I have just bought an Asus Radeon 3870 X2 1gb and am having problems running any 3D Mark benchmarks. Every time I disable the Catalyst A.I setting my computer would run it fine however I am getting a low score of 12990 when my computer performed better on the same system with a Geforce 8800 GTX and got in the 14000. However when I enable the Catalyst A.I to either standard or advanced I get higher frame rates but everytime it reaches the second test ( the firefly test ) my whole computer would just crash and restart. Why does this happen? and also Im hearing small buzzing noises around my graphics card. dont know if it is my card or something else on the computer but Ive never heard it before until I installed this video card.
I am running:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @ 3.5ghz
Gigabyte X38 DQ6 Motherboard
4gb G.skill ram
2x 500gb Seagate hdd in Raid 0
Asus Radeon 3870 X2 1gb
Creative X-FI Platinum Sound Card
Gigabyte 800 watt PSU

Ati cards really don't like it when the processor is overclocked.....that's what it is....Don't really know if it's a driver issue or not.....leave everything at your stock setting and do it again and you will see what I'm talking about....

yeah ATI cards dont like it when the processor is overclocked. All those guys running 3dmarks with overclocked computers and ATI cards (world record holders) are just hax and fakes it.

lol. Yea I doubt its the CPU being OC'ed. I run my HD2900Pro 1GB with my Q6600 OC'ed to 3GHz 24/7 and it seems happy as can be. Infact I got over 12K in 3DMark06.

To tell you the truth OP, sounds like you have a bad GPU. Buzzing noise, and crashing when the AI is enabled and lower than normal scores would normally point toward a bad card. I would RMA it and get another one.

Are you running 8.3 CCC ?
If so it can have a problem with 3dmarks and world in conflict and company of heroes.

Try 8.2 or 8.1

Says the person with the 8800.

To the OP, try 3.4ghz and see if that corrects the problem. If you have Windows XP, make sure you are running 8.2. 8.3 causes lower frame rates in XP.

8.3 has been messing up 3d mark 06 runs... maybe that could be the issue? though if it's making wierd noises, etc, i'd RMA it sharpish: that could be the tip of the iceberg.

Thats only in XP and some games. Us Vista users saw a nice increase in performance, especially in Crysis so yay . I agree though that it seems like its just a bad card. RMA and get a new one.

hi there guys,
thanks for all your input. I have returned the video card back to the shop i bought it from and they replaced it with a new card. The buzzing noise has disappeared however it still suffers from the same sickness as the last card I had. Whenever Catalyst A.I is enabled, whether it be on standard or advanced, and I run 3D Mark 06 my computer will crash and reboot itself. I have made sure that I have enough cooling for the card and it runs at 50 degrees idle to 60 degrees when running 3D Mark. I have both 6 & 8pin connectors plugged in and have a gigabyte 800 watt PSU running on windows vista ultimate 64bit edition with 4gb ram. I know this is a good decent card but I have run out of ideas why it does this?! Is it a driver issue, or a card issue or something else?Please help?

also, does anyone think it would be wise to buy a normal Radeon 3870 512mb and crossfire X it with the 3870 X2 to provide triple crossfire X and will that solve the problem? any ideas at all would be appreciated!

Ok, I have the Sapphire version of the card and I've never had an issue, and my system is overclocked (CPU and Video).

I use Rivatuner to monitor the card on my 2nd monitor while I'm running benchies, and I can see when the clocks get ramped up, GPU load, as well as fan speed and temp. I mention this because you might be able to use this to troubleshoot the problem.

What version of 3dmark are you using? Is it 1.1, and is it pro? Does it detect the card correctly?

Does your system crash while running any other demanding 3d apps/games?

I'm running a very similar system to yours, but on 32 bit Vista without issues.

Yes you can add a 3870 512 for 3-way Xfire. It's been done alot.

im using 3dmark 06 pro/advanced version 1.10 and it detects the card fine except it doesnt display the clock frequencies like vga mem+ core, mx core +clock. i ran crysis on 1280x720 with all high settings and 2x AA with catalyst A.I on advanced and it worked fine. didnt crash at all. although when i play call of duty 4 and i have the catalyst A.I enabled it would crash and restart my system... its a bit weird!

You must use catalyst A.I. enabled if you want both GPUs to work. If there a strange noise coming from it, you may have a problem with the fan. In fact your crashes my due to a heat issue. I know my Asus 3870x2 fan was stuck at 25%, so during gaming and benchmark tests it would get pretty hot. However you can use rivatuner to up the fan speed manually (will get louder, but will also stay much cooler at 40-45%). To get rivatuner to work with the 3870x2 just google 3870x2 + rivatuner and you will get some guides. It's pretty easy, a simple change to a config file. Oh and don't expect much of a difference from 8800GTX to a 3870x2 in a lot of stuff, especially COD4 which doesn't like crossfire all that much.

I'm at a loss I guess. I've never had to mess with the CCC A.I. It's just worked with all drivers I've had so far.

Maybe it's a Vista 64 bug?

I know that with my card over clocked I had to have the fan at 40% to keep the 3dmark tests from crashing and the dreadful reboot. I was doing some tests earlier this week, and with resolution @1920x1200 and the o.c. settings on my GPU, the 3dmark06 (looped 4 times) benchmark would cause the PC to reboot. My temps were 88+ at that point. Upping the fan to 70% cured that problem, but I wouldn't be able to stand the noise at that level.

I'm using Riva Tuner, and the newest version didn't require me to do anything in order to monitor and adjust the fan speed.

theres already a hotfix for the 8.3's guys.