Bad score in 3Dmark 2005

[Ruben]

Hi!

Could any of you guys help me out with this? I get a really bad score in 3D Mark 2005 and I dont know why. I should be getting around 8000 points, but all I get is 6300. I have all drivers up to date (graphic, sound, chipset etc). For example, in Oblivion I get really bad performance like 15/20 fps outdoors and even less when fighting.

My specs:

Pentium IV 3.0 Hyper-Threading
3 GB RAM DDR400
Motherboard Asus 915P
XFX Geforce 7900GT 256MB Extreme Edition

My guess is that the PSU is not powerfull enough to handle the "hunger" of this components. I got a 350 Watts Q-Tech with 15 Amperes on the +12 volts rail. Could this be the problem? Thanks!

 

[macer1]

yes, your ram and your p4 would really drain your 350 watt psu.

upgrade and you will see the 7900gt come out and play

 

[Ruben]

yes, your ram and your p4 would really drain your 350 watt psu.

upgrade and you will see the 7900gt come out and play

Thanks for the reply! So, wich one should I get? Could you point me out a good one?

 

[macer1]

Enermax has always worked good for me.

you get what you pay for so dont go cheap, remember it powers the whole operation.

for your case i would recommend something over 480watt. it gives you head room for overclocking

 

[angry_ducky]

yes, your ram and your p4 would really drain your 350 watt psu.

upgrade and you will see the 7900gt come out and play

It could also be the 3GB of RAM. I'm guessing that you have it in 3x1GB, right? Try taking out 1GB, and see what happens.

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

Can RAM really make such an impact on the psu? It's like 15W x 3. Plus Nvidia 7900GT doesn't consume so much watts. If power was a problem, I'd at least expect the PC to restart due to low amps (all PSU support this - it's regulation). The system won't throttle if amps drop, it will switch off/reset.

I'd say he should check settings (7900GT afterall isn't so strong, as 1900Xtx and 7900GTX is also given run for money in Oblivion), both in game and out game. For all I know it's something like HDr + AF with most settings in game turn quite high at 1280x1024

The low 3dmark score also means nothing. I also hit 8600 in 05, where as I should be hitting 10000. It's CPU limited - if I bump my CPU to 3.6Ghz I get close to 9000 depending on how tight my DDR timigs are. 3.0Ghz really puts a cap on modern cards, as early as the X800's if not earlier.

 

[Ruben]

Can RAM really make such an impact on the psu? It's like 15W x 3. Plus Nvidia 7900GT doesn't consume so much watts. If power was a problem, I'd at least expect the PC to restart due to low amps (all PSU support this - it's regulation). The system won't throttle if amps drop, it will switch off/reset.

I'd say he should check settings (7900GT afterall isn't so strong, as 1900Xtx and 7900GTX is also given run for money in Oblivion), both in game and out game. For all I know it's something like HDr + AF with most settings in game turn quite high at 1280x1024

The low 3dmark score also means nothing. I also hit 8600 in 05, where as I should be hitting 10000. It's CPU limited - if I bump my CPU to 3.6Ghz I get close to 9000 depending on how tight my DDR timigs are. 3.0Ghz really puts a cap on modern cards, as early as the X800's if not earlier.

Well, I already tried taking 2 Gigs to see if that was the problem - it wasnt. The exact same score. Also it seems strange that my graphic card doesnt even get over 40º even when in a quite stressfull operation like Oblivion, Doom3 or 3dmark 05. I also believe that 3dmark05 and 06 exclude the cpu and ram from the testings (especially if you exclude the "CPU tests" in the test options). At least is what they claim... Its also strange, as you say, that I dont get any artifacts or/and reboots/shutdowns. Strange indeed...
Oh, I forgot to tell you that I have a friend that has exactly the same PC that I have and he gets 7900 in 3dmark2005

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

Strange in deed - you should try and monitor your 12/5/3.3V rail via something like motherboard monitor and/or speedfan (12V being the most important) to gauge whether the PSU does in fact drop in AMPS by a decline in volts - But I'm almost sure that your PSU is not to blame. Either that, or the PSU is a ticking time bomb.

 

[GeneticWeapon]

It's not the power supply.

 

[Ruben]

Strange in deed - you should try and monitor your 12/5/3.3V rail via something like motherboard monitor and/or speedfan (12V being the most important) to gauge whether the PSU does in fact drop in AMPS by a decline in volts - But I'm almost sure that your PSU is not to blame. Either that, or the PSU is a ticking time bomb.

Well, I already did that and I didnt see any kind of significant fluctuation in the volts suplied in the +12V rail. I`ve been surfing the Net and I see a lot of people complaing about Q-Tech. Maybe I`ll try another PSU to see if thats the problem.
By the way, what did you mean by "the PSU is a ticking time bomb"?

 

[Ruben]

It's not the power supply.

Do you have any idea of what is it, then? Any help is apreciated.

 

[GeneticWeapon]

It's not the power supply.

Do you have any idea of what is it, then? Any help is apreciated.
Make sure you're not stricken with spyware, turn off any background processes(look down by your clock), put your nVidia control panel settings to high performance.....

and run the benchmark again.

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

If the psu is under a lot of stress (high amps), then it might fail into two states:

a.) shutdown due to over current draw (low amps due to too much demand)
b.) fail and let through more amps/volts to certain components (remember - we're stepping down 220Vac to 12/5/3.3Vdc - so the line is thin and in most cases well protected due to over voltage circuits providing they are working 100%)

The 220Vac can't directly stray through, but in the DC side you have resistors that might fail and this will allow a 5Vdc to suddenly allow 6V. Same for Amps.

It doesn't happen alot, so don't worry too much, but take note.

 

[davidflet9]

While i would seriously recommend changing your power supply (i run a 600W modular enermax) although that may not be your problem. i think the source of your problems comes from your CPU. what P4 revision do you have if it is HT then it is either C D or E, your CPU is starting to get outdated for supporting relatively high end cards such as 7900GT, i have the same issue because i am running with my 3.2E prescott and i am achieving score of 6800 (oblivion runs very smooth though) and it is very definatly the CPU that is causing the bottleneck on my machine. You could try formatting and reinstalling your operating system though sometimes this in itself can solves lots of issues and improve performance

 

[ches111]

I agree that it is not the PSU... The PSU is something to look at upgrading later but I would not blame it for your loss of speed.

There are a whole lot of vairables that could be affecting.... First as the Angry _Duck said.... back off to two sticks of memory. This is not because of the 3gb vs 2gb issue it is becuase if you have three sticks in you are likely NOT in dual channel mode. Most boards only support dual channel if two or four bnaks are filled not the odds.

This will severly hinder your CPU..


So if you backed out to 2X1gb you should be seeing a performance jump.

Also we do not know what is enabled/disabled anywhere on the machine...

Are memory settings in BIOS correct/not?

Alot of questions to be answered before pointing ANY fingers.

 

[ches111]

My P4 3.0C can support any of the newer cards as long as they are AGP (motherboard issue not CPU)....

The statement that his CPU can no longer support the newer cards is FALSE at best.

We have very little information about the parts used for the build, we have very little knowledge of how it is configured hardware/software wise.

We have very little knowledge of if he was running a virus scan in the background while testing??

I guess what i am getting at is WE DON'T KNOW.

OP needs to post specs of machine, settings of memory timings in bios, dual channel config info, task manager info about num of procs running/cpu used/resident memory size/page size....

Is OP allowing windows to size the page file or is it a set size. If it is a set size is it the right size.

and
and
and
and
?????????

 

[ches111]

Ruben,

Performance tweaking is an art..

Lets start with some of the basics...
Remove 1 stick of memory and TEST.
Change Memory timings in bios (test after each attempt).
Go to a fixed Page File Size. Usually 1.5 X (amount of memory) = 3gb
Put this new Fixed size page file on your fastest drive available. (alot of folks like to put this on a separate drive from their system drive for IO issues on the interface) not sure this is a big issue if you have a raptor as your main system drive I would keep it there. (test again).

Hope you are getting th point... Make your changes (small incremental changes) and test to make sure you are heading in the right direction. If your results are bad back out the change.