Crossfire on socket 939 is not for the faint of heart

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  • Опубліковано 15 лип 2024
  • We are looking at one of the early solution for building an ATI Radeon Crossfire.
    The components used in this clip are: DFI LanParty RDX 200, AMD Opteron 185, Gecube x1950 Pro, HIS x1950 XTX, Western Digital 150Gb Velociraptor.
    Contents:
    00:00 - Intro
    00:11 - The parts
    03:24 - Assembly
    04:39 - Hardware Issues
    06:54 - The Drivers
    10:27 - The competitor
    11:25 - Raid 0
    12:23 - Information
    13:15 - Game benchmarks
    26:53 - Games
    33:27 - Benchmarks
    36:00 - Conclusions
    37:32 - The x1950s
    42:11 - Final thoughts
    This project although not as extensive as some of the others on the channel took 3 months to complete.

КОМЕНТАРІ • 80

  • @gulskjegglive
    @gulskjegglive 5 місяців тому +13

    Thank you for this. The 939 days were very fun.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  5 місяців тому +2

      Indeed, and I felt the crossfire on the 939 was some of the least explored topic.

  • @TheSaival
    @TheSaival 5 місяців тому +8

    This is a surprise amount of work for such a niche topic. Good job, man.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  5 місяців тому +2

      Thank you. It was a bit of work if you consider every point on the chart was a benchmark, sometimes ran 2 times. (in case of doom 3 maybe 4-5 :)) but to me building a crossfire was a fascination (probably fueled by marketing) outside of my financial reach for many years. Luckily I was able to get the Pro's at a decent price one $15, the other $35 and more important I got the XTX for about $12 so I could finally explore the crossfire and compare it to a single solution. In my mind before building this system it wasn't a niche topic but while completing the clip I understood why it is considered that.

  • @EdgarGrefve
    @EdgarGrefve 19 днів тому +1

    love the colorful yellow and orange!

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  19 днів тому

      I love it too. One of the best looking systems I had on this channel.

  • @TechnologyHive
    @TechnologyHive 3 місяці тому +1

    I loved this retro video! Good job!

  • @kibunjojo4499
    @kibunjojo4499 5 місяців тому +5

    I laughed so hard at this intro.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  5 місяців тому +3

      That intro perfectly described the way the hardware felt. Clumsy in low resolution, very willing to make up for that in the high resolutions but funky overall.

  • @youtubewzd2196
    @youtubewzd2196 3 місяці тому +1

    Very thoroughly done.

  • @Lurch-Bot
    @Lurch-Bot 3 місяці тому +3

    I built a LGA775 SLI rig last year on a GA-P35-DS4 board with a pair of 7800GTX cards and an X6800. It was hot and loud. I played COD 2 for awhile at 1080p with settings maxed and then shut it down and it has just sat. interestingly, the MB wouldn't post with the bridge installed but it did in fact run in SLI without one. Benchmark testing confirmed this. While it was common to run x16 on one GPU and x8 on the other, the board I have supports x16 on both GPUs. I couldn't find any confirmation online but I suspect that the chipset on the board handles GPU sync and the bridge is simply redundant at that point.
    I am thinking of doing some C2Q overclocking fun before I disassemble the system but will probably put in a GT 730 to make life easier. But, ultimately, I have no practical use for the board because an X6800 running at 4.5GHz is overkill for an XP gaming PC and I have other machines to play games from the second half of the '00s. I also have numerous LGA775 mATX boards and even a couple of ITX machines. I think I'm going to put the GT 730 in my Shuttle xPC. The 7800GTX will fit, surprisingly, but that's a lot of power to ask from a 15 year old 300W ITX PSU, regardless of the fact it does have a 6 pin connector.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  3 місяці тому

      The GA-P35 sounds like a dream build. I know that sli can be achieved (only) by the on-board chip this way you can do it for graphics cards that do not have the connector. I think overclocking the c2d has a point as it eliminates any cpu bottleneck, a x6800@4500mhz is probably core i5 territory.

  • @Schmokkie1984
    @Schmokkie1984 3 місяці тому +1

    awesome, I have an functional 939 system with an ATI Hercules 3D Prophet 9700pro and an ATI Radeon 1900xt or 1950xt hehe.

  •  3 місяці тому +3

    Woow lots of decent retro games to play on my Vega 7 iGPU on Ultra Fire :D

  • @midnightaf
    @midnightaf 5 місяців тому +2

    excellent

  • @lsk-nf7um
    @lsk-nf7um 2 місяці тому +1

    DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX still have it setting in its box. 939 was such a stable platform for overclocking.

  • @superhuber
    @superhuber 2 місяці тому +1

    Source engine (Half-Life 2 etc) is a masterpiece of good quality code in every aspect.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  2 місяці тому

      It is. I will use if for more benchmarks in the future.

  • @Funj0b
    @Funj0b 4 місяці тому +1

    I subscribed, nice video

  • @LordLeeCH
    @LordLeeCH 3 місяці тому +1

    Crossfire eyefinity is fun, too. 5760x1080 resolution across 3 1080p panels🎉. I was using 2 Radeon 6870s. Most stuff looked fish eyed out on the edges.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  3 місяці тому +1

      I probably need some newer driver for that, I think that the x1950 may not be able to do eyefinity.

  • @DuneRunnerEnterprises
    @DuneRunnerEnterprises 3 місяці тому

    Darn!!
    I wanted to do exactly this!!!!!

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  3 місяці тому

      I would say that you should try it. Sometimes a confirmation is worth it's weight in gold! Specially those doom3 benchmarks.

    • @DuneRunnerEnterprises
      @DuneRunnerEnterprises 3 місяці тому

      @@retrodrive-thru47
      Heck yeah, especially,the "DOOM 3 BFG edition", that is still so cool!!!

  • @ModaHakim
    @ModaHakim 5 місяців тому +2

    iam genuinely surprised that you still have working parts this old

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  5 місяців тому +2

      They usually do work if you don't leave them out in the rain :) and I guess that some of these were premium parts in 2005-2006 so they had nice capacitors. I have working parts from 1986 :) so I guess even older is possible.

  • @MidnightGeek99
    @MidnightGeek99 5 місяців тому +3

    Crossfire looks good on the test bench and in the benchmarks...gameplay-wise it feels obnoxious to play!
    Are there any games where you don't experience stutters?

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  5 місяців тому

      Need for speed: Most Wanted played rather smooth. Farcry also. It wasn't just the stutters, for example the benchmark of Company of Heroes had massive tearing. The stutters were there for the Doom3 engine games also for Capcom games sometimes. STALKER also had them, but most of the games felt a lot better when the framerate decreased by increasing the resolution or the AA/AF. Prey for example was like a different game from the benchmark and the micro stutters were almost imperceptible. Half Life was impeccable from benchmark to gameplay. Crysis was a different matter but I really should have tested it using a core2duo CPU. Further testing is required to actually draw the proper conclusions maybe I was just lucky with some games/levels or unlucky in some other cases.

    • @davidp4456
      @davidp4456 3 місяці тому +1

      I don’t see stuttering on my S939. That looks really annoying. You should maybe check your bios settings, or perhaps it’s a symptom of a problem on the board? It doesn’t look right, I hope it’s something you can fix.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  3 місяці тому

      ​@@davidp4456It's actually only in lower resolutions where the fps go really high. It's like the dance at the beginning, it's almost smooth the higher resolution you go.

  • @Neksus-M06
    @Neksus-M06 5 місяців тому +1

    Are you going to try more graphics card to find the best possible setup?

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  5 місяців тому +1

      My initial plan was to run a setup of 2* hd3870 on this motherboard but I think that the cpu is bottlenecking the curent setup. I do have more graphics cards that can do Crossfire, 2* hd2600, 2* hd3870, 2* 4870, one hd7970 and one 280x that can probably do crossfire but for the first three I would probably need a core2 (maybe a quad) while for hd7970 I would need an I7 that are not as retro as I would explore on the channel. Also seeing how this last clip took 3 to 4 months to compile I would stay away from the crossfire for a while, but it was an interesting journey and I would like to explore some more to see if they fixed the issues.

  • @tamw
    @tamw 4 місяці тому +1

    Holy shit what a system dude, very nice. That motherboard is very rare these days, and those corsair pc4400 ram sticks you got there is pretty much the fastest ddr1 1gb modules ever released! If you want to maximize that platform, only run those 2 sticks at full speed, 2gb ram is the sweetspot up until like 2008! At least for xp.
    Ps, I'd HIGHLY recommend investing in a good modern psu for this stuff, the old ones have a bad habit of frying whole systems, and as you know this hardware is getting very rare and expensive now.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  4 місяці тому

      Thank you, I ended up running only 2 sticks of 512mb with bh6 chips that are probably some of the best I have. Fortunately the Seasonic is brand new and I will be using that one from now on. But I do plan to fix the corsair and see if I can use it for just one project. I was lucky that the system was only acting weird with the old psu.

    • @tamw
      @tamw 4 місяці тому

      @@retrodrive-thru47
      What speed (mhz/timing/voltage) do you get out of those bh-6 sticks?

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  4 місяці тому

      @@tamw I have to admit I didn't really push them, at least not in the last 5-6 years. I remember a 2-2-5-2 at 225mhz

    • @amdintelxsniperx
      @amdintelxsniperx 4 місяці тому +1

      dragon had faster ddr1 modules that were ddr 550 mhz lol rediculous at the time

    • @tamw
      @tamw 4 місяці тому

      @@amdintelxsniperx
      1gb sticks like those pc4400 (550mhz) this guy has? If you're talking about 512mb sticks you could get them all the way up to pc5000 (610mhz)

  • @Frederic91fr
    @Frederic91fr 2 місяці тому +1

    Not sure 4.9V instead of 5V makes a difference on 20 years old hardware ?

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  2 місяці тому

      I'm also not sure that 4.9 would be of any importance but the constant variation between 4.9 and 5 I think was the issue.

  • @DuneRunnerEnterprises
    @DuneRunnerEnterprises 3 місяці тому +1

    Would you be able to post a link to bios you used???

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  3 місяці тому

      It should be a file named rdxdc23.exe on driverscollection, you can look it up there. If you can't find it please leave a reply.

    • @DuneRunnerEnterprises
      @DuneRunnerEnterprises 3 місяці тому

      @@retrodrive-thru47
      Ok!!!!!!

  • @amdintelxsniperx
    @amdintelxsniperx 4 місяці тому +1

    with multi gpu you should enable AFR it helps

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  4 місяці тому +1

      I read that as well but the simple drivers, the 7.12 don't have the option or I couldn't find it. In 10.2 that had crossfire X I didn't spend too much time.

  • @razielunleashed
    @razielunleashed 4 місяці тому +4

    Me podes explicar que hace Fabian Show en este video??? jajajaja

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  3 місяці тому +1

      Este baile representa la forma en que funciona Crossfire. Fabián baila con todo el corazón, el Crossfire en 1080 tiene muy buen rendimiento, Pichirica también baila bastante bien y el crossfire es decente en esa resolución, Rosalía es una bailarina modesta y el Crossfire también es modesto en resolución 800x600.

    • @razielunleashed
      @razielunleashed 3 місяці тому +2

      Me encanto tu respuesta, no lo puedo creer... muchas gracias!!!

  • @acid_flash
    @acid_flash 2 місяці тому +1

    Dirt (2007) жутко тормозил на S939 Athlon X2 3800+ +2GB DDR1-PC3200 +GF9800.
    C2D X6800 тоже не справляется.
    На Phenom X4 всё было норм 👍 Но у него мало инструкций, что плохо для некоторых эмуляторов.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  2 місяці тому +1

      Yes, Dirt is not something I will put on my list very soon. Thanks for the heads up about the x6800. Currently and for the next few clips I'm going to go way back into the past with Pentium 3 and even a DX4... So I'm not going to test Dirt in the near future. I think that many generations of hardware have this issue. Halo Combat evolved is notorious for not running well on Win98.

    • @acid_flash
      @acid_flash 2 місяці тому

      @@retrodrive-thru47 For Win98, try the kernel from "Win98 if". It supports up to 3.6 GB of RAM. There's even a patch for Sata support. Win98 only understands 1 thread. And for Halo, the GPU may be more important than the CPU.

    • @acid_flash
      @acid_flash 2 місяці тому

      @@retrodrive-thru47 The performance of Dirt 2 is higher than that of Dirt 1. And the performance of Dirt 3 is even higher.
      They know how to optimize when they want 😆

  • @chaoticsystem2211
    @chaoticsystem2211 3 місяці тому +2

    the fan will blow into the wrong direction

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  3 місяці тому +1

      Why is that? Can you elaborate? (I'm trying not to push hot air into the graphics cards or the ram, but I admit that there may be things I overlook)

    • @chaoticsystem2211
      @chaoticsystem2211 3 місяці тому +1

      @@retrodrive-thru47 it's the orientation of the fan. it will blow air through the heatsink, but at that side, you don't have any exit. (once you install it into a case). There are markers which show the direction of the airflow on the fan.
      You either need to mount it on the other side, or let it suck from the heatsink (which isn't ideal)..

    • @chaoticsystem2211
      @chaoticsystem2211 3 місяці тому +1

      if you let it sit like that without a case, the orientation doesn't matter. Once you install it in a case the hot air will do round trips without being removed from the case. Normally you'll want to remove the hot air with a fan at the back, above the io section. The placement of the ram isn't that ideal, but it will get the same amount hot air from the cpu anyway, regardless of the orientation.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  3 місяці тому +2

      @@chaoticsystem2211 Yes you are right, I always try to have my airflow going from lower front (for cold air) to upper back (for hot air) and I usually never try to have a fan pushing against this flow, as this setup would. But usually when I use the benchtable (open case) I almost never put the components in a case because it's a temporary project I'm doing to test things. I'm only now putting together a clip where I'm building my first case after almost 2 years on the channel :)

  • @ruthlessadmin
    @ruthlessadmin 2 місяці тому +1

    When you could get 2 GPUs for under $1000 and still be sorely disappointed...

  • @modulo3664
    @modulo3664 Місяць тому

    Broke ass college me would've killed for an upgrade to 939 (stuck on socket a) back in the day

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  29 днів тому

      I had a socket a (2800+) until almost the end of 2006, when I upgraded to a 939 that I kept until 2010.

  • @sldkjh
    @sldkjh 4 місяці тому +2

    I have an Athlon X2 6400+ if you are interested.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  4 місяці тому +1

      Thank you, that's generous, if it's the AM2 version, I have that one as well.

    • @sldkjh
      @sldkjh 4 місяці тому +1

      @@retrodrive-thru47 It is a socket 939.

    • @retrodrive-thru47
      @retrodrive-thru47  4 місяці тому +1

      @@sldkjh can you give me a serial? Like ada3200****? I always thought that the athlon x2 4800+ was the top 939 cpu, besides fx57 and fx60.