ATI Radeon 5770 512MB low 3D Mark 2006 Score

acewolf21

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I recently purchased an ATI Radeon 5770 512MB graphics card. I ran 3D Mark Vantage and 3D Mark 2006 and weirdly enough i scored quite bellow expectations in 3D Mark 2006 :| some games like Dragon Age, Assassin's Creed 2 and GTA IV barely reach 40fps maxed out with AAx4 1280x960

My System looks like this:

Windows 7 32-bit
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33Ghz
Gigabyte G31MX-S2 Motherboard (PCI Express 1.1 16x)
Hynix 2x1GB DDR2 800Mhz Memory
Club3D ATI Radeon 5770 512MB (standard 850Mhz GPU Core, 4800Mhz GDDR5 Memory)
Gigabyte Odin 585watt Power Supply
Seagate Barracuda ST3500418AS 500GB HDD

I always uninstall my current driver -> run driver sweeper in safe mode -> install new drivers.
*** I tested every ATI driver released from 9.11 to 10.3 beta and I only saw a small change in 10.3 X_X

3D Mark 2006 1280x1024 Standard test
Overall Score: 11,240
CPU: 2120
SM2.0: 4900 (other benchmarks reported around 7,000+ for this)
SM3.0: 6200 (other benchmarks reported around 7,000+ for this)


3D Mark Vantage Performance 1280x1024
Overall Score: P7200
CPU Score: 4185
GPU Score: 9402 (with the CCC 10.3 beta drivers)

So the million dollar questions are... do i need to send back the 3D Card or replace motherboard, CPU and memory to fix this. Why is the 3D card getting bad SM2.0 and SM3.0 scores in 3D Mark 2006 ? Will upgrading from PCI Express 16x to PCI Express 2.0 16x really improve performance enough to lift an eyebrow ?
 
Your processor, at 2.3ghz, is quite slow for a gaming machine running a 5770.
Your scores are actually pretty good considering the relatively slow processor speed.
If you can overclock your CPU, your scores will go up considerably. Your processor needs to be running at around 3ghz to push a 5770 to it's potential.
 

MARSOC_Operator

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The 3D Mark 2006 is ridiculously influenced by CPU processing power and speeds. It doesn't reflect the in game performances at all. So take its results as a grain of salt. This benchmark is only for bragging rights.
 

acewolf21

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I could not understand why my 3D Mark Vantage GPU score was the same as other 5770's but the 3D Mark 2006 score was horribly lower at SM 2.0 and SM 3.0 tests. I ordered an Asus P5Q SE2 Motherboard and Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 with 2x2GB Corsair Dominator 1066Mhz Memory. Hope problem will be solved after new parts are installed.

Thanks for the replies !
 

wamphyrix

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Mar 28, 2009
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why would you run windows 7 in 32 bit, with 4 gigs of ram and a 32 bit operating system you will not be able to use all 4 gig of ram
 

nfail

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its enough, 4gb is enough for any 32 bit gaming and its not an exact 1gb that is lost, its more like 700mb.

anyway the other answers are correct here, the cpu is holding back the graphics card and dragon age is one of those games that works much better with a quad core.
 

acewolf21

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I am buying Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit with the new cpu, memory and motherboard this Friday. Got Windows 7 Home Basic 32-bit for free :p

I will be sure to post my new benchmark results :)
 

flyinfinni

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Edit: Thanks to jitpublisher for setting me straight. My bad- had never seen that before.

Good call on getting Win7 Ult 64- very much better than home basic, and 32bit:) Good luck with it man!
 



I believe that you may want to research a little more..... memory on the video card does have a bearing on what is left over for a 32 bit OS to use in main memory. If you do not believe us, just replace a GPU with 512 meg of memory with a 1gig GPU, or pop in another 512 meg GPU in for SLI or Crossfire, and watch the available memory drop from 3.2 to around 2.6. The memory on the hardware (GPU) must be addressed as well.