Meager performance?

P

Pakman117

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 1, 2001
Messages
371
I recently put together a system with the following components:

Mobo: MSI K8N SLI-F
Video Card: Evga 7800GT OC 256-P2-N517-AX (Core 470Mhz, Mem 1100Mhz)
Case: Antec Sonata II
Power: Antec Smart Power 450W 2.0
CPU: Venice 3200+
Mem: Corsair XMS 3200C2PT
Hard Drive: Seagate 7200.9 160GB SATA 3.0Gb/s

I installed the 81.98 nvidia display drivers, amd64 driver, and nforce4 drivers, and then benchmarked it with 3dMark05 Build 1.2.0. With no overclocking, memory at 3-3-3-8, and nothing else touched, this system scored 4734. I compared this score to others' (with similar setups) on futuremark's website, however, and realized that my score should have definitely been in the 6000-7000 range. Granted, some of those high scorers used the Opteron processor, which would have explained the higher numbers. Others, though, used 3200+'s (at 2000Mhz) and got scores of 6000+. I also checked the core and mem speeds of the video cards, and users with mem/core speeds SLOWER than mine still beat me! Am I worrying over nothing, or is this something I should be concerned about?

Another point of interest is that the CPU scores I saw on futuremark were in the 4500 range while mine was ~2600. I used CPU-Z, and everything checks out, so I don't think I received a bogus processor ;). What gives?

Thanks for your time.
 
Did you experience any ESD upon building the system? Electrical Static Discharge. Did you build it grounded?

-J.
 
make sure cool and quiet is disabled on your processor, i have the same one as yuo, and it kicks the multiplier down to save heat/power, the option i believe is in the bios.
 
Cool n Quiet was disabled for all testing. This time around, I let my brother build it, but I made sure he wore an anti-static wrist strap attached to the grill of a plugged in power supply, heh. In any case, ESD shouldn't be an issue, but do you think it would produce results like these?

I tried nvidia's 81.95 drivers, but they scored slightly less than 81.98. Any other thoughts? Should I be getting ~6000 marks?
 
i get around 5694 in 3dmark05 with the system in my sig, you should definately be getting better performace. Does windows seem slow to you? maybe the problem could lie in a faulty Hardware/Software config, maybe yuor drives are in PIO mode? Perhaps there is a driver conflict?, Have yuo checked Device Manager for any errors?
 
Last time I had a benchmark preform below par on me after a built rig, the chipset drivers were the culprit, in that I forgot to install them. Check all your relevent drivers make sure they are good to go. Unrelated but relevent story, when I got this motherboard up in running (see sig), I went to Realtek's website, they manufactured the integrated audio, for up to date drivers worked fine then started having problems with the sound, long story short I went back got the audio drivers from EVGA, the board manufacturer and works great. I'm no expert but I now get my audio, video, etc drivers from the company that manufactured the actual board instead of the company who made the chipset for instance (i.e. EVGA's drivers instead of the ones released by nVidia), incase they tweaked it a bit for the specific mobo or video card ya know? but like I said I'm no expert for all I know they're identical drivers :p. Hope this helps. Just for reference, I got 7148 in 3Dmark05 with the system in my sig, everything at stock settings.
 
In my experience, if you have tried everything (and I mean everything) and nothing works, it's usually caused by ESD that you probably did not feel at all (that or a defect). Hopefully you didn't build the PC in an environment where you walk on rugs.

-J.
 
Which component do you think would be affected by ESD? Would the processor still seemingly run fine if it had been?
 
Windows is updated completely. I just tried the latest nvidia nforce4 drivers, the 6.70's and the system scored 5136. So the new drivers improved the score by ~400.

The CPU score still lags behind everyone else's system on futuremark's website by almost twofold. At 2010Mhz, my venice 3200+ gets 2295 for CPU score. I then tried overclocking it with nvidia's nTune, which set the frequency to 2160Mhz. At this speed, the system scored only 2700 for the CPU score. Just to verify something is fishy with the CPU, I ran the exact 3dmark05 build on my other computer, which has a 3200+ winchester. It scored 4100! What is going on?! Both computers have AMD's processor driver installed.
 
Oh snap, I have the graphics card in the wrong PCI-E slot. I'm going to switch it and see if that changes anything! Thanks for the idea!
 
It's a miracle!! Well this just proves that I'm an idiot, but I thought that the arrow on the SLI switch card pointing to the second slot meant, that's where the video card should reside. As it turns out, careful reading of the manual (I know, RTFM) says that the video card, in non-SLI, should go in the first slot. My 3DMark score is now 7371! Thanks to everyone that took the time to help out, and thank you Nasgul for pointing out this fact.

A side note, my CPU score jumped from 2295 to 4525, just from switching video card slots. Imagine that.

:)
 
By the way, Nasgul, that shit is annoying as hell. Even if the shade of peach you chose is warm and autumn-fresh. Good advice (which it was, obviously) carries it's own impact, you don't need parlor tricks.
 
Man, I thought you knew better than to NOT read the manual. The SLI / non-SLI slot has been a common misstep by most builders. :)

-J.
 
Just for the sake of argument, I have been building computers on the carpet for 10 years. I just always touch like the case or something before I grab a part. I also don't wear shoes while building, because I have found that shoes are a major source of ESD buildup. Especially right now here in Texas with the worst drought ever we are having. I can't even walk across the garage and close the garage door without being shocked. And I worked on 3 computers in the last month.

I however did loose a Voodoo3 once to ESD, and I knew it as soon as it happened...I've been much more carefull ever since :( But thats the only fatality I've ever had.

Good info to know about that PCI-e too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top