Good system but Low benchmarks scores, why?

A

atk8321

n00b
Joined
Feb 17, 2005
Messages
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Hello, my friend and I just put together a new system and I was wondering why my benchmark scores are so low for such good hardware...

Sepcs:

AMD 64 3500+ (Stock Speed)
MSI Neo 2 Platinum
1GB G.Skill PC 4400 LE (200 MHz @ 2-2-2-5)
WD 74 GB Raptor (Two other WD drives 120GB and 100GB)
Tyan Tachyon 128MB 9800 PRO
Watercooled CPU and Video card
Eheim 1250...

Windows XP Pro (SP 2 w/ all updates as of 2/27/05)
ATI Catalyst 5.2
DirectX 9.0c

Benchmarks:
3D mark 05 : 1270
3D mark 03: 3188

My first impression is that perhaps my drivers aren't all correct or maybe I need some software that I don't have? I just changed to the new 10K RPM Raptor drive from my old HDs and went from Windows 2000 to Windows XP. In 2000 with the old drives (same everything else) I was able to reach around 6300 on 3Dmark 03 now I get about half that as you can see. I had seen a low score like this before on 2000 and the fix was in my RAGE 3D Tweak program to disable Vertical Sync. But I did not install anything aside from the ATI catalyst 5.2 control center and directx. Have not installed 3D tweak or anything like that... I know my friend mentioned something about updating my BIOS but he wasn't sure how to do that w/ the 64 bit processor and neither am I (to enable higher memory timings etc) But for now I would like to see the benchmarks that this system deserves! Anyone out there with some ideas? Thank you very much.
 
That's a nice system.

My first thought is that your vidcrd is slowing you down in terms of overall performance. You've got an awesome rig, you need a better vidcrd. But that's not the issue at hand.

You might want to make sure that you have installed all chipset drivers for the mobo. Also, take a look at the ATI drivers and make SURE that you let the ATI Smart thing run after the driver install (install driver, reboot, wait until screen blinks, should be ok after that; run NOTHING in the meantime). If you didn't, you'll suffer in video performance. You probably did, but take a look and see.

On a different tack, trash the benches altogether, and see what happens in the games. Benches are things your tools go on, or comparing the size of e-wang. They don't really relate to real-world (disclaimer: the former is my own opinion and is not, in any way, to be taken as an invitation to start a flame fest on whether a benchmark is useful in today's world; thanks). If game performance is suffering, you'll have to go further.

Just thoughts.

 
Thanks a bunch for your input. Well I assume my bottleneck would be the vid card as well cept that, with a 9800 pro I still shouldn't be seeing 3000 3d marks but as you said benchmarks don't necessarily indicate system performance. I mean, I can run HL 2 at max everything and its smooth. The benchmarks are choppy tho... hmmm ATI smart thing? Can you specify? Thanks again.
 
I don't see what the big deal about the video card is. It's not that bad at all. Anyhoo, as suggested, look into chipset drivers. It seems like one of the primary causes for poor performance is a failure to install them. Also, don't trust just some BS synthetic video benchmarks. Do some actual in game testing, and then compare.
 
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