Quick check: is my new PC benchmarking OK?

I am guessing your Q6600 is stock because mine @ 3GHz gets over 4K score. SM 2.0 and 3.0 look good. What was your overall score?

But in reality 3DMark is not a good measurement. Try, if you have it, Crysis or FC2. Heck even Half Life 2 Lost Coast is a good way to benchmark your system. But you should be fine from what you have posted.

You look to be exactly where you need to be. My system in the sig, with OC'd CPU/GPU scores around 13,500. @ stock speeds on GPU and 2.8ghz on the CPU my score is around 12,250 or so. Looks good to go man, have fun with it.

Best,

3Ball

No, it's not okay. It's underperforming.

The cpu portion score is fine for stock q6600. It's the graphics portion (sm2.0/sm3.0) that are low. XP usually perform better than Vista because it's lighter weight.

That's interesting. Shall I just leave it as it is then? I purposely haven't put any software on the machine that could slow anything down and I've just gone with out-the-box configurations for everything.

My main concern was that all the hardware was ok and functioning as it should do and that I'll be able to play games like Crysis and FC2 without any slowdown.

If you don't trust synthetic benchmarks, there are benchmark tools that runs off real games. I don't believe a tool for FC2 is out yet, but here's tool for Crysis:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Crysis [...] -1791.html
(It's a frontend for the game, you must have the corresponding game installed)

Looks off. The average fps is fine, although min fps can't be right. 49 fps is smooth, but if it drops to 18 once in a while, it'll be annoying when playing. There's likely a bottleneck somewhere else in the system. When gpu underclocks, max, avg, and min fps tend to drop in similar ratio.

Another thing, did you use the driver on the CD that comes with the card? If so, uninstall it and get the latest driver online. That's usually what most people do first.

Hi again - I've updated my catalyst drivers from 4.7 to 4.10 and applied two crysis patches 1.2 and 1.21 (although for some reason it still shows as 1.1.1.6156 in the bottom right hand corner of the menu).

The scores seems the same (see below). How bad a bottleneck is this and is it unusually low for a system of my spec. Does it mean there's a problem with my graphics card or elsewhere in the system?

Cheers....


28/10/2008 03:26:19 - XP
Beginning Run #1 on Map-island, Demo-benchmark_gpu
DX9 1280x1024, AA=No AA, Vsync=Disabled, 32 bit test, FullScreen
Demo Loops=3, Time Of Day= 9
Global Game Quality: High
==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 48.21s, Average FPS: 41.49
Min FPS: 17.79 at frame 154, Max FPS: 62.27 at frame 1000
Average Tri/Sec: 40794528, Tri/Frame: 983269
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.93
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 40.66s, Average FPS: 49.19
Min FPS: 17.79 at frame 154, Max FPS: 65.41 at frame 79
Average Tri/Sec: 48936560, Tri/Frame: 994877
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.92
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 40.48s, Average FPS: 49.41
Min FPS: 17.79 at frame 154, Max FPS: 65.41 at frame 79
Average Tri/Sec: 49174844, Tri/Frame: 995211
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.92
TimeDemo Play Ended, (3 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

28/10/2008 03:26:19 - XP

Run #1- DX9 1280x1024 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 49.3

Cheers - I'll give that a go and post back.

What would a healthy operating temperature range be?

Right - I've tried all those utilities and the results are as follows (how do you put those screenshots up by the way!?)

First I ran the prime95 benchmarker for the batch of 4 tests with the temp monitor in the background. The resting temp for the 4 cores are around: 32,32,27,27.

During the test they levelled out to about: 59,59,54,54.

I ran the crysis benchmark with GPU-Z logging (but there does seem to be a gap in the logging while it was actually running). The GPU temp monitor gave a stack of different values and I'm not sure which are most significant: GPU temp = 67 - 69, GPU Temp.(DISPIO) = around 67, GPU Temp.(MEMIO) = around 80, GPU Temp.(SHADERCORE) = around 70, VDDC Slave #1 Temperature etc were all around 65.

Interestingly on the same set of drivers my min frame rate is now up to 25 in the crysis benchmark. Its worth noting that when observing the benchmark it does seem reasonably consistent and I cannot actually see the drop in framerate - makes me wonder if its just a "random" blip and performance is otherwise ok.

Here are the results:

28/10/2008 20:25:40 - XP
Beginning Run #1 on Map-island, Demo-benchmark_gpu
DX9 1280x1024, AA=No AA, Vsync=Disabled, 32 bit test, FullScreen
Demo Loops=3, Time Of Day= 9
Global Game Quality: High
==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 47.20s, Average FPS: 42.37
Min FPS: 24.82 at frame 162, Max FPS: 61.44 at frame 1009
Average Tri/Sec: 41684784, Tri/Frame: 983768
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.93
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 41.20s, Average FPS: 48.54
Min FPS: 24.82 at frame 162, Max FPS: 66.27 at frame 90
Average Tri/Sec: 48248280, Tri/Frame: 993961
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.92
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 41.18s, Average FPS: 48.57
Min FPS: 24.82 at frame 162, Max FPS: 66.27 at frame 90
Average Tri/Sec: 48348008, Tri/Frame: 995445
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.92
TimeDemo Play Ended, (3 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

28/10/2008 20:25:40 - XP

Run #1- DX9 1280x1024 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 48.555


Any more thoughts guys? Sorry if this is dragging on a bit - I just want to make sure new PCs working as it should...

Listen - thanks very much for the help Dagger - I always get hung up on benchmarks when I've just bought a new pc - I just don't want it to be struggling with new games 6 months down the track when I've shelled out the thick end of a G to get it all setup!

Do you think what we've observed here is indicative of a serious underlying problem - or should it be fine running far cry 2, crysis and warhead etc?

I've only just started actually playing crysis tonight (with fraps running to monitor the framerate) and so far the framerate seems pretty consistent - in the 50's and lower 60's generally and dropping down to lower 40's when you go into the first dense bit of jungle with all the volumetric fog. The only time it dipped was when I was at a certain angle with that flair on the first beach - it went a bit under 30 then but only at that angle. Otherwise seems pretty smooth and consistent.

Final thoughts?

Yeah cheers pal - that makes sense - thanks again!

Just got to that first big firefight by the water - it sort of over hovers between 40 and lower 30s when its all going off. If everyones shooting at me it drops a little below 30. Because I've never seen Crysis on another system I don't know if that's normal as its such a demanding game. what you reckon?

All the other games I've tried like Unreal 3, Stalker, Orignal farcry run so sweet...

Many thanks pal I'll give that some thought.

All the best.