Slower when Overclocked!!!

[jaimegmr]

I ran some 3dMark2001 benchmarks on my new Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 128MB card. I was surprised. At stock speeds (500Mhz GPU/600Mhz RAM) I got 10237 points.

After I overclocked to 526Mhz GPU (memory still at 600Mhz) with ATI Overdrive, I got a lower score: 10121.

I ran the benchmark a third time Overclocked, and I got 10086.

Apparently I get lower scores overclocked. Why?

My PC:
Asus A7V8X (133Mhz FSB x 14)
Athlon XP 2500+
256MB Mushkin Basic PC2100
Windows XP

Signature X__________________________ <-- Sign here please.

 

[gravy]

hi

try increasing the memory with the GPU clock, my old TNT2 would do the same thing unless you increased both together, but then, a TNT2 is not quite a 9600

Celeron 2G @ 2672Mhz
Asus P4GE-V motherboard
512MB PC2100 DDR RAM
GeForce3 Ti200 @ 225/500
19" monitor

 

[scottchen]

I'm not too sure about the new ATI cards, i know the Nvidia cards has a GPU cooldown thing, when they reach 140C, they'll lower themselves to the 2d speed (300mhz) too cool itself. ATI might've done something similar with their XT lineup, i'm not sure. Check temperature of your card, does 9600XT have built in temp monitor? If it does, just run a 3d application in windowed mode, and check temperature, see how high it gets. Check and see if it's under 90C.

-Intel PIV 2.6C @ 3.276G -Asus P4P800 -OCZ Copper 4x256 4000EL memory @ 252mhz 2.5-3-4-6 -XFX 5900 128meg 570/1040 -SB audigy -2x120G Seagate 7200.7 S-ATA150 hdd -450 Enermax PSU

 

[addiarmadar]

Looks like it is an overheating issue.

Barton 2500+ @ 2200mhz (10x220 vcore @ 1.8)
Asus A7N8X Dlx 440 FSB
1gb Geil GD pc3500 Dual Channel (2-3-3-6)
Segata 80gb SATA 8.5ms seek
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro(420/720)

 

[jaimegmr]

After I run the benchmarks, I go to the ATi control panel and in the Overdrive tab I never see a temperature above 39C. How can this be overheating? The normal temperature at idle is around 37C.

Signature X__________________________ <-- Sign here please.

 

[OrenSam]

There's one problem with checking ur Vid Card's temp. under load - it cools down VERY quickly... (my 9600XT cools down in seconds even after 2-3 hours of gaming) so like scottchen said - try running a 3D application windowed, while the ATI control pannel is open, and watch the temprature.
It's indeed possible the card will just under-clock itself when it's getting to a high temp.

AMD AthlonXP 2500+ w/Spire Fridgerock
Abit NF7-SL v2.0 nForce2
Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 128MB
512MB Kingamx PC3200 DDR400

 

[scottchen]

I agree with you, My FX5900 drops down from 97C to 52C in about 2 seconds.

-Intel PIV 2.6C @ 3.276G -Asus P4P800 -OCZ Copper 4x256 4000EL memory @ 252mhz 2.5-3-4-6 -XFX 5900 128meg 570/1040 -SB audigy -2x120G Seagate 7200.7 S-ATA150 hdd -450 Enermax PSU

 

[jaimegmr]

I ran Counter-Strike 1.5 in windowed mode and the temperature went up to 45C when playing at 1024x768. I enabled Overdrive and the temperature went up to 46C. Are these temperatures too high for a Radeon 9600XT?

What other games or utilites do you recommend that I run in windowed mode to test the temp?

Also, when I enabled overdrive, and the temperature went to 46C, I did not see the speed drop from the Overdrive speed of 526Mhz. It stayed the same.
Signature X__________________________ <-- Sign here please.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by jaimegmr on 02/11/04 08:10 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jaimegmr]

You mean degrees Fahrenheit? How can a video card get up to almost 100C? That seems too hot for any electronic component.

Signature X__________________________ <-- Sign here please.

 

[scottchen]

FX5900 can go up to 145C without melting, according to Nvidia's drivers.

-Intel PIV 2.6C @ 3.276G -Asus P4P800 -OCZ Copper 4x256 4000EL memory @ 252mhz 2.5-3-4-6 -XFX 5900 128meg 570/1040 -SB audigy -2x120G Seagate 7200.7 S-ATA150 hdd -450 Enermax PSU

 

[scottchen]

Download the X2 Rolling Demo from 3dgamers, or something, then turn on shadow+anti-aliasing, run in windowed mode, see what's the highest temp your card gets to, my card gets to about 90C in that test. But I think it's a good idea to keep your ATI card under 70C.

-Intel PIV 2.6C @ 3.276G -Asus P4P800 -OCZ Copper 4x256 4000EL memory @ 252mhz 2.5-3-4-6 -XFX 5900 128meg 570/1040 -SB audigy -2x120G Seagate 7200.7 S-ATA150 hdd -450 Enermax PSU

 

[jaimegmr]

I ran the X2 demo in benchmark mode windowed at 1024x768 with shadows on. I tried to select anti-aliasing, but it the option to selectedwas disabled when I selected window mode. The highest the temperature ever got to was 53C. Seems to cool itself well. I replaced the generic thermal paste with Arctic Silver III when I bought the card.

Signature X__________________________ <-- Sign here please.

 

[scottchen]

Try using rage3d, to overclock manually. ATI's overclocking utility, I don't know if other people had much success with them. Try rage3d, overclock to 540mhz on the VPU, see how's the temp and score.

-Intel PIV 2.6C @ 3.276G -Asus P4P800 -OCZ Copper 4x256 4000EL memory @ 252mhz 2.5-3-4-6 -XFX 5900 128meg 570/1040 -SB audigy -2x120G Seagate 7200.7 S-ATA150 hdd -450 Enermax PSU

 

[jaimegmr]

I overclocked to 540Mhz for the GPU. at the very end of the X2 benchmark, I saw the temp. increase to about 58C but that was just at the very end. The highest temp during the benchmark was 54C. I did notice that once I overclocked, the video would stutter. What I mean is that for example, on one of the scenes, I was getting around 30fps, but there would be very, very short bursts of about 70fps. These burst were maybe only 50-100 milliseconds. maybe even less. They would occurr once every second. By the way, my overall framerate for X2 was 32.494 fps. Is that good? or average?

Signature X__________________________ <-- Sign here please.

 

[scottchen]

If you actually want to benchmark in X2, then run in fullscreen, since Windowed mode screws it up. Run in full mode, without aa or shadow, at the standard 1000 something by 700 something res, post your system please, and your score.

-Intel PIV 2.6C @ 3.276G -Asus P4P800 -OCZ Copper 4x256 4000EL memory @ 252mhz 2.5-3-4-6 -XFX 5900 128meg 570/1040 -SB audigy -2x120G Seagate 7200.7 S-ATA150 hdd -450 Enermax PSU

 

[jaimegmr]

I ran the benchmark fullscreen with the GPU at 540Mhz and the RAM at 315MHz and I got an overall average framerate of 61.351 fps in the X2 benchmark.

My PC setup is this:
-Athlon XP 2500+ (133Mhz x 14)
-Asus A7V8X motherboard (266FSB, underclocked because of RAM)
-256MB Mushkin Basic PC2100
-Windows XP Pro SP1
-Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 128MB
-Maxtor 120GB 7200rpm 8MB cache.

Signature X__________________________ <-- Sign here please.

 

[scottchen]

Looks like it didn't drop in score, according to <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-11.html" target="_new">tom</A> 9600XT only gets about 50 fps. He might've turned on anti aliasing though.

-Intel PIV 2.6C @ 3.276G -Asus P4P800 -OCZ Copper 4x256 4000EL memory @ 252mhz 2.5-3-4-6 -XFX 5900 128meg 570/1040 -SB audigy -2x120G Seagate 7200.7 S-ATA150 hdd -450 Enermax PSU

 

[jaimegmr]

I ran 3dMark2001 again and this time I got a number higher than the one I get for stock speeds but not by much.

At stock speeds (500/600) I get around 10200-10300 3d Marks.
At overclocked speeds (540/642) I got 10509 3d marks.

Why only a 200-300 point difference? It seems like I am not getting the results I should get at the overclocked speeds I am running my video card at.

Signature X__________________________ <-- Sign here please.

 

[jaimegmr]

I increased the overclocked speed to 540/660 and I got a lower score: 10375. This is weird.

Signature X__________________________ <-- Sign here please.

 

[scottchen]

A couple hundred points increase is all you're going to get, you're on a 4 pipeline, and 128bit card. So, only if you increase the VPU by like a hundred, there won't be too big of a performance jump.

-Intel PIV 2.6C @ 3.276G -Asus P4P800 -OCZ Copper 4x256 4000EL memory @ 252mhz 2.5-3-4-6 -XFX 5900 128meg 570/1040 -SB audigy -2x120G Seagate 7200.7 S-ATA150 hdd -450 Enermax PSU

 

[mopeygoth]

Try 3dmark03 instead.. the speedincreasements will show better.. or more clearly to your satifsaction, if you please

Northwood I - 2.4Ghz - 1024mb pc-133 w. TT A1165 - Ati Radeon 9700@381mhz 128Mb@620mhz - 600W dualfan(front/rear) PowerTek Psu - maxtor 4K080H4 & 6Y120P0 - samsung sm-352b