Crossfire XP Pro Beta Drivers and 3870 X2

After getting the SSD up and running with a fresh XP Pro installation, I installed beta Crossfire X2 drivers. There has been some speculation as to whether XP Pro will support four GPU's. The verdict is still out until I run benchmarks, but looking at the circumstantial evidence -- power draw, cards as they are displayed in the ATI OC tool -- it sure looks like they're running in Crossfire.

Example, when I was running the 8800GTX's in SLI during 3DM06, the cards would beep when the system was overclocked because they weren't getting the power they needed -- even though they were powered by a 1KW PSU. The X2's are doing the same thing since installing the beta drivers -- beeping during 3DM06. And where I was able to complete 3DM06 with little effort at a 4.50GHz overclock running one X2, running two cards in Crossfire is creating a hit to power reserves, I believe, that causes the rig to choke and crash during the first CPU -*test*-('"), where it did not crash when not run in Crossfire mode.

Here's a screen capture of the Catalyst panel showing Crossfire enabled:

These things draw 320w EACH under load.. Then theres your CPU, raptors, SSD, Water pump LOL...

Are these the beta drivers I posted up before... I thought they were Vista only.... If not, where u get these ones from??

Update: The XP drivers are not pre-release Crossfire beta drivers. The HIS labeling was misleading in that they used the Catalyst driver package version number, v8.45, instead of the actual driver version number -- in this case, old driver version 8.10. Additionally, I expected random lockups when computer was at idle running the HIS drivers. My recommendation for those wanting to run X2's in Crossfire would be to wait until final candidate release on ATI's website. I've heard this may be as soon as this coming week (week of 03/04/08).

I'm not holding out hope for the Vista drivers, either, but will check them out.

Paul, these drivers were beta drivers from the HIS video card mfr website. I came across the drivers after scouring the VGA forums, and posted the link 02/20/08:

http://asustech.15.forumer.com/index.php?s...indpost&p=30197

The HIS XP drivers are labeled v8.45; where on the ATI site, the drivers are labeled v8.2. It's possible HIS re-labeled ATI's v8.2 drivers per their (HIS) own internal nomenclature. That doesn't appear to be the case, but as I only recently installed the drivers, I'm not sure yet. I'll have to reinstall the RAID card and reboot into my prior installation in order to compare actual version numbers as installed.

The HIS Vista drivers, on the other hand, are clearly marked as beta drivers: "VISTA Driver Verison: Vista_8.451-071220a1-058596C-ATI."

Required Wattage

I estimated power requirements using the Extreme PSU Calculator. Total power with vcore @1.65 and clock speed of 4700MHz is around 960W. To arrive at that figure, I'm inputing four ATI HD3870 vid card, since the calc does not yet list the 3870 X2 as an available component. I would think, if anything, that would put the estimated figure as a liberal estimate and not conservative -- calculating assuming four physical VGA cards, rather than two physical cards each with two GPUS. Maybe not? What do you think?

The power draw for an X2 is about 100 watts more than the power draw of an HD3870.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3209&p=12

The power draw of two cards in crossfire is not that much more than a single card, maybe 30w - 50w.

http://www.pcformat.co.za/modules.php?name...=asc&highlight=.

I think if you use the power supply calculator for two HD3870s in crossfire, and add about 130w - 150w, you'll have it about right. It wouldn't be as much as 4 cards.

For the estimate, do you have the cpu and the system running @ 100%? During intensive benches like '06, the draw will be 100% at times.

Yes.

It seems like there may be a bug in the PSU Calc -- when I click on calculate with the same variables, I get different figures with each click. Maybe it's a Firefox issue?

How much different?

50 - 100W

Here are two beta releases of the X2 Crossfire driver. Both have bugs, of course. The first, RC1, may only work on the 780G chipset.
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=c...d=5967&Itemid=1

The second, RC2, is supposedly chipset independent:
http://down1.pcpop.com/softdown/system/amd...59582.pcpop.exe

I'm installing Vista right now, so should have a verdict on the HIS 'beta' Vista drivers shortly. I'm guessing they are old v8.1 drivers and do not enable Crossfire like the above two releases.

I'm posting the trial and error here so others more fortunate can avoid the trial and error.

And I thank you very much for taking a "hit for the team"

Anytime. Just an FYI, none of the beta drivers work with Vista 64bit edition. To be honest, I bought my copy of Vista months ago and actually forgot I had the 64bit version -- thought I was running 32bit until I got the compatibility error message when attempting to install the official drivers.

Ah well... I know which Vista NOT to get lol... I checked further and most people that have got the 2x3870x2 running properly in CrossfireX have done so on Vista 32bit...I checked on HWBOT.. Good source of information that bot, you can find out a lot from a screenshot or a verification link eh

This is RC3 for Vista 32bit

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=242853

But if you run 64Bit doesnt that cause issues with some of the 3DMark benches??

Mark

Since his new SSD drive is so fast it only takes 4 minutes to install and OS, Jason's going to re-install so he'll have 32-bit VISTA running.

Here's a link to them that's *much* faster:

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1335372221

The installation is no problem, but I'm not thrilled at the idea of paying twice for an OS I never intend to use, save for Forum Wars.