemed to be reccommended everywhere. I have already run the cards seperatly and found the higest potential clock of each.

 

Anything else I can do to optimize my crossfire setup, or anything I should know now that I have 2 cards? I've been mainly playing GTA 5, and I have an FX 8320 with everything in a custom loop, so temps are not an issue. Thanks.

[SkywardKkalox]

You can only reach the maximum overclock of the slowest card.

[Chickenator]

I am not an expert hyper master on OC'ing, but I'm pretty sure that the post above applies to BOTH SLI and crossfire: cards are limited by the clockspeeds and ram-size of one another.  This is, unfortunately, from what I understand, one of the limitations of using multiple cards: imperfect scaling due to the two cards not truly being identical (which would actually be impossible, but, you know).  However, I wouldn't fret if I were you, because dual R9 290's should be more than capable of running GTA 5 (if a GTX 960 running at stock speeds can do it, so can your relatively baller AMD setup).

[Necrodead]

You can only reach the maximum overclock of the slowest card.

I have found threads online where people say you can overclock independantly.

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1175027/overclock-cards-in-crossfire-independently

& more besides. However I have not found how to do it yet.

[Briggsy]

for crossfire 285/290/290x, avoid using Afterburner like the plague, and instead use Sapphire Trixx... If you want software that's designed to work with AMD Powertune 2.0, for the love of dingus use Trixx - especially if both cards are not identical.

[Necrodead]

for crossfire 285/290/290x, avoid using Afterburner like the plague, and instead use Sapphire Trixx... If you want software that's designed to work with AMD Powertune 2.0, for the love of dingus use Trixx, especially if both cards are not identical.

Thanks, Ill try that out.

 

One card is a sapphire r9 290 and the other is an MSI. Other than that they are both reference cards.

[Necrodead]

... However, I wouldn't fret if I were you, because dual R9 290's should be more than capable of running GTA 5 (if a GTX 960 running at stock speeds can do it, so can your relatively baller AMD setup).

Thanks, although I get 60fps most of the time I still want to squeeze a little more performance out of them if possible. I also like overclocking for overclocking's sake, call me crazy.

[Chickenator]

Thanks, although I get 60fps most of the time I still want to squeeze a little more performance out of them if possible. I also like overclocking for overclocking's sake, call me crazy.

Naw, man, OC'ing is fun .

[Necrodead]

So I finally got around to overclocking, using Catalyst Control Center was easiest for me, and yes! You can overclock both cards independently! So boo on everyone who said otherwise. JK

 

anyways, before my overclock I got an average of 67fps with a score of 2833 in Unigine Valley benchmark, and after my overclocking I got 85.7fps average and 3585 with only a 15% overclock! Thats a much bigger increase than I thought I would get. Can't wait to try some GTA 5. I am still working on overclocking a bit more, as CCC only uses percentages and not fixed clock speeds, so I'm learning where the limits of each card is again.