Needed more graphic power...

[Nagoshi]

so went on in that crazay boxing day that is today, drove to Staples and grabbed a HD3450 512Mb Paid $69 + taxes, but after the end of the boxing days sales (Jan 7th) I will find the cheapest price there can be on the net and price match (I almost price-matched a $36 256Mb version with the 512Mb one, but the boss came and told her that there's no price match during sales )

Will benchmark against, and with, my on-board HD3200 with 512Mb shared memory. So it will be a few scores for the HD3200 at stock clocks, then 725 (highest stable clocks I can get), then at the HD3450's stock clocks (I belive it's clocked at 600 - will see that soon enough!), then I will bench the 3450 alone at stock clocks, then at the highest stable clocks I can get, then it'll be...

Hybrid Crossfire time! hoping it'll make Dead Space work on my rig this time, and improve my FPS!

[Mr.Scott]

You'll be sadly disappointed in the 3450. It pretty much sucks for anything gaming related. BTW, you should have bought mine for the $25 shipped.

[Nagoshi]

Canadian to USD conversion sucks, total would have been around $40. Buying my system should have costed me $150USD, however it ended up nearing $250 because of CAN>USD conversion and a customs problem. After I get the price check it should fall to about $40 before taxes, brand new (altho not without hassles, stupid card not willing to CF correctly)

Might be disappointed, but will still be better than my on-board HD3200...

Anyway, it took me an hour to get CrossFire working, WTF. I cant even choose the primary card, Im stuck using the on-board HD3200 as the main card, if I tell my board to boot from the PCIE slot first it shuts down the onboard and CF is disabled? And enabling Surround View forced me to reset my CMOS, caused insane artifacts in BIOS, so no quad monitors for me (wasnt the point, I only wanted to output from the 3450, but no). Ive got 8.12 installed, and followed the instructions I saw somewhere on enabling Hybrid CF but still couldnt get it to work. Box says the card is Hybrid CF compatible, however it doesnt seems like so. Besides GPU-Z and CCC only sees the HD3450 as a 3400-series. And when in CF, CCC doesnt even see the HD3400, even tho it allows me to CF it, and GPUZ sees the two cards?

Additional Comment:

Man, it really sucks. My Dead Space glitch (incompatibility with the HD3200 causing artifacts all over the screen) that was gone with the HD3450 is back when CF is enabled, since it uses the HD3200 as the main processor.

Other than that, Vantage looked like crap on "Entry" preset with CF enabled (Performance giving me waaaay too low scores), much worse than the 3450, the Jane Nash test really was the worse looking, no water details, and black bars showing up on screen (probably a refresh problem), but the New Calypto test was all right. Points jumped from 1,800 (HD3200) to 2,000 (HD3450) to 3300 (CF, HD3200 main), but Im still stuck with those glitches that I was trying to get rid off!

Im writing to Sapphire right now, I already had issues with the mainboard not willing to take my RAM timings, if they cant help me with that one well that rig is going for sale locally and Im gonna grab some decent parts. I did not want this, but being on a cheap budget, I chose parts that looked good from the reviews... but if it really cant give me good clocks on the CPU, wont allow me to set my correct RAM timings AND wont allow me to set up correctly my Hybrid Crossfire, then fack off, its gonna be somebody else's problem.

Im gonna mess more with my BIOS in case I could make the CF work correctly AND having the HD3450 as the main card. I dont care for a second about the RAM timings, all I want is the CF working correctly. If anybody have an idea on how to set up (Hybrid) Crossfire let me know, I could use some help here. Im desperate, gonna return that POS card if it doesnt work by next week, then probably sell the **** rig locally for more than what I paid for, then buy myself DECENT parts for once.

Additional Comment:

Bah, stupid motherboard acting up, but at least I got it working right now... I just had to disable CF, then choose the HD3450 from the drop-down then allow CF... dumb me LOL

Dead Space now works, and it plays really well! 848x480, all high with AA on, no lag at all! All righ ***'s a crappy res, but anything higher will result in mouse lag CoD4 also performs slightly better, World in Conflict gets much better results, STALKER too, I can get "steady" framerates across all settings.

Its not that much of a powerful card, but when in CF it becomes "decent" I might end up returning it and grab a 3850 from NewEgg for $80, and pull out a $15USD mail-in rebate, but Im afraid my 350W power supply wont handle it... can anybody confirm me this? It recommends a 450W power supply with a PCIE 6-pin, which I dont have... My 350W is a Silverston Strider with 18A/16A 300W on the 12V line. By judging with that reviewthe 3850 system, when under load, gets 195W with a much bigger CPU (QX9650).