8,500 3dmark06 Score with 8800GT OC 512mb

M

MrHood22

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Aug 21, 2007
Messages
4,312
Well I had made a post about this a bit ago and people who thought that it was my CPU bottlenecking and/or a bad GPU.

Well I had tried 3 different BFG 8800GT OC 512mb cards sent from BFG and they all score between 8,000-8,500.

I have the 169.21 drivers.

My 12v rail is something like 12.21v so I don't think it's my PSU.

My CPU may BN but not that much because the one guy posted getting 10k and he had the same setup as me but he had vista and a 3800+.

It's not the GPU as ruled out before

Motherboard maybe?

The thing I don't get is that I get much better performance out of my x850xt on everything except 3dmark06 but I think that's only because x850xt doesn't have SM3.0 or something.

Another thing i don't understand is I get 95FPS on the steam stress test in Counter-Strike: Source but I used to get 150FPS on it. My x850xt gets 110 and my 8600GT OC got 148fps (but I sold that when i got my 8800).

Any ideas?
 
On 3dmark it shows you the chart of similar systems. For my similar systems i'm always at the bottom. The top one is like 11,xxx.

As I said before, someone made a post on these forums today and they have a lesser CPU then me and everything else is the same and they get 10k so I don't see how it could be my CPU. I don't doubt my CPU holds me back a little but it doesn't hold me back this much.
 
Try running driver cleaner, and/or reinstalling the OS. Also, make sure your running in single display performance mode in Nvidia Control Panel.
 
Here's my most recent 3dmark w/ system setup:
(I come up as #9 on ranked against similar systems)

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=13449076

In case the link doesn't work:

Components Your System
Processor AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 3800+ Dual-Core @ 2961 MHz
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT @ 763/1863/2140
System Memory 2x1GB @ 247mhz 2.5-3-2-5
Disk Space 381.56 GB (OS HD = 10k WD Raptor)
Motherboard Manufacturer DFI Corp,LTD
Motherboard Model DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D
Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x64

Main Test Results
3DMark Score 10584 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 4787 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 5412 Marks
CPU Score 2157 Marks

Detailed Test Results

Graphics Tests
1 - Return to Proxycon 39.662 FPS
2 - Firefly Forest 40.127 FPS

CPU Tests
CPU1 - Red Valley 0.676 FPS
CPU2 - Red Valley 1.102 FPS

HDR Tests
1 - Canyon Flight (SM 3.0) 56.628 FPS
2 - Deep Freeze (SM 3.0) 51.616 FPS
 
To the OP:

I get less than that with the rig in my sig, despite my 8800gt being volt modded and vastly overclocked and with customised very tight memory timings.

It's annoying as hell, but the old 939 Athlon64 just can't cut it anymore.
 
What could be wrong with my motherboard if it causes this problem? Could RAM cause this problem?

I checked my Mobo and it's running at full speed (x16)
 
That's about right for your setup...You can probably break 9000 with some heavy overclocks on the video card. If I remember correctly I got 9500 3dmark06 with my old system, opteron@ 2.6ghz and 8800GT OC 715/1050 then added another for SLi and only scored 10.000 LOL The 939 Chipset/Opteron processors are just to outdated to run with the current stuff.

Upgraded to q6600 on an abit ip-35 pro everything else stayed the same and my score jumped to 14,000 with a single GT then swapped the GT for a GTS and now my score is 15,600.

It's the 939 chipset and the old processor that's holding you back.
 
That score seems a little low to me.

I had an 8800GT with an Opteron 165 @ 2.6Ghz.

I got 9650 with 3DMark06.
 
MrHood22 said:
What could be wrong with my motherboard if it causes this problem? Could RAM cause this problem?

I checked my Mobo and it's running at full speed (x16)
Click to expand...

Is your ram running in dual channel and at full 200mhz speed (if it's DDR400) ?
 
Definitely smells of a driver problem. I doubt very much its the motherboard unless its running at less than 16x for whatever reason. Like has been said previously, try cleaning out the drivers with a driver cleaner or back up your junk and format.
 
deviantek said:
Is your ram running in dual channel and at full 200mhz speed (if it's DDR400) ?
Click to expand...

It's DDR2800.

And yes it's dual channel.

And no this score is not right about what it should be as far as I know. My reasoning behind that is the performance is WAY below where it should be. There's no reason why I can't max out CSS, DOD:S, and COD4 on my 1280 x 1024 screen. There's no reason why my x850xt should do better then my 8800GT. The scores are about right though, they should be by 10k from what I see around though.
 
Yeah, I can max out COD4, TF2, Bioshock, etc.. at 1680x1050 even runs Crysis fairly decent (if you can call it that) at all Very High albeit not at 1680x1050. I don't think my cpu is that much better than yours to make that much of a difference. Something is definitely fishy.
 
You told us you have DDR2-800 ram but what speed is it running?
Also have you tweaked the ram timings yet?

I have a very similar system and score around 9800 with DDR400 clocked to DDR460.
 
I'm using my BIOS and Asus PC Probe II for the volt readings.

As for what my card is running at, it says it's has a max of x16 and it's running at x16 so yes the PCI E slot is running at full speed.

For the RAM, I have whatever is default. I don't know how to mess with my ram so I don't.

I will try those new drivers. I'm only running 169.21.

How should I install them though?
-Uninstall
-run Driver Cleaner in safe mode
-Reboot to regular mode
-Install
-Restart

Is that the right way?
 
MrHood22 said:
I'm using my BIOS and Asus PC Probe II for the volt readings.
Click to expand...

The PC probe program only reads from the bios and motherboards are notorious for reading voltages wrong . Ill say it again, try a different PSU.
 
Well I can just go out and drop $90 on a PSU so that's a little out of the question.

I do have a stock 420w PSU which I could just hook up to the wall and then hook up to just my GPU but there is no way that could support my entire system.
 
Actually, I was wrong earlier, my rig scores slightly higher than yours;

Overall:--- 9972

SM2.0:--- 4356
SM3.0:--- 5215
CPU:------ 2053

MrHood, your rig seems fine, it IS the cpu. The thing you have to remember is that 3dmark06 is the first (and only so far afaik) 3dmark to incorporate the cpu score into the final overall score. This means that a faster cpu has both a direct and indirect effect on the overall score. The cpu test also favours a core2 cpu over an old athlon because it utilises more instruction sets and it's generally a faster chip overall.

You'll find that actual games will be alot more comparable to other people's rigs since games (generally speaking so far) don't fully utilise dualcores so the cpu speed has less of an impact on the actual game performance.


So to sum up:

• Your rig is fine, your cpu is just old.
• 3dmark06 doesn't represent actual game performance very well.


Having said that, you could probably improve things a bit by cleaning up your system a bit. I hate to presume, but I'd bet you have a few unneccessary apps always running in the background. Also, some general 3dmark tips...

• Make sure vsync is OFF when you run 3dmark, makes a big difference.
• Enabling all the texture filtering optimisations will help as well.
• Disabling a 2nd display while you benchmark boosts your score dramatically.
• Close any and all not vital applications. Believe it or not but some people will bench with steam and itunes in the background and think nothing of it. Clownlike behaviour frankly.
 
I don't mean this in a rude way but please don't tell me my rig is fine when it's not.

There is NO reason at all why my x850xt should give better performance on all of my games. There is clearly something wrong here. It's a possibility that my 3dmark06 scores MAY be what they should be or even slightly low but when my x850xt gives me 10 or 20 FPS higher then my 8800GT you can tell something is wrong.

I appreciate the help though. thanks.
 
MrHood22 said:
Well I can just go out and drop $90 on a PSU so that's a little out of the question.

I do have a stock 420w PSU which I could just hook up to the wall and then hook up to just my GPU but there is no way that could support my entire system.
Click to expand...

You cant borrow one from a friend?
 
MrHood22 said:
There is NO reason at all why my x850xt should give better performance on all of my games. There is clearly something wrong here. It's a possibility that my 3dmark06 scores MAY be what they should be or even slightly low but when my x850xt gives me 10 or 20 FPS higher then my 8800GT you can tell something is wrong.
Click to expand...

I'll have to agree that something is definitely rotten in the stat of Denmark for the simple fact that his older x850xt was giving higher FPS than the supposedly more powerful 8800GT (which really SHOULD be more powerful). Also, you have the right idea about using the driver cleaner.

-Uninstall drivers
-Run Driver Cleaner in safe mode
-Reboot to regular mode
-Install
-Restart

The PSU might be a factor but does the 8800GT really downclock or run slower than it should if it doesn't receive enough power? I know it squeals like some type of dying pig when you don't plug in the PCI-E power connector, from personal experience being scared shitless when first hearing that.
 
skizzled said:
The PSU might be a factor but does the 8800GT really downclock or run slower than it should if it doesn't receive enough power? I know it squeals like some type of dying pig when you don't plug in the PCI-E power connector, from personal experience being scared shitless when first hearing that.
Click to expand...

I have seen different systems being underpowered behave very differently. I have seen them just plain underperform, randomly reboot, blank screen when you start a 3D app, BSOD, all sorts of shit can happen to a rig thats being underpowered.
 
I know I've heard that it has the potential to be slower than normal but I always figured that it would crash or something before that. I wish there was a way to test it, although I wouldn't be the one testing it.. I value my hardware :p

To the OP, if you have the money, I know you can get a decent PSU for fairly cheap. The 750W I have was about $70 AR or something like that and it has 4 12v rails although its probably not the best PSU out there. Even the 520W OCZ PowerStream I used previously had no issue with my current setup. So, its not like you have to go ball to the wall with Wattage which would cost a good deal more.
 
All of my friends backup PSU's aren't enough to run my system and I really don't want to go through the trouble of switching my PSU in and my PSU out when there isn't really anything that is pointing directly at the PSU.

I will keep looking around for a spare PSU though, what do you think the lowest wattage I could get by on with my system?
 
Its not really the wattage that matters, I mean it does as that determines how much power can be outputted at any given time, but it mainly has to deal with stability of the power given to the components. As a reference, I wouldn't go under 400W if possible. Also, you can plug the power supply directly into the 8800GT and just short two of the connections (black and green) in the 20/24pin power connector. I've done this before and it works fine.

psu_test_jumper.jpg


If you still get shitty performance, then you know its not the PSU. As there is nothing else on the PSU connected to the 8800GT.
 
A weak PSU will not produce degraded framerates. If a PSU is weak you'll experience random reboots and apps crashing to the desktop, but while it's running it'll all run as it should at full speed.


I apologise for not reading your first post fully and I missed the bit about the x850xt being faster. I think you're on the right track with drivers here. Sounds like you've run into problems going from ATI to Nvidia. A full format would probably solve it, but I hate to recommend that 'cos it can be a bitch depending on your setup.

Try this though....


Follow this guide on how to enable device manager to show all hidden and non existent devices:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315539

And then open up device manager and enable "show hidden devices" under "view" in the file menu. Then look into the display devices section and remove everything there includding your 8800gt and then reboot and reinstall.

Hope that helps.
 
Thank you Spine. I will try that when I get home.


TheBluePill, No, it's not PCI2.0 but technically that shouldn't matter because they're compatible.

I also don't think I need to reformat because I already reformated and reinstalled XP and I still had the same issue.

I just got a soundcard to hopefully take some strain off of onboard audio but I got a few BSOD when I tried to OC back to my same settings. That may be because i went into the BIOS and set everything to default so maybe i'm missing something when i try to Re-OC.
 
spine said:
A weak PSU will not produce degraded framerates. If a PSU is weak you'll experience random reboots and apps crashing to the desktop, but while it's running it'll all run as it should at full speed.
Click to expand...

Bullshit. If you have a weak PSU nothing will run as "normal" if it dont have the power to even do so. I have seen it myself more than once. A bad or weak PSU can cause all sorts of shit to happen. Different components react differently when not recieving enough power.

Look around its not that uncommon to see it happen. There are dozens of threads identical to this and in some the PSU was the curlprit.
 
I guess it could be the PSU but is there a way to see the voltages accurately because you guys are saying that the BIOS are wrong most of the time.

I just checked in my BIOS and my 12v is 12.11v
 
MrHood22 said:
I guess it could be the PSU but is there a way to see the voltages accurately because you guys are saying that the BIOS are wrong most of the time.

I just checked in my BIOS and my 12v is 12.11v
Click to expand...


If you have a good Multi-Meter, just touch the probes to the wires on the PS Connectors while the system is running and it will give you an accurate voltage without harming anything.
 
When all the testing is done, PSU, motherboard, video card, hard drives, floppy cables, floppy drive, hard drive cables, case, the culprit will be and always be, your cpu. ignoring it wont make the problem go away!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top