Aquamark score lower with OC

[cnick79]

Ok, I downloaded aquamark 3 (trial version) and ran it on a default settings test. My P4 3.4ghz cpu was OC'ed 5% to over 3.5ghz and my Aquamark score was over 66k. I figured I'd try to bump it up another 5% bringing it to 3.73 ghz and see how much my score improved. To my surprise my score lowered to 62k. What the hell? Isn't it suppose to go up? Why would it go down instead of up?

 

[Lord of Shadows]

Perhaps it isnt cpu limited?

 

[cnick79]

Could it be due to my RAM? When I used the auto overclock on my board to a 5% OC my RAM settings were Freq- 210mhz, FSRAM 1:1, 3-3-3-8. CPU 3569.9mhz 210mh FSB 840mhz bus. 66,486 aquamark score.

So far the highest I was able to get my system to run aquamark without problems is:
CPU 3859.6mh
Freq 227mhz
Bus 908.1mhz
Mem 151.4mhz
FSBRAM 3:2
3-4-4-8
Aquamark score of 64,334

My mobo is an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe and the only settings I can change are the voltages of the DDR, AGP VDDQ Volt (not sure what this does), and CPU Voltage and the Frequency.

I didn't touch any settings on my 6800 Ultra.

 

[MapleSyrupMods]

yea, I had that same problem, mine was 3,000 points or so lower after i overclocked, but all my other performance benchmarks went up...hmm

 

[cnick79]

YES!! I figured it out. I managed to mess around with the memory timings and was able to set it up for a 1:1. I think what was happening is the mem frequency was being dropped to 151mhz with a 3:2 FSBRAM ratio. I managed to fix my timings so it wouldn't drop to 3:2. I ran Aquamark and got my best score so far of 70,163. I'm going to keep pushing tomorrow towards my goal of 4ghz.

System so far ( I would post a screenshot but I don't have any hosting for pics):

CPU 3859.6 mhz
Freq 227.0 mhz
Bus 908.1 mhz

MEM
1:1
3-4-4-8

 

[cnick79]

Ok, so I ran 3DMark05 and everything was going great until I got to the part right after the hot air balloon escapes the dragon trying to eat them. After that the screen loads and it's the hot air balloon guys again except the fps is at 2 and the graphics look kinda crappy and then I start to freeze (at the same part everytime). I'm gonna try to mess around with some cpu/mem voltages and maybe play around with my GPU settings. I find it strange 3DMark05 bugs out at this part. The frist time I ran it I got some errory message, similar to the explorer errors you get asking you to send the bug to microsoft. I clicked "Do Not Send" and then rebooted (didn't freeze). The second time I think I froze.

 

[Slacky]

Watch those temps! I had to do some special duct work on mine but it still runs at around 60's Centragrade at 4.1Ghz with a monster heatsink. I also posted before, once you hit a certain temprature, your CPU will start to slow itself down. There is a new program on the front page of Hardocp.com that might help you detect this. I haven't tried it yet so I can't say how well it works.

You might want to read one of my previous posts: Trial and Tribulations of an Intel 3.4E Overclocker

Keep checking to see when your CPU throttles back. Don't go past this point! You want to back it off a little from that.

I did finaly get 4.2ghz stable too, but that took my furnace blower. Unfortunatly I like to hear sound with my games so I had to back off from that. I'll stick with 4.1ghz with no screaming of furnace air blowers.

Slacky


PS:

 

[boostieboy]

Try turning off fastwrite

 

[cnick79]

CPU temps aren't a problem as I'm running a water cooled system around 30-33 C on load. Fastwrites is off. I find it fishy that it only occurs at this one part of the 3Dmark. I'm going to play some BF:Vietnam and see how it holds up there.