# Project Trifire/Quadfire



## erocker (Apr 13, 2008)

It's just a start.  I'm waiting on my other 3850 at the moment and my Phenom 9850.  I'll start with a 5000+ BE and tri-fire.  Using a PCPower&Cooling 750 Quad, and two sticks of Transcend Jetram DDR2 800.  After testing with the 2 3870's + 2 3850's, the 3850's will be replaced with two single slot 3870's.  More to come.  Some testing to be done next weekend.


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## Snake05 (Apr 13, 2008)

That is one sexy beast!


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## erocker (Apr 13, 2008)

Oh, I forgot, once all of this hardware is out and on the testing workbench, the case will be getting modded, so I'll throw pics of that up here once that commences.  I love having a decent camera, finally!


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## Silverel (Apr 13, 2008)

You are my hero!


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## MKmods (Apr 13, 2008)

The more the merrier! Very nice.


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## ShadowFold (Apr 13, 2008)

Silverel said:


> You are my hero!



Hes my hero back off  

Thats seriously the most kick ass AMD Spider set up ever!  Cant wait to see your benches.

Also why not put the stock cooler one on the 3rd slot so you dont have to buy another single slot?


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## erocker (Apr 13, 2008)

One thing I need to figure out is the placement of the bridge connectors, I cannot find any information on it anywhere.


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## ShadowFold (Apr 13, 2008)

My friend with Tri-Fire sent me this over xfire. If you need the one for Quad-Fire I also know someone that has a quad fire set up too


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## erocker (Apr 13, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> Also why not put the stock cooler one on the 3rd slot so you dont have to buy another single slot?








From nearest to the NB it goes dual, dual, single, single.  It's the only way it will work with quadfire.


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## ShadowFold (Apr 13, 2008)

I know but move the IceQ one to the second slot


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## erocker (Apr 13, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> I know but move the IceQ one to the second slot



That's exactly what I'm saying.  IceQ in the first, IceQ in the second, single slots in the third and fourth slots.  For tri-fire it's probablly better with the IceQ's in the two blue slots, because those are the main x16 slots.


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## BrooksyX (Apr 13, 2008)

Wow, thats a nice setup.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Apr 13, 2008)

what case are you using ... how is that xigmatek?


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## erocker (Apr 13, 2008)

The case is a Rocketfish (LianLi) I got at Best Buy.  The Xigmatek works great!  I've never had an AMD chip that runs it's cores at 26c on an air cooler before, especially with the lower RPM fan it uses!  But then again when do temp monitors ever work correctly?


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## intel igent (Apr 13, 2008)

damn! sweetness! VERY nice erocker  

are they all 3850's or?

thought about W/C them? they might get a little toasty in there


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## erocker (Apr 13, 2008)

All the testing/benching will be done on a workbench.  Once done, the two 3870's are going back in my Intel rig, and the two 3850's are staying in the rocketfish case.  I prefer air over water cooling, though the Phenom will probablly get a nice loop running through it eventually.  All this stuff gets expensive. The next rig that replaces my Intel setup (Nahalem) will be all water cooled.


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## Grings (Apr 13, 2008)

Cool, i thought this was going to be a server? with quadfire??! AWESOME!!!


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## intel igent (Apr 13, 2008)

erocker said:


> All the testing/benching will be done on a workbench.  Once done, the two 3870's are going back in my Intel rig, and the two 3850's are staying in the rocketfish case.  I prefer air over water cooling, though the Phenom will probablly get a nice loop running through it eventually.  All this stuff gets expensive. The next rig that replaces my Intel setup (Nahalem) will be all water cooled.



Ahh! ok! was just thinking that if you had that setup in your case you'd have cooling issues but no need to worry 

it is an expensive hobby   

cant wait to see some results


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## pt (Apr 13, 2008)

i want more pics


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## erocker (Apr 13, 2008)

I just threw the two other cards in there to see how they'd look.  The real work starts next weekend when I have time set aside to do this.  Many pics will come then!


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## blkhogan (Apr 13, 2008)

Could you kindly message me your home address, so I can come and STEAL (I mean borrow) YOUR SETUP? . That is a thing of beauty you got there


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## DaMulta (Apr 13, 2008)

I think the way you have it tied E is the right way/ Try them both and get back with us.


Or was that tri sli, damn I need some more sleep.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 13, 2008)

Thats a nice ass sys Erocker, mad respect!


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## cdawall (Apr 14, 2008)

i might have one of these soon very similar but all 3850s


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## erocker (Apr 15, 2008)

So it begins... Installing Vista now. TBC.


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## MKmods (Apr 15, 2008)

may the force be with you.

(ur gonna need more airflow in that case)


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## cdawall (Apr 15, 2008)

your going to need a hope and a prayer for the vista install!


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## paybackdaman (Apr 15, 2008)

erocker said:


> From nearest to the NB it goes dual, dual, single, single.  It's the only way it will work with quadfire.



Been looking at this board now for a month. How does it preform?
and good luck with the vista install...*fingers crossed*


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## erocker (Apr 15, 2008)

Have a fan blowing in my open case, so that should be fine for air, as far as performance goes, I have no idea how to overclock this thing yet since Asus has to rename all the AMD bios settings I know and love.  It's going to be a process.


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## cdawall (Apr 15, 2008)

are you kidding me well that ones off my list


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## farlex85 (Apr 15, 2008)

Nice. I hope those scale well. Lookin forward to some benchies.


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## philbrown23 (Apr 15, 2008)

wooooooooowwwww


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Apr 15, 2008)

if ur selling any of those 3850s at a nice price lemme know (if they are 512's)


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## freaksavior (Apr 15, 2008)

subscribed...looking forward to this one. and i want a score in my thread or i will disown/ban you from it


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## erocker (Apr 15, 2008)

Lol, I forgot I have to do a PSU swap with my other computer.  It's been a couple hours already, I'm still tweaking Vista.  Everything is going well so far.


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## acousticlemur (Apr 15, 2008)

so far it looks amazing man. that is the board i was planing on using in my next build.  after this is all said and done i would like your comments on it if you would.  but DAMN that is a sexy ass computer!!!!


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## erocker (Apr 15, 2008)

I'm thinking if I want these tests to work out correctly, I'm going to need a 512mb 3850.  But here it is, at very unoptimized settings.  There are some bugs with crossfire, so I'm going to give some other things a try, but I have to sleep.

First run with 3870+3850 






Closest relative score on the 3dMark thread:  17, CrackerJack - HD2900GT X-Fire @ 800/1000 - 11428 - A64 X2 5000+ @ 3204.5Mhz - 200.3FSB


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## erocker (Apr 15, 2008)

I'm having a lot of problems, most stemming from Vista and the fact I don't know my way around this board too well.  If anyone can help me out, here's the link. http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=57817  I'm using both of the blue slots (which I thought were x16) but they are coming up as x8.  I'm sure it's a bios setting or something.  Help.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 15, 2008)

i wish i could help ya out but asus changes so many setting in the bios i dknt know what half of them mean...thats why i bought the gigabyte board


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## MKmods (Apr 15, 2008)

when you are in the bios go to "ADVANCED"

than in Advanced click on the "PCI Express Config" tab

the adjustments are there.

for 2 cards the blues are X16 and the blacks are X1
for 3 cards the order(from the top PCI E down) is X16 x1 x8 x8
and X8 X8 X16 X1
for 4 cards X8 X8 X8 X8


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## erocker (Apr 15, 2008)

I've gone throught those settings already.  My score with a single 3870 is about 9800 with the same clocks on the 5000+ so, crossfire is working, just not sure how well though.  In CCC under crossfire, it immediately enables crossfire with two cards, that wasn't the case with XP.  Also CCC says that it's not running at optimal performance.  I'm plain confused now.


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## asb2106 (Apr 15, 2008)

erocker said:


> I've gone throught those settings already.  My score with a single 3870 is about 9800 with the same clocks on the 5000+ so, crossfire is working, just not sure how well though.  In CCC under crossfire, it immediately enables crossfire with two cards, that wasn't the case with XP.  Also CCC says that it's not running at optimal performance.  I'm plain confused now.



I have tons of issues with crossfire in Vista.  It seems to work on its own pretty easily, but it never works just right.  So I gave up and went back to XP.


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## erocker (Apr 15, 2008)

Yeah, I'm about to give up on this crap for now.  Vista sucks (there I said it), this motherboard is hard to understand, and there is basically no information on doing anything with it anywhere.  I'm selling the 3850 to get a 512mb version, so check my [fs] thread on it and make me an offer.  I'm going back to my other system for now.  After countless builds throughout my life, I've never had such a hard time.  AMD and or Microsoft really need to get thier act together with thier drivers.:shadedshu  I mean, c'mon where is the support from AMD on this.  Nothing on thier web page, and the crossfire section in the 790fx manual (on a board for CrossfireX) is talking about old school slaves, masters, and dongles for crying out loud!  Pfft!


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## erocker (Apr 15, 2008)

Ooh, and a whopping difference between two 3870's and a 3870 + 3850.  There's just something not right going on here.  I've pretty much concluded that my memory is horrible as I can't get it to do even 800mhz, and who knows what's wrong with crosffire?


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## jbunch07 (Apr 16, 2008)

if your scores are that close it might be cpu problems


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## erocker (Apr 23, 2008)

*Update.  Ok, I have my 750quad moved into the AMD rig now, and trifire will be commencing shorty.  Unfortunately I have this 5000+ bottlenecking my system but I will try running bench's at different resolutions to see if it helps any.


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## CrackerJack (Apr 23, 2008)

Dude that setup looks AWESOME!!!


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## erocker (Apr 23, 2008)

Thanks man!  All it needs is a Phenom 9850.  All erocker needs is some money!


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## CrackerJack (Apr 23, 2008)

erocker said:


> Thanks man!  All it needs is a Phenom 9850.  All erocker needs is some money!



yeah i here that! I'm going try to get the 9850 also. Hope to have it by July


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## cdawall (Apr 23, 2008)

erocker whats your blacky at?


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## erocker (Apr 23, 2008)

I'll probablly run at these speeds.  My memory is right around 900mhz.  This score is with a 512mb 3850.  I think I have the CPU voltage a bit on the high side too..


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## cdawall (Apr 23, 2008)

really only 1.4v to run that @ 3.2?


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## CrackerJack (Apr 23, 2008)

cdawall said:


> really only 1.4v to run that @ 3.2?



5000+ BE 
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-overclocker,1708-4.html


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## cdawall (Apr 23, 2008)

CrackerJack said:


> 5000+ BE
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-overclocker,1708-4.html



mine takes 1.44v 

but then again i'm more worried about the 1.55v i'm pushing thru to hit 3.345ghz


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## erocker (Apr 23, 2008)

Yeah, 3dmark stable anyways.  I ran Orthos small fft's for only about an hour stable.  It never crashed or hiccuped on me.  The Xigmatek cooler is pretty darn awesome at keeping my cpu cool.  I have no way of monitoring cores for some reason, but the CPU temp has never gone above 41c under constant load.  Hey, do you know of any way to decipher the serial number to find the date of manufacture on these chips?  AMD puts no info about the chip actually inside the box on the carton anywhere.


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## cdawall (Apr 23, 2008)

nope i only know my stepping....


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## CrackerJack (Apr 23, 2008)

erocker said:


> Yeah, 3dmark stable anyways.  I ran Orthos small fft's for only about an hour stable.  It never crashed or hiccuped on me.  The Xigmatek cooler is pretty darn awesome at keeping my cpu cool.  I have no way of monitoring cores for some reason, but the CPU temp has never gone above 41c under constant load.  Hey, do you know of any way to decipher the serial number to find the date of manufacture on these chips?  AMD puts no info about the chip actually inside the box on the carton anywhere.



CoreTemp, isn't showing your core temps?


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## cdawall (Apr 23, 2008)

no i get like 21C with that its a little off


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## erocker (Apr 23, 2008)

I have broken core thermal sensors on my chip. AMD Overdrive can't even display my core temps.  It's fine with me though, with AMD all I care about is CPU socket temp.  Since this chip is very nice on the voltage and speeds, I'm not going to complain about not reading the core temps.  I'm getting rid of it the second I get a Phenom anyways.  So far, without benching or stability testing, I'm pretty sure the highest I've gotten is just above 3.5ghz and in the high 1.4v's.

*Oh and I found out the date of manufacture was the first week of March 2008.


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## cdawall (Apr 24, 2008)

damn 3.5ghz....want to trade when you get your phenom


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## aGeoM (Apr 24, 2008)

Hi guys

Back when, Catalyst 8.3 was released I had a chance to play 3 way CF w/ 3x3870 & 2 boards, MSI K9A2 Plat. v1.0 and ASUS M3A32 Deluxe plus Phenom 9500, in Vista x64, I was able to have 3 GPU CF in CCC enable, but 3DMarks06 score was worst than just one 3870, tried different vga bios, setups, even connecting 2 CF bridges on the 3 GFXs by crossing the bridge from 2nd card(1st slot) to the 1st(2nd slot), never worked...
Some one said it's driver related, now we have Cats. 8.4, but I don't have the board's (replaced for the DFI LP UT 790FX) and one of the cards, so can't try anymore.
Sincerely I hope that you can make it work.

Be well...


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## CrackerJack (Apr 24, 2008)

erocker said:


> I have broken core thermal sensors on my chip. AMD Overdrive can't even display my core temps.  It's fine with me though, with AMD all I care about is CPU socket temp.  Since this chip is very nice on the voltage and speeds, I'm not going to complain about not reading the core temps.  I'm getting rid of it the second I get a Phenom anyways.  So far, without benching or stability testing, I'm pretty sure the highest I've gotten is just above 3.5ghz and in the high 1.4v's.
> 
> *Oh and I found out the date of manufacture was the first week of March 2008.



Overdrive doesn't see my temps either  Never had


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## erocker (Apr 26, 2008)

*Some results...*

Ok, so here we go.  For all of the tests the processor and RAM were all clocked identically.  To start off, a run with a single HD3850 512mb card: 








Next, I went on to run two HD3870's OC'd in crossfire:








The final step I took for tonight was putting all three together.  Notice the way I have the crossfire bridges connected.  This is the only way to get CCC to read all three cards at once.:














Obviously, I'm very limited by my processor.  I will do a couple more tests and add them soon (Single HD3870 & HD3870 + HD3850), but I look forward to getting a 9850 Phenom soon to see how the results fare then.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 26, 2008)

nice...the phenom will help the bottlenecking lots...my score went from 10800 to 11382 with my 9850BE...and its running at stock speeds (cpu) but 2 and 3 cards should be scoring lot higher than that...if my single 3870 can do 11k


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## erocker (Apr 26, 2008)

I'm pretty sure with my 3870 run I got just under 11k so it's all seems about right.  I'm just suprised that CCC actually saw all 3 gpu's and ran it effectively.  Now if I could only test it out with my Q6600 then we could really see what's up, but it will be a couple weeks for the Phenom yet...


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## jbunch07 (Apr 26, 2008)

erocker said:


> I'm pretty sure with my 3870 run I got just under 11k so it's all seems about right.  I'm just suprised that CCC actually saw all 3 gpu's and ran it effectively.  Now if I could only test it out with my Q6600 then we could really see what's up, but it will be a couple weeks for the Phenom yet...



well im sure u will love it i know i am!


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## zaqwsx (Apr 26, 2008)

My single HD3870 and Phenom 9600BE @ 2.8ghz got me to 12K in 3Dmark06. So if you get a phenom your score will skyrocket!


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## Mussels (Apr 28, 2008)

as impressed as i am looking at the rig, the fact i can break that with a single 8800GT makes me wonder just how much CPU power you need to run crossfire...


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## adrianx (May 9, 2008)

so the 2 cards in crossfire = 3 cards in crossfire-x 

please try to run 3dmark vantage

also you put 6 fans on one radiator, that is idea will be more sound from fans that will cooling.

a fan don't need a turbulent air flow on him, because that incoming air flow will hit the fan helix and that will case noise and vibration, also will influence the speed of the fun. 
two fun mounted like in you system will not have a double airflow

the first fan will have from were to get the air.. but after the air run in the radiator to the second fan will have a decrease speed and will be hotter that initial temperature. the second fan dont have same open like the first because have mounted in front an radiator. 

in case of you I don't see necessary to use 6 fans on one radiator, even at low speed

you use more power to run the fans that you will do with 3 fans on one radiator



but... you don't want to save the planet


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