Can NOT get Dual Graphics working! (A10 APU and R7 250)

Very long time, no post! Good to see this place active.

I picked up a micro ITX Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI, the A10-7850K, and a low profile Sapphire R7 250. The idea is a MICRO gaming rig and so far it's going well, other than the fact that I can NOT get Dual Graphics (their new name for Crossfiring the APU and PCI-E video card) working.

I know I am supposed to see it in the CCC, but the option is not there. Both devices show up in Device Manager just fine. In fact, whichever device I do not have my screen connected to shows up as "Disabled Device" in CCC.

I've updated to the latest BETA Bios for the motherboard, still no help. I have the BIOS set to Force the integrated graphics, and matched the ram use to my R250. Regardless of BIOS settings that I can find, no help.

I KNOW these things can do Dual Graphics and I know the motherboard supports it. I've tried the 14.2, .3, .4 beta drivers and .4 WHQL drivers. All act the same, no option for it. I use the AMD cleaner/reboots/etc, no help.

I can verify in GPU-Z as well that I am NOT in any kind of Crossfire mode, they do not seem to be working together. I do not get the performance boost that I should be seeing. I typically stay connected via HDMI to the R250 card right now because it seems to perfom better in BF4 than when I have it plugged into the onboard HDMI port.

What in the world is wrong?!?

You'll have to enable dual graphics in BIOS before CCC will give the option. Also dual graphics is not the same as crossfire

Well alright... Crossfire = 2 or more slot based video cards, Dual Graphics = an APU plus a slot based video card. Same basic idea however, they work with eachother.

Regarding the BIOS, I'd love to find some magical option to do this however I don't believe it exists I've been through every option I can find!

Truse me, it's buried somewhere in your BIOS. I can't give you much more than that as I have a MSI board and I know of someone with an ASUS board and in both cases it's in BIOS. On my MSI board it's in the same BIOS section as where you set it to boot with the iGPU or a descerte GPU

under the peripherals tab set onboard to force

It is indeed set to Force, just also checked the motherboard manual to verify that is the only option required.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1226&pid=2149&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

The card doesn't list "Dual Graphics" support... however none of the other ones on their page do either. They do say Crossfire support however.

I feel like I picked a bad hardware combo for some weird compatibility issue because other people seem to be doing this so easily and I've spent hours trying to get this thing enabled.

Is the R5 250 supported for Dual Graphics?

EarthDog said:

Is the R5 250 supported for Dual Graphics?

Click to expand...

That is a good question. It is supposed to be... depending on where you read. If you look up the setup however, you will see people running it.

I literally think this equipment is so new that it wasn't 100% finished yet and something (either my BIOS or AMD drivers) isn't fully supporting what I have. I can find other threads on this exact same thing with similar setups, just nothing really solid for me to try to do.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1465171/no-joy-dual-graphics-on-7850k-r7-250

The A10-7850 does dual graphics with the R7 250.
Yes, others have had issues getting it to work because it's not clearly explained in ANY mobo manual on where the setting is. As I said it's buried somewhere in your BIOS, on my MSI mobo it's under Integrated Graphics Configuration> Advanced

What BIOS version are you using? The most current for your board is F3.

I am using F4c (beta). They had A and B as well with different release notes about overclockability... I couldn't run crap on F3 over stock but F4 is much better. Not much info about F4c but I guess I could try to flash back and see what happens.

Here is the pic from the mobo manual. There aren't many options in there really but I'm as positive as I can be that everything should be configured properly.
http://oi57.tinypic.com/hvs0pe.jpg

As a thread suggests on the AMD forums that I started... this may indeed be because I have a Carpe Verde based R7 250 as opposed to an Oland R7 250.

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=483&threadid=173642

I thought I made a good choice by getting 512 shader cores and GDDR5 ram vs 384 cores and DDR3 but apparently not.

Anyone have any ideas on getting this going?

Ah, yep you found your problem. Keveri only does dual graphics with the Oland. So, as much as I hate to tell you it ain't gonna work with the R7 250 you have. Can you return it and get an Oland card instead? Otherwise you're either stuck or you could try and sell the card you have and pick up an Oland R7 250.
Sorry.

It just boggles my mind that it isn't clearer that it only is compatible to SOME R7 cards... the company I bought it from turned out to be a POS to get it from (picked em cause I could find it no place else months ago) so returning is something I don't even care for.

Even looking currently I don't see many/any R7 250 cards that are single slot/lo profile. That's the only thing that can fit.

I'm curious if I can somehow get a response from AMD regarding if this is ever going to change or if it's even possible... since it's NOT clear at all seeing this advertised and done to the R7 series yet it's only certain ones.

The pic below is taken from official AMD docs pertaining to what works for dual graphics. As you can see the ONLY card that works with the A10-7xx0 series is the R7 250 DDR3 "Oland"
When you say that "only" a single slot card will fit...Is this because of lack of space in your case or because your motherboard only has one PCIe slot?

Yeah the chart is what kills me... I haven't been around AMD for quite some time, so when I saw others using Dual Graphics with this I just thought any R7 240/250 would work (from the research I did). Apparently I should have looked harder... or that chart wasn't out when I bought the card.

When I say space, yes I mean there is physically only 1 slot for me to work both on the motherboard and in the case. It's a TINY case, that's why...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129080

I don't even see an Oland based R7 250 that fits what I need, see some R240's though. I gotta wonder why AMD did this. My R7 250 is BETTER than an Oland based one, yet older?

I'm so disappointed to have gotten this far just to learn my setup doesn't work... with no idea if support will suddenly be added to new drivers or what.

Yea, that's a small case. With that case you're kinda stuck. In checkin I did find the following single slot R7 250s

PowerColor AXR7 250 2GBK3-HV2E/OC Radeon R7 250 2GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131574

GIGABYTE GV-R725OC-2GI REV2.0 Radeon R7 250 2GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125498

SAPPHIRE 100368-2GL Radeon R7 250 2GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202052

Yay for single slots, boo for none of them being low profile :-(

Somehow however my R7 250 Carpe Verde based card outperforms the APU even though they are very similar spec wise...

chuckles...yea not many half height cards out there.

Well, to be honest the performance increase with dual graphics isn't all that great. Heck actually the MSI R7 250 OC edition I have out perfoms the iGPU.

Here are the benchmark numbers for the stand alone iGPU, stand alone R7 250, and using both in Dual Graphics mode.

http://www.overclockers.com/testing-amd-kaveri-apu-dual-graphics-performance