Want to get more performance out of my 8800 GTS 512 SLI

[wirelessfender]

I think something isn't right about my rig, My 3dmark score is lower than I expected and my frames in crysis are below what I expected. Before I get into a complected explanation of what I think my problem might be I would just like to know if there is anyone who could work with me exclusively, some sort of instant messenger would be cool.

You can see my setup in my profile, what I have replaced is the motherboard with an asus P5N-D 750i SLI and added an EVGA 8800 GTS 512 in SLI.

 

[spathotan]

Well, the SLi on the 750i is 8x/8x I believe, the EVGA FTW board is the only exception. But im not too sure that would be "bottlenecking" that card, as the 8800GT"s in SLi dont really suffer from 8/8.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

They do a little, but 1-2 FPS makes no difference when your getting 60+. Your score is fine relax.

 

[wirelessfender]

My score was like 10 or 11k, the one your looking at in my sig was the old score before the new motherboard and extra card( and that 17k score was with a 4Ghz CPU clock and some ridiculously unstable GPU OC as well. That was a year ago and I did it for bragging rights...). On the previous board I had a stable 3.6ghz OC on the CPU. With this board I can only get it to 3Ghz so far. And I just got done playing the last 2 levels in crysis on medium and LOW settings just for it to be 20+ frames. Thats when I decided to get some help figuring out what the heck is going on.

Oh and the 750i board I have does use the full 16 lanes on each slot. I know that for a fact.

 

[spathotan]

Yea, my mistake. I thought the EVGA FTW board was the only 750i that had full 16/16.

 

[wirelessfender]

Let me ask this.. What settings do you think I should be able to play with 30+ frames in crysis with a Q6600 3Ghz, and 2 8800 GTS 512 SLI?

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Umm... an E6750 @ 3.6Ghz 4GB of 900mhz RAM and 2 8800 GTS 512s in SLI can hit High @ 1920x1200 with 25+ FPS in Crysis... your fine...

Edit: That was benchmarked 5 minutes before posted, and I JUST got this f&%king PC stable...

 

[wirelessfender]

Your missing what I'm saying,

My old rig:

Q6600 3.6Ghz, no SLI, Win XP Pro (disregard the 17k 3dmark score, that was an unstable OC on everything just to get a high as possible score. My normal stable OC score was 16k.)

New Rig:

Q6600 3Ghz, with SLI, Vista 64. (Lesser CPU clock, but now I have SLI) And my score is 15k.

So, I added a second card and reduced the CPU 600mhz, and started using vista. and I lost 1k of a score. But mind you I could care less about the 3dmark score because I'm not getting 30+ frames in crysis with High settings at 1680x1050. The last 2 levels of crysis where around -20 frames, in the Medium settings!? And performance with High settings was not very solid throughout the beginning of the game either, in firefights it dropped below 30. I spent a lot of money on the new card and motherboard and I'm pretty dissapointed in the preformance. So stop telling me I'm fine and that I dont have a problem! Wouldn't you think I should be able to run HIGH without ever dropping below 30fps?? I'm not even using any AA or AF. and 1680x1050 isnt a very demanding resolution either. I'm at a loss...

Edit: I dont understand what your point is with the hardware you mention. That CPU is not what I have, its probably better for gaming, and its even clocked higher than mine. Even the ram is a little faster than mine(not sure if that even matters though). And that resolution is higher than mine as well. So your results are going to be different from mine. I told you what performance I'm getting and I dont understand why you still think thats what it should be?

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

First you need to bump your Q6600 back up as far as possible. Secondly you need to to check for patches for Crysis and reinstall your graphics card and motherboard drivers. That is the only thing that I can think of.

 

[wirelessfender]

I didn't think the OC on the CPU was that critical to gaming, I mean 600 more Mhz wouldnt give me the amount of Frames I would like to see anyway, Maybe 5 or so? And I have the latest patches and drivers for everything. I cant think of anything else..

I'm trying to figure out how to run it in DX9 in vista but its not starting up when I try to... it keeps crashing. Odd...

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

I am not talking about updating your drivers, I am talking about totally reinstalling your drivers in case there are some stray driver files left over. Also 600 Mhz would make a pretty large difference since Crysis si demanding of all your hardware. Are you sure that you are getting more performance with SLI from games and 3Dmark06, your second card might not be being used at all.

 

[wirelessfender]

Good point, I'll reinstall drivers just to rule that possibility out. I'll keep at the overclock, but I doubt I'll get far, nvidia chipsets suck at it.

And I have seen an improvement with the second card, If I get to a good spot in crysis where my frames are like 50, and then disable the SLI it dropes to 30. So there is no doubt there that it is working. But like I said when there is alot of action going on its just dropes like a rock. I'll keep working at it, I'm looking into disabling alot of unused processes in vista to see what that will do. I'll let you know whenever I get the chance to do all this and see what happens.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Hmm... are your settings in Crysis the same as when you had only 1 8800 GTS 512? Also do you have any forced 3D settings in nVidia control panel? Those settings can slow games to a crawl at times and Crysis tends to be especially susceptible to those bugs.

 

[wirelessfender]

One quick question, can too much thermal grease make your cpu run significantly hotter? I had better temps on the old P5K-E P35 board at 3.6Ghz than I do right now on the P5N-D 750i board at 3Ghz? I know I didnt use too little though, I used a credit card and covered the whole surface with a thin amount evenly. Thats another thing that I dont understand either.. Its like 10c hotter right now, Its gets to 60c when stressing which is fine for now but if I try to get it back to 3.6Ghz Its going to be too hot by then. And I'm using a thermalright ultra 120 extreme with 2 120mm fans on it.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Wow, you REALLY f&%ked up the application of the thermal paste, no offence. You want the THINNEST EVEN spread you can get. I recommend you use Arctic Silver 5, Arctic Cooling MX-2, Tuniq TX-2, or OCZ Freeze for your thermal paste. Here is a guide to help you:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=170&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=4

Yours should be thinner than his in the last picture. I recommend using a marker to mark each corner of where the processor contacts the base of the heatsink to get a better idea of how to spread it.

 

[spathotan]

No kidding. There is no doubt that the paste is running off the side of the chip and just a mess now.

 

[tonyr68a]

I bought an evga 8800 gts 512mb a few weeks ago and am not really sure why im not getting the performance i should be. on cod 4 (1280x1024, 4xAA, 8xAF, max. Quality) i'm only getting around 25 fps max and 10 low while i should be getting close to around 90 and in 007 quantom of solace i only get 10 fps max which seems really wack.
my system specs are
Cpu- Intel c2d e6300@ 1.86 ghz
Gpu-Evga e-geforce 8800 gts 512mb
Mobo-intel dg965wh media mobo
Psu-Sigma shark 635watt
Ram-pqi 1gb ddr2-800 And A-data 2gb ddr2-800
hdd-Wd se16 caviar 7200rpm 500 gb