Is my 3dmark '06 score normal for a GTX 260 system?

[dannyaa]

I got ~9200 score on the default settings in 3D mark '06 with my new EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 superclocked card. I have:

- eVGA GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked
- Athlon X2 4800+ socket 939, 90nm (2.4ghz, stock)
- 4GB DDR400 pc3200 OCZ RAM
- Asus A8N-SLI Premium nforce4 mobo
- Windows XP SP3
- Latest NVIDIA Drivers 178.something released Oct 15th, 2008

Is a 3D Mark 06 score of 9200 normal or appropriate for this setup?

(( DEFAULT 3dmark 06 settings, 1280x1024 etc. Just installed it and clicked run ))

I was a bit dissapointed with performance on some games. I have a 22" monitor @ 1680x1050 and while BioShock, Call of Duty 4, Spore, and RS: Vegas 2, all run fine, newer games such as Crysis Warhead and Assassin's Creed don't show the performance I would have hoped.

I noticed benchmarks online show FPS of 35fps low and 51fps average on Crysis Warhead on DX9 Mainstream settings @ 1680x1050 on the same GTX 260 Core 216 ... of course, that uses a Intel Core2 Quad core processor extreme... however, I seem to get around 25fps on the same setting average, and dip into the teens for the lows... that's about HALF of the performance showed on those benchmarks...

So I am wondering - is this normal performance for this card on my system? Is my X2 4800+ really holding me back on performance that much?! Or do I have a setting set wrong?

Just wondering if 9200 is a pretty low score and how much of a difference the processor make with all of this. Because right now I am a bit disspointed with my system performance, and guessing I am not going to be able to run Far Cry 2 as well as I was hoping when it releases next week...

 

[helios2052]

I'm guessing that your Athlon X2 is really holding back your score (along with your memory). That is a great card but obviously limited by your CPU.

3Dmark06 scores can be greatly inflated by higher clocked dual and quad cpu's so it isn't necessarily a "3D-only-benchmark."

I was getting around 13000 with a slightly over clocked 8800gt and a Q6600 @ 3.2ghz.

So I suppose your card is a little too advanced for the rest of your system. unfortunately that socket 939 board really limits your upgrade options. Maybe someone else in the forums will have a simpler solution.

Good Luck

 

[customisbetter]

WOW!!!
that cpu and RAM are really holding that 260 back. I would recommend you get a new motherboard, cpu and ram to make up for your awesome video card.

 

[Guest]

definitely processor bottleneck

 

[eklipz330]

dude i get 12500 w/ a 4850 and e4500, somethings not right

im guessing with that card, you should get... hmm... 15-16000?

 

[dannyaa]

Hmm... ok what could be wrong? I am wondering if my DDR memory is set wrong (see this post):

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/253688-30-memory-speed-wrong

Also, keep in mind that the e4500 should actually be a better chip than my socket 939 90nm x2 4800+??

I am running everything at stock. I have an Antec p180 case with two 120mm fans in the back top and top panel pulling air in for cooling. No other fans, all air cooled. The case is pretty full - wires, etc. I have an antec NeoHE 550w PSU... it should be enough juice and amps I'd think. Everything on the cards, etc. is stock cooling.


Not sure what could be causing such a low score then if that's not right...

 

[customisbetter]

I guarantee your system is holding you back. Post your individual scores. I would recommend a cpu score of at least 2500 to free your GPU from extreme bottlenecking.

 

[dannyaa]

Ok I fixed my memory to be DDR400 with correct timings in the BIOS. Rebooted, ran again. Here are the exact scores as of right now:

3D Mark Score: 9506

SM 2.0: 3996
SM 3.0: 5321
CPU: 1863

Windows XP 32-bit, SP3
Forceware 178.24
AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ (2.4ghz) s939 90nm, stock
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium nforce4
1x4GB OCZ Platinum DDR400 pc3200 RAM, stock
EVGA Superclocked GTX 260, stock


Eklipz - what is your CPU score? Is it much higher than mine?

Customisbetter - any tips on how to get my CPU score up easily using my stock cooling and setup? Should a slight OC be easy and help a lot?

 

[customisbetter]

I would recommend a heavy overclock to at least 3Ghz to get a decent score. Although your cpu or ram probably can't do such a thing especially on a stock cooler.
For example, my cpu (e440) at 2.66 Ghz and much slower graphics card get a 5k score in SM 2.0. Your system is just too slow to send enough information to the graphics card. Sorry mate. But hey, if you can play your games well enough, thats all that matters right?
In the future, i would recomend you upgrade your motherboard, cou, and ram.

 

[dannyaa]

Ah, well snap. Yet at the same time, I went from 25-32 fps in CoD4 at mid-high settings, to 70fps+ maxed in CoD4... and after some tweaking I can play Crysis Warhead at 90% gamer settings, 2 mainstream settings, around 25-35fps which isn't perfect but it is definetly playable and enjoyable.

I feel like a 50% better 3dmark06 score probably isn't equivalent to a 50% increase in game performance, its just the way 3dmark06 measures it. Though it's probably safe to say I would definetly see a speed bump with an upgrade.

Does this all sound correct?

Anyhow, I'll probably look into a Core i7 upgrade late this year or early next year then. Until then even the score is low, the gamers play quite nice regardless, especially compared to my old 7800gt!!

 

[tijmen007]

Woa, i get around 50+- fps at warhead when i put 70 % of the settings at enthustiast and 30 % at gamer, (1200 x 1600) my specs:
-Amd X2 6000+
-3 Gb DDR 2 @ 800mhz
-HD2900XT 1gb ddr (4/3?)
-160 gb samsung spinpoint
Further specs aren't important.

 

[dannyaa]

Tijmen - which settings? The only settings that I have at mainstream are shadows and physics. I have no AA enabled though. That extra 600mhz probably helps a lot? Although isn't that graphics card pretty old?

When you say around 50fps+ - where?? Sometimes I get up to 70fps, but I'm down in the 20s when things get heavy...

Hmm...

 

[cscracker]

dannyaa,

I have a similar system to yours, specs as follows:

AMD Opteron 165 1.8GHz overclocked to 2.7GHz
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
2x1GB G.Skill DDR400 @ DDR 492MHz, 3-7-7-14-1T (the loose timings allow for the overclock)
eVGA GeForce 9800GTX+
3 250GB WD, 16MB cache in RAID 0

I get 10k 3Dmarks with no video overclocking, and have hit 11k using the eVGA precision tool. It's a 50% system overclock, FSB is at 300MHz. If you want to get more out of that system, you have to clock up your CPU. And to do that, you're going to need, at the very least, arctic silver thermal paste, and probably a large copper heatsink. I have a Zalman 9700.

Otherwise, you just need to get a new motherboard/processor/RAM. 939 is kickin' it old school at this point, and will soon be just plain too old to get by. If you don't want to spend a lot, I suggest the Phenom II on AM2 platform.

 

[Gneus]

I get terrible result on my sistem.
I got: Asus P5kpl-cm (corporate stable model)
Intel Dual-Core e6300 @2.8ghz (not core2 duo)
MSI gtx260 896mb o.c. Card
WD 640gb sataII drive
Patriot Viper 2x2gb @ 1066mhz.

In winXP sp2 with latest 191.07 driver I get 6080. (6080 vs average 13000) Pretty terrible I think.
My 5yrs old XFX 6600GT get 513. (513 vs average 1700). So both perform poorly. I'm running out of options.

I had 2 very frustrating day/nights but still can figure it out.
I'm thinking of sending my board back. I'm stuck.
COD4 is choppy averaging 22fps. Very poor video performance at all.
Any suggestions?

 

[shadowf0x]

Your processor is definitely bottlenecking your performance. I just ran 3DMark06 on my rig and got 18626 with a i5 750@3.43GHz, 4GB ram, and a gtx260 216. I got around 17800 without the overclock but if you look at some of the cpu vs. gpu charts of some articles you see that processors will bottleneck performance especially at the low end. Once you get to like 100+ market it makes a much more subtle difference so an core 2 2.8ghz will vary little in performance compared to a i7 920. Whereas, memory shouldn't play a big role assuming you have ~4gb, dual channel, normal bandwidth, timings, and frequency... I think my memory is on Auto and set by the mobo. Hope I helped. Also, make sure to update the drivers on your graphics card.