Widescreen Gaming Forum

Ok guys,

I did some serious testing yesterday. I ran one card on it's own and everything worked fine. As an example, playing the opening sequence to skyrim... everything was fine without any problem.
I then re ran this with the second card... again no problems.
I then re ran this a third time with both cards in but crossfire disabled... no problems
I turned crossfire on and within 5 or 10 minutes Skyrim crashed.

I also had a similar experience with Crysis 2 simply crashing within 10 minutes.

I dont know if this is game, driver or hardware related but the graphics cards are going back to the retailer today. I'm on holiday next week so hopefully while I'm away I can log in an get a couple of Moose favourite Direct CU II cards.

My biggest concern is that maybe something is wrong on my motherboard or PSU? I was running dual 7970s without issue. but since changing to these Asus ones.... well you know the problems. If it's just the graphics cards then it's ok... but I dont want to have to spend on a new MB and CPU.

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i7 3770k, P8Z77v Pro, 16gb Ram,2x Samsung 840 SSD RAID 0 + 4.5tb storage, 7970 Oc'd + 7950 in crossfire, 3x SP2309w monitors + 1 acer monitor, Asus D2X Xonar, Creative T40 Speakers plus satalite speakers + audio transducer

Sadly I can't solve this issue for you. I wish I could, but I don't have enough information and experience yet. However I'm convinced someone else can help you, someone who has had the same problems as you and fixed it. However, if it's a card-hardware related problem, I don't think a couple of CUII cards will fix it. Those will probably have the same issues then.

And off the record: don't you think two 7970's is a bit overkill? I mean, you can always add one later, once you're sure the problem is fixed. It will save you 500+ bucks, loads of problems and you will still have the fastest single gpu card on the planet! Sorry if I am sticking my nose into your business.

Moose

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Music is my life. You are my music.

Dont worry Moose, yes I half agree about 2 7970's being overkill. I did consider getting one 7970 plus upgrading my CPU and motherboard with the rest of the cash instead.

I do notice pretty good scaling with 2 cards though and I dont want to pump the cash into a new CPU and motherboard to find I have very little difference in performance.

Also, if I get two 7970's and I have the same problem I know that the problem is something else and the GPU's are fine.


....I think

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i7 3770k, P8Z77v Pro, 16gb Ram,2x Samsung 840 SSD RAID 0 + 4.5tb storage, 7970 Oc'd + 7950 in crossfire, 3x SP2309w monitors + 1 acer monitor, Asus D2X Xonar, Creative T40 Speakers plus satalite speakers + audio transducer

Actually Moose, do you know when the DCII Top cards are out? I heard the 22nd on some sites

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i7 3770k, P8Z77v Pro, 16gb Ram,2x Samsung 840 SSD RAID 0 + 4.5tb storage, 7970 Oc'd + 7950 in crossfire, 3x SP2309w monitors + 1 acer monitor, Asus D2X Xonar, Creative T40 Speakers plus satalite speakers + audio transducer

...I think

I'll try and find some information on that, but I can't promise you anything :/ Your best chance is to find someone with the same problems (on this forum)

Haven't got a clue when the card will be released exactly, but the rumors match the 22nd of februari, so it might be spot on. Source please :)

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Music is my life. You are my music.

hey sparx. sorry to hear about the issues you're having. one question, what is your PSU? those 7970s eat a lot of juice under load, 2 of them with an 870 run right around 1Kw at stock clocks, if my google-fu can be trusted. if anything is OC'd.....

sorry if you already gave this info and i missed it.

My PSU is a Dark Power Pro 1200w
The i7 870 had previously be OC'd to around 4.2 ghz but with the 7970s not behaving I removed the OC.

Other 7970's had been fine but the Asus ones just didnt want to run smooth. They ran fine on their own though.

Also, the 7970's were OC'd using standard bios and only using the GPU Tweak tool from Asus. (so nothing amazingly high)

When cards started to mess around I removed the OC and reverted to stock.

Even with everything at stock I got reboots within five or ten minutes of Skyrim opening sequence and similar in Crysis 2.

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i7 3770k, P8Z77v Pro, 16gb Ram,2x Samsung 840 SSD RAID 0 + 4.5tb storage, 7970 Oc'd + 7950 in crossfire, 3x SP2309w monitors + 1 acer monitor, Asus D2X Xonar, Creative T40 Speakers plus satalite speakers + audio transducer

any artifacting? or just the blacked frames/crashes? those temps you posted are pretty high.

i have a similar set up....same cards, same drivers, same OC (i assume we're both just pushing them without voltage changes, i'm working through afterburner), same PSU output, same amount of RAM. different CPUs, but yours has held up with different cards. i have my cards on water, though.

seems to me it's either defective cards (odd that they're fine individually, though) or the temps are too much to handle. what happens if you take kind of extreme aircooling measures, i.e., open the case and point a big ol' fan right at the cards, and manually set the stock cooler as high as it'll go?

No artifacts at all. Everything seems fine until it restarts in most games.
Dead Island has a black flashing screen in game... but I found this is while I'm in a hut. I go outside and it seems ok? Perhaps it's just a driver issue with the lighting.
Battlefield bad company has a crossfire issue that causes black screen flickering
The skyrim and Crysis 2 crashes look fine until the crash.

I've had the side of the case off and I already have three fans in the case blowing air around.

To be honest the cards felt hot to the touch when I removed them... I have never noticed this with other cards before.

I dont have the cards any more, the post guy collected them earlier. I'm away next week so hopefully the Direct CU II cards will be out while I'm off and they'll be waiting for me at home when I get back. Fingers crossed it was the cards and not the motherboard or something else.

*Worth also noting I did also try different Crossfire bridges just in case but had the same result.

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i7 3770k, P8Z77v Pro, 16gb Ram,2x Samsung 840 SSD RAID 0 + 4.5tb storage, 7970 Oc'd + 7950 in crossfire, 3x SP2309w monitors + 1 acer monitor, Asus D2X Xonar, Creative T40 Speakers plus satalite speakers + audio transducer

hhm, weird. sorry i couldn't help more. good luck on the next set. ;)