Ok, so I'm planning to upgrade my power supply, my motherboard, and add an additional GPU to my system. Specifically, the Powercolor PCS+ Radeon R9 390 for the GPU. With this Crossfire setup, what would be the next steps that I would need to do in order to start utilizing it successfully, i.e. BIOS updates, extra cables, monitor adjustments, etc. ?
In theory: Put second card into PCI slot and supplie it with power (no bridge required as AMD solves that through the mainboard). Then go into AMD-settings and select crossfire in global settings.
Note: Some AM3+ mobos from MSI have issues with crossfire.
Crossfire runs through the motherboard rather than an archaic sli cable so the only extra cables you need are for pci power. Other than that i couldn't tell ya (too poor to run 2 cards :/ )
Not much else is needed after upgrading your hardware. Just download the latest drivers and go to your AMD control panel and enable crossfire.
on crimson its enabled by default if its possible, else you can go to advanced settings inside crimson and disable/enable it.
as stated above cf since gcn series is initiated and kept by DMA channels, this adds additional cpu overhead but overall result is much better than conventional bridging to ensure sync.
Thanks for the inputs, it is greatly appreciated, although I've been looking at the reviews for the components and I'm kinda shaking now. For example, the motherboard, some reviews have said that it kind of screwy when it comes to the initial boot....the PSU blew up for one person....so any stable hardware recommendations?
Yea I knew AMD had been crossfiring through the board for some time now which is a relief.
The hardest part of setting up a crossfire configuration is only installing the card with the power cables. In other words, it's not hard at all.
After that, it's basically a matter of enabling it through the AMD software.
Like others have said, just make sure you have plenty of power, and it also helps to ensure you have problem case airflow.
What motherboard were you plan on using?
just remember you have to be in fullscreen mode in games for crossfire to work
under win10 you can run it windowed, api has been changed.
oh sweet deal
i was also reading some troubling posts about this setup. That theres really no point because most games dont support crossfire....ughhhhhh idk anymore
this is also why nvidia struggles with drivers, as default state is windowed in windows 10.
Only gamework games struggle with cf setups (but not all), you can create cf profile yourself though (even in games that do not support it - though prep for graphical glitches with nvidia gameworks lightning effects).
"most games don't support crossfire" That's a load. Gameworks games don't play nice w/ crossfire (cuz nvidia is acting like a group of assholes as of late) but it should work for most others.
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Ok faith restored thanks hahahaha!
Unless if you see multiple reviews siting the same problem don't worry about it. Motherboard reviews are always riddled with crap.