Low Benchmarking ?

[agcheavin]

I'm not sure if I'm getting the most out of my rig, I don't want to overclock and am wondering if my 3Dmark 2001 scores and Aquamark3 scores are on par with what could be expected.

3dmark 2001 - 12501

Aquamark3 - 29777

I have a 2700XP chip running dual channel Ram (2x512 3200 kingston) underclocked to 166Mhz on a A7N8X Deluxe MoBo with the latest drivers from Nvidia, cat 4.2 Video drivers for my ATI 9600XT card (which are quickest, 3.8, 3.9, 4.1 ?) and the latest Bios. I have a WD 8m 120gig drive Liteon burner etc.

I go to the Aquamark3 site and find my scores are like on page 12,000. What gives ? People with smaller chips and Ti4200's are whooping my arse here, I know folks O/C but thats way way out there.

Thanks in advance folks, I guess i just want to know if it's reasonable, but if people with the same rig I have are pulling 35 to 40,000 then I want to know what I'm doing wrong.

Gary

....................
<font color=red>AMD 2700 XP<font color=red>
<font color=red>PC 9600XT<font color=red>
<font color=blue>ASUS A7N8X deluxe<font color=blue>
<font color=blue>1024 meg DC DDR 3200<font color=blue>
....................

 

[pauldh]

Gary, your scores seem just a little bit low, but really pretty close to on par for your specs. My guess is you have your settings at ATI's default "Blend" setting. You will add a few 3dmarks if you slide that down to the max performance setting. Most people posting high OC scores also use that little trick to gain a few 3dmarks. But most review sites leave them at defaults. Nobody with a Ti4200 even OC'd is going to beat your aquamark score. The Ti4200's aren't far behind in 3dmark2001se, if overclocked and running the Det.4403 drivers, Ti4200's can score super high in that test. Trust me, you have the better gaming rig compared to Ti4200 owners with higher 3dmark2001 scores. No contest.

You may also be able to squeeze some more performance by tweaking your bios. Memory timings, turbo settings, etc. If that is out of your comfort zone, don't sweat it as you aren't really going to add a ton of real performance that you will see day to day. It will show up in benchmarks score more. If you truely have PC3200, why not try setting the mem speed to 200 instead of running it in sync with your fsb. People get mixed results. Some claim that it doesn't help, but I have always seen a little higher results on a non-OC'ed system to run the mem at it's full potential, not underclocked to the fsb. Hence, I'd run the DDR at 400 on your settup, instead of 333. On a 266bus XP2400+/KT333, I'd run the PC2700 at 333 not 266. It does improve performance a liitle in most cases. If you bought PC2700 for your settup, you couldn't try that and forget OC'in. But with your PC3200, why not try running the mem at it's rated speed instead of as PC2700.

As far as drivers, Grape has done that work for us. Check out this link and he compares all the currently available ATI drivers.

<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=377082#377082" target="_new">http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=377082#377082</A>



ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

 

[davemar14]

Your 3DMark2001 score is a bit low. If you are running XP, set the scheme to Windows Classic. Also, try the 3.2 drivers. I got 12,769 with my Ti4200 overclocked to 300/600.

My System:
<A HREF="http://www26.brinkster.com/amdgamer1/main.html" target="_new">http://www26.brinkster.com/amdgamer1/main.html</A>

 

[Vimp]

I'm not real famiiliar with benchmarking scores myself. But, looking at PCStats review of the MSI 5900XT card it shows a system with these stats...

P4 3.0C Ghz,
Gigabyte 8KNXP, i875P,
Asus Radeon 9600XT using Catalyst 3.9,
2x256mb Corsair TwinX 3200LL,
Windows XP

...getting a score of 13604 in 3DMark and 31590 in Aquamark. So seeing as your system isn't quite as good as that I'd say your score looks to be right on target.

<font color=blue>_____________________________________</font color=blue>
Vancouver, Canada
Asus A7N8X-X, Athelon XP 2500+ Barton,
Samsung 1024mb DDR400, Creative Geforce2 GTS,
SoundBlaster Live! Value.