Hi guys
I was hoping you could help me with crossfire problem Im having. My xfx r9 290s run great on their own, but when ever I try to crossfire them my system freezes up in game. Anyone else run into a problem like this?
system specs
Case:corsair780t
MB: asrock 970 extreme3 r2.0
CPU: amd fx8350
GPU: xfx r9 290 black edition x2
PSU: evga 850 b2 bronze
Ram: Kingston Hyperx fury 16gb 1600mhz
ssd: Kingston 120gb
It may be due to board. I strongly discourage attempting SLI and crossfire on a 970 chipset. 990 would be more stable.
Is there anyway to test that without trying a different board?
I don't know , I had crossfre 290's , but your PSU *might* be a bit weak , the 290's are factory OC , and the 8350 chugs power .
You are probably going ~100w on CPU , 520w for the gpu's , so I doubt that's the problem .
But yeah , a 60$ mobo with 600$ of gpu and 150 of cpu is not that good .
Some of those Evga PSU's have weak 12v rails and have had reported voltage dips so I believe it is the PSU as you suggest just for some other reasons.
I just came from the 970 chipset and can personally verify that its abit lacking. I never ran xfire on it but from what I have read it can be an issue. Also a 1000W PSU would help you out as well and leave you much better headroom.
I would agree your PSU is a bit on the weak side, use a GPU tweaking program like MSI Afterburner to underclock/undervolt your cards and see if you have the same issue. If not, it's likely your PSU that is the problem; for my 290x crossfire build I put in a 1300 watt PSU, A little overkill but you get the point. Each card could be drawing as much as 450 watts at full load; while you are unlikely to hit that kind of power drainage; with a 8350, some hard drives, fans, and stuff you could max out a 850 watt without trying very hard.
850W should be more then enough.
maybe its a driver issue.
But keep in mind that on a 970 chipset board, an Xfire only runs at 4x gen2. So it could be the motherboard. The mobo isnt realy great in the first place, but yeah its allways hard to say.
I'm afraid you really have to swap the board. I heard buying in USA you are able to return the product as long as it is intact or there is a try out time right?
+1 that's what I was thinking , 850w should be perfectly ok .
I have the same problem with my 7970's, I think its a lack of support on amd's part.
Its not the psu for sure, went out yesterday and picked up a 1050watt gold psu.. And it did nothing. Kinda bummed but not really, im planning on doing a custom water loop later down the line. As far as drivers, I installed and uninstalled them twice.
The next logical explanation would be the second card having problems running at 4x in crossfire. A 990fx board like a Asus 990fx pro, Asrock extreme 9, Asus Sabertooth, Asrock Fatality or Asus Crosshair V should if it if it is a pcie problem. It could be drivers or something else but if it is pcie limitations, those motherboards should fix it.
Thanks for all the input guys. I have a friend with an 990fx mobo, will try the 290s in his rig.
Good luck :D