CF & Eyefinity issue or Normal

[skyline510]

hi guys just notice this today on my rig the setup is as follows

2 x 6870 CF and Eyefinity

the other card seems to be running slow or is this normal on a CF setup?


Im running two GPU-Z to show each VC the other one is acting weird or its just normal?

[Arinoth]

This is normal, the second card is running in idle mode, meaning its saving power and not running everything at normal stock speeds to keep temperatures lower. The card that has the three monitors hooked to it is constantly stuck in 2d if not 3d mode causing it to normally be running full memory in order to power the three monitors.

If you were to run/install msi afterburner and monitor the usage during gaming you'll see the second card will be running at its normal clock speeds.

[skyline510]

Thank you for the clarification Arinoth i thought the card was faulty =)

[Arinoth]

Nope, actually that's one thing I kinda don't like about AMD is that even with crossfire you have to populate the first card with all three monitors for eyefinity to work. This cause the primary card to never really ever be able to go into idle mode, making it "idle" in a hotter 2D mode. I have gotten around this by having my computer turn off the monitors after 5 mins of no computer use. Nvidia surround you need to use both gpus, meaning bolth cards will kick into idle mode.

[skyline510]

after an hour so so just basic computing and nothing serious i notice the primary card seem to be a lot hotter compare to the other one.. hmm make me wonder why ATI didn't allow to use one of the port one the secondary card still enabling th eyefinity feature.