Possible Bottleneck Somewhere?

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I'm concerned I might have a bottleneck somewhere as performance is not quite what I'd expected when I brought my 2nd Asus 5850... I'm thinking its maybe not enough Ram or motherboard only running 8x when in crossfire??

System Spec:
Asus p5q-e (8x crossfire)
Q9550@4ghz
4gb Ocz reaper Ram 1066mhz
2x Asus 5850 oc @ 1000/4400
Coolermaster 850w psu
30" dell 3008wfp monitor

When I added the 2nd 5850 I assumed I could run full settings on most games which im struggling to do at 2560x1600 resolution. When I used just 1 5850 I could easily run medium settings on games like bc2 etc.
Was thinking maybe getting something like a Asus p5e Deluxe which is x48 but worried I might not achieve my 4ghz cpu overclock.
 
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The difference between 8x and 16x on a single GPU card is negligible, so you can rule that out.

What games are you having problems with? Are you sure they're using both cards?

Also check your graphics memory in GPUZ and make sure they're running in 2.0 8x mode under load (ie not doing anything silly like dropping down to 4x).

Your 9550 should be plenty @ 4ghz, as should your ram.
 
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Thanks for the replys ppl, Except maybe Memphis who was no help at all ZZzzzz.

Gpuz is saying I'm running at 8x 2.0 so that is fine.

The only game I have really been playing is Bad Company 2 which I'm managing to play on all high settings but the fps could be better! I'm sure its using both cards as performance has got better since adding the other card.

Is there a program that can monitor ram usage while in game? As wondering if that could be the problem powering a big 30" monitor. I'm on windows 7 64bit if that helps.
 
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Little update.
Seems it might have been not enough Ram memory and maybe ati driver update from 10.4-10.5 helped also... I now have 8gbs of ram and seems to be making all the difference as I can now play Bad Comapany 2 with full settings/resolution and fps barely drops below 50 and normally sits at 60fps 90% of the time :)
 
Soldato
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Little update.
Seems it might have been not enough Ram memory and maybe ati driver update from 10.4-10.5 helped also... I now have 8gbs of ram and seems to be making all the difference as I can now play Bad Comapany 2 with full settings/resolution and fps barely drops below 50 and normally sits at 60fps 90% of the time :)

Ati Drivers, Windows 7 64bit, and an AV/AntiSpyware package and you can be up to 1.6GB used just to boot the PC. 4GB is an absolute minimum to even bother with a 64bit OS imho. Going from 4GB to 6GB on my own system made a very worthwhile improvement, so I would tend to agree with you that your bottleneck was ram, expecially running at very high resolutions, which although mostly tax the GPU's memory, most likely increase the general memory useage too.
 
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Yeah I am 100% sure it was the Ram that helped as I tested before updating the drivers and just felt so much better and smooth. Kind of glad its not my motherboard as that would be costly. Just hope I can play Crysis 2 when it comes out with mostly high settings.
 
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