Poor crossfire setup

[DAMNcrossfireBS]

i am new to the forum so i hope this is the right place for me to ask these questions.

first off, i'll start with the problem i am having. i am running 2x hd6950's in crossfire mode. crossfire is enabled for sure, because when i go into 3d apps i see the crossfirex emblem on the top right of my screen. but when i am benchmarking my crossfire setup, i am still only getting the fps of a single card. i have installed gpu-z and amd sys monitor and both cards are getting gpu loads. i have turned off the power saving features on my whole pc and still getting the same thing. i have completely reinstalled windows 7 64bit, and still no better. i have tried each card individualy and both work and bench as expected. i have been pulling my hair out going through forums trying to find a fix for this problem. and nothing has helped my crossfire in any way. if someone can maybe give me some tips or settings i can try that would be great.


benchmarking programs i have tried:
3dmark vantage:
crossfire score 7242 avg 42fps others with simular setups hit over 10k
3dmark 11:
don't remember the score but was only getting around 28-33 fps in crossfire and same with a single card
heaven benchmark:
i was doing decent with all setting maxed out at 30-40 fps in crossfire


here is what i am running in my pc

asus p5kc mobo pci-e slots x16,x4
core 2 quad 2.4ghz q6600
g-skill sniper 1333 ram 2x4gb 8gb total
2x his iceq turbo x hd6950
samsung 160gb 7200rpm hdd (as main)
800watt power supply
windows 7 64bit home edition
and latest ati drivers 12.9 + application profiles

can someone please help befor i give up on amd and crossfire and have to build another rig with nvidia sli?

 

[wagex]

the x4 pci slot probably is killing performance.

 

[DAMNcrossfireBS]

the x4 pci slot probably is killing performance.

i was kinda wondering about that myself, but running a single card in the x4 slot i was only down like 5-10fps as to running in the 16x slot. so i would think i would still bget a decent amount of performence running crossfire.

also to note that when i was running "amd sys monitor" i was only getting 100% between both cards one running at 60-65% load and the other at 30-35% load. not sure if thats normal or not. this is my first crossfire setup so i am new with this.

 

[wagex]

well those cards are supposed to scale 90%+ so i mean your scores should be almost double and that is the only thing i can see that would be killing your fps. your q6600 could also be bottlenecking them, overclock her to 3.5ghz and see if that helps (if you have agood cooler)

actually im pretty sure at 2.4ghz that would bottleneck a single 6950, so perhaps an overclock would help

a 3.0ghz vs a 2.4ghz c2q yeild quite a difference in game fps just with a gtx 280
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=49

 

[DAMNcrossfireBS]

i'll have to try over clocking my processor again. but everytime i try windows freezes up on boot almost everytime. good thing i am wanting to upgrade my motherboard and processor in the near future to amd 6 core or 8 core.

 

[wagex]

theres a good c2q overclocking guide on the forums here if your having freezeups then you need moar volts some where.

 

[DAMNcrossfireBS]

i'll see if i can find them then. cause some setting specs on overclocking would be very helpful sence i haven't tried to overclock much. other then on gpu's. but overclocking them are easy.

 

[eaglescouter]

You would probably get a better response in the AMD GPU section, or the benchmarking section of the forums.

 

[trents]

You would probably get a better response in the AMD GPU section, or the benchmarking section of the forums.

Sounds like with the change in direction of this post from GPU to overclocking an older Intel the OP needs to start a new thread on the Intel Overclocking section of the forum, not the AMD overclocking section.

 

[RGone]

This thead has been reported so it can be moved.