Two AMD Radeon R7 240's 2GB (Sapphire, Stock) in Crossfire! Testing and Results.

Hello Everyone! I've decided to make a thread about Two R7 240's in Crossfire cause i didnt find any thread on the internet about it. Hope it will help some people and be an interesting post. If i forgot to test something or you want to know the results in some particular game or benchmark feel free to ask!

Heaven Benchmark 4.0
Heaven Benchmark Preset : API DX11, Quality ultra, Tessellation disabled, stereo 3D disabled, Multi monitor disabled, Anti-aliasing x8, Resolution 1680x1050 (my monitor's default resolution).

Heaven Benchmark results Single Card : Score 208, Min FPS 6.3, Max FPS 13.7, Avg FPS 8.3.


Heaven Benchmark results Two cards/Crossfire : Score 334, Min FPS 8.2, Max FPS 27.1, Avg FPS 13.3.

NOTE! The Crossfire setup utilized 70% to 95% only, I dont know why this is happening but i think its because GPU's in Crossfire and SLI utilize only about 70% to 80% of their power. If anyone knows why, Please tell me/us.


FurMark
FurMark Preset : Resolution 1680x1050, Anti-Aliasing x4.

FurMark results Single Card : Score 172, Min FPS 3, Max FPS 4, Avg FPS 2. (U wot M8? How's the average FPS between 3 and 4 is 2?)


FurMark results Two Cards/Crossfire : Score 327, Min FPS 6, Max FPS 6, Avg FPS 5.

NOTE! This Benchmark utilized 100% of both cards!


Battle Field 3
Battle Field 3 Preset : Resolution 1440x900, Textures Ultra, Shadow high, Effects high, Mesh high, Terrain high, Terrain decoration high, Anti-Aliasing deferred 2xMSAA, Anti-Aliasing post medium, Motion blur on, Anisotropic filter 8x, Ambient occlusion SSAO

BF3 results Two cards/Crossfire : Min FPS 35, Avg FPS 49, Max FPS 64. (Operation Swordbreaker)


Fire Strike Results Single Card : Graphics Score 1548, Physics Score 9378, Combined Score 569.
NOTE that Fire Strike didnt recognize my driver somewhy But it worked fine.


SYSTEM SPECS :
CPU : Intel Core I5 6600K [email protected]
MotherBoard : MSI Z170A PC MATE
GPU : Two AMD Radeon R7 240's
RAM : Corsair Vengeance LPX 4GB 2400MHz
Cooler : Noctua NH-U9B
SSD : SanDisk 128GB (SDSSDP-128G-G25)
HDD : Samsung 500GB
PSU : Antec BP450S
OS : Windows 8.1

Thread is not finished! I will update with more benchmarks and game benchmarks soon! stay tuned. More benchmarks and game benchmarks will come soon! (Cinebench, BF3, Insurgency, Ect.).

Crossfire (and SLI) don't scale as well as a single , better card. You won't get a 100% improvement by adding another card. And the RAM capacity stays the same as one card. Ex: Two 2GB cards will only give you 2 GB total. Hope that helps.

Alaric said:

Crossfire (and SLI) don't scale as well as a single , better card. You won't get a 100% improvement by adding another card. And the RAM capacity stays the same as one card. Ex: Two 2GB cards will only give you 2 GB total. Hope that helps.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I know about the ram scaling though, but in FurMark it utilized 100% of both cards! that's weird.

Alaric said:

It will benchmark both cards at 100% , but you won't get 200% of your score using one card. That is what scaling refers to. You don't get double the performance using two of the same card even with both cards maxed out , as your above scores indicate. Considering the cards you're using that looks like a nice improvement , though.

Click to expand...

I know it wont double the power if i double the cards, But i just wondered why in the Heaven benchmark it utilized between 70% and 95% but in Furmark it utilized 100%.

It will benchmark both cards at 100% , but you won't get 200% of your score using one card. That is what scaling refers to. You don't get double the performance using two of the same card even with both cards maxed out , as your above scores indicate. Considering the cards you're using that looks like a nice improvement , though.

I believe some motherboards can Xfire internally, but I'm not sure of the limitations (if any) regarding which GPUs are compatible. I can't tell from the XFX website if your cards have the ability to Xfire with an external bridge but they do state Xfire as an option. http://xfxforce.com/en-us/products/...s/amd-radeon-r7-240-core-edition-r7-240a-elf4

The cards are here...

http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/produ...s/amd-radeon-r7-240-core-edition-r7-240a-4nfr

No bridges on hardware

What operating system do you have? 16.12.2 seems to be the current Catalyst driver for most Windows OS.

Unguarded said:

Hi M@rk...

I'm very interested in this post and want to know as much as I can about it.

I was under the understanding that R7 240's were crossfire with only an APU CPU

I own two of these cards.

Specifically...

XFX R7 240a 4gb N4FR

700 GPU
1300 gddr3

35 watts each.

So far I cannot find an option for crossfire in the settings for 16.6.2 crimson.

Specs are

gigabyte 990fxa ud3 r5
AMD 1100t 3.3 six core.
4 GB ddr3
R7 240a 4GB 4NFR x2
950 watt PSU


See if we can make this happen.

Unguarded

Click to expand...

Hello, Thanks for appreciating and reading my results!


When you enter Crimson, On the bottom of the Crimson window you should see preferences tab, Click it and then click 'Radeon Additional Settings', Then the CCC windows will open, Search for an option called 'AMD CrossFireX' in one of the tabs.

If you cant find it i will install the cards again and see exactly where to find it, And send you screenshots.

I'm sorry I borked added the OS info

Windows 10 home 64

I'm guessing there are overhead processes involved in coordinating crossfire that prevent the scaling from being 100%.

trents said:

I'm guessing there are overhead processes involved in coordinating crossfire that prevent the scaling from being 100%.

Click to expand...

Not entirely, Its more of a optimization problem.

I think M@rk will get to the bottom of this for you, but it would be a good idea to get current drivers before you try XDMA. My $.02.

Sorry guys,

XFX reports that my cards are not supportive of descrete crossfire mode.

Yup, I looked at the wrong model card the first time. Sorry about that.

Hmm :/
Well at least now we know!
Try to sell one or both of the cards if you dont use them, They are pretty good for a HTPC.

Actually for all intents this card has overclocked to over 950 GPU and memory. Never really got hot either.
It doesn't allow volt modding. But since I have a spare...

Lol game on

That's the spirit! Or sell them and use the money towards a RX 470?

Alaric said:

That's the spirit! Or sell them and use the money towards a RX 470?

Click to expand...

Haha, I did overclock mine to about 1050Core clock, Dont remember the memory clock though, All without voltage modding but power usage was +20%.

I remember I was testing 2x R7 240 and 2x 250 just after premiere. If your R7 240 are with GDDR5 memory then there is a chance you can flash it to R7 250.

Woomack said:

I remember I was testing 2x R7 240 and 2x 250 just after premiere. If your R7 240 are with GDDR5 memory then there is a chance you can flash it to R7 250.

Click to expand...

Sadly all cards that are above 1GB of VRAM are DDR3 (As long as i know), His model is DDR3, Mine too.