8800GTX & Windows 2000???

[Vapor1000]

just curious if anyone had the lowdown on what to expect out of a 8800gtx running win2k.
i just got mine in last night & replaced my previous 7800gtx with the 8800gtx. i ran 3dmark 05, Aquamark 3, and 3dmark 06.

my scores were arround 8,500 in 3Dmark 05, 76,000 in Aquamark 3, about 5,800 in 3Dmark 06.

my system specs are detailed in my signature, but if you cant view that. the important parts are

Pentium 4 660 (3.6ghz) 2mb cache
Epox intel 915 LGA mobo
PNY 8800GTX 768MB Vid Card
4x512mb (2GB) Mushkin PC3500 LV2 running a 2-2-2-5 timings
3x 74gb WD Raptors
all powered with 2 PSU's (a 550W Enermax running the mobo/vid card, & 400w Zalman running all the hard and disk drives)
and running on windows 2000 SP4

so my scores seem to me to be quite a bit on the low side from what i think i should be hitting. i was just curious if anyone had any info on what might be holding me back? i was thinking that the fact that im running a 7 year old OS might have finally cought up to me in the form of lesser support of the latest graphics cards. but wanted ya'lls input on it...

please leave me some feedback of your esperiances/thoughts about this.
thanks

 

[newls1]

your CPU for 1 is holding you back. A C2D @ 1.86GHz is faster then that 3.6GHz P4. Im not dogging on your hardware, just givin you a heads up. If possible, changing CPU's to like a C2D E6400/E6300 will net you more then 150000 points in AQ3 using a GTX 8800

 

[Vapor1000]

surely my cpu is not holding me back aproximatly 4000 marks in 3D06 and 50k+ marks in AM3.
i have not been following the duo/duo2 series as closely as i have most all other hardware in the past. but i just dont see the 2.4 & 2.6 gig duo 2's being twice the processor of the high mhz presocotts.
correct me if im wrong about that,
and are these benchmarks taking full advantage of the second core? or is it just standing back idley by and handling background windows processes only?

 

[Dynafrom]

I thought the max amount of ram for windows 2000 was 512 or 1GB memory IIRC. I'd get vista though when it launches, it would launch your score up pretty high.

 

[Unknown-One]

I just dont see the 2.4 & 2.6 gig duo 2's being twice the processor of the high mhz presocotts.
correct me if im wrong about that

Clock speed isn't everything

You know how lower clocked Athlon 64's (between 2.2 and 2.6GHz) are able to match P4's running at over 3GHz? This is sort of the same thing.

Core2 based chips are more efficient than P4's, so much so that they are vastly more powerful than P4's at lower clock speeds (and they utterly demolish them at the same clock speeds).

 

[ganesh21]

hi, i have a e6400 @ stock and evga 8800gtx @ stock. i get around 9600 on 3dmark06. c2d are more efficient then p4. the two cores don't idle at all when i'm gaming. both core usage are around 50-60% but not on all games.

 

[Vapor1000]

Clock speed isn't everything

You know how lower clocked Athlon 64's (between 2.2 and 2.6GHz) are able to match P4's running at over 3GHz? This is sort of the same thing.

Core2 based chips are more efficient than P4's, so much so that they are vastly more powerful than P4's at lower clock speeds (and they utterly demolish them at the same clock speeds).

yes and i already knew this... im just saying i didnt see the %age improvment as vast as is being demonstrated by my benchmarks.

hi, i have a e6400 @ stock and evga 8800gtx @ stock. i get around 9600 on 3dmark06. c2d are more efficient then p4. the two cores don't idle at all when i'm gaming. both core usage are around 50-60% but not on all games.

thank you Ganesh... thats exactly the kinda info im looking for...
now any chances i could get simmilar info from someone running a C2D with 2K?

 

[tisb0b]

hi, i have a e6400 @ stock and evga 8800gtx @ stock. i get around 9600 on 3dmark06. c2d are more efficient then p4. the two cores don't idle at all when i'm gaming. both core usage are around 50-60% but not on all games.

what are you doing with that e6400 only on stock speeds?

 

[clayton006]

what are you doing with that e6400 only on stock speeds?

That's a very good question. If I had one.... I'd put some good air/water cooling on it and go!

 

[InorganicMatter]

surely my cpu is not holding me back aproximatly 4000 marks in 3D06 and 50k+ marks in AM3.

Yes, yes it is. 3dMark is often blasted for being an "unrealistic" benchmark (usually by the currently losing CPU !!!!!! squad) because a huge portion of the score is determined by CPU. That's what made a lot of guys made back in the P4/A64 days; P4s always scored higher than A64s in 3dMark, even though they were slower in the real world, and the reason they did better was because 3dMark was multithreaded and the HT technology in the P4s gave them an unrealistic upper hand that they didn't have in a real game's benchmark.

i have not been following the duo/duo2 series as closely as i have most all other hardware in the past. but i just dont see the 2.4 & 2.6 gig duo 2's being twice the processor of the high mhz presocotts.
correct me if im wrong about that,
and are these benchmarks taking full advantage of the second core? or is it just standing back idley by and handling background windows processes only?

Yeah it is. My 1.86GHz Core 2 is almost twice as fast as my 3.2GHz Prescot in encoding, and that's not an exaggeration: my 3.2GHz took 2.5 hours to covnert an XviD, and my Core 2 took an hour and twenty minutes. Upgrade your CPU dude, you're already on PCI-Express, all you need is a motherboard, CPU, and memory.

 

[ZacharyS]

I think the real question is why are you still running Windows 2000?

 

[Zamboni]

I thought the max amount of ram for windows 2000 was 512 or 1GB memory IIRC. I'd get vista though when it launches, it would launch your score up pretty high.

Um, nope. Win2K is 4GB, just like WinXP (and WinNT before it).

Win98 and WinMe had high memory issues, but not the NT family.

 

[ganesh21]

the only reason i still have my system on stock is because i'm in my last semester in college. right now i'm a bit busy with job interviews and term papers. i don't get time for overclocking right now but as soon i get some time i will start and you let the results.

 

[Vapor1000]

I think the real question is why are you still running Windows 2000?

becuase its always been just as fast and relable as anyones XP has been or better for me and i already own 3 legal copies for it for each of my computers. and overall ive had less issues than those ive known with XP. as well with my personal experiances and the several Doctors/Lawyers PC's i monitor/maintain.

but i think ill prolly try the CPU upgrade as my next step and see how it acts... i wont ugprade OS's unless its absolutly nessisary.

and InorganicMatter, thank you so much for your valuble imput. it was someone like yourself who could give me actual real life comparisons i was wanting to hear from who has been on both ends of the playing field.