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9600Pro vs 9800Pro...Disappointed
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apoppin
Lifer
you're welcome . . . from all of us. 😉
🙂
and PLEASE, report back when you find out what it was . . . i had something similar happen that a reformat finally "cured". good luck!
and . . .
TheSnowman, NONE of the 9700pros thru the 9800xt run Doom III "poorly" . . . at least at resolutions that most of us consider "reasonable" for gaming . . . at least 10x7 MedQ with the 9700 to 10x7 HiQ w/2xAA/8xAF with the 9800xt . . . not bad for "old" technology running a "new" engine.
anyone says 'otherwise' is a HW 'snob' or plainly ignorant.
Just a thought, the power connector you use to connect the card to your PSU, does it have all four wires going into your card? If not try removing it and plugging a floppy power connector directly into the card, heck try that anyway. My MSI also had major issues until I did this.
Hi, 49erinnc.
I'll tell you about my own experiences with a Radeon 9800 PRO, which I finally returned to the vendor.
After testing several times with several games/benchmarks, I was disappointed as you. My previous card was a GeforceMX400, so the performance boost was really noticeable, but not enough.
Examining the specs of the card (I used AIDA32, or the more recent Everest http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=3 ), and checking with the information in http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&var1=88&var2=0 , I discovered they sold me another card, not a Radeon9800PRO. The control panel shows the device as 9800PRO, but the core/memory speed doesn't match with a PRO.
I searched the internet, and browsed the mfg site (Sapphire), and found the following information:
- This is the card they sold me http://www3.alternate.es/cgi-bin/info/showtechdata.pl?artnr=j9gs62. Originally, the description of the card was RADEON 9800PRO OEM, but after a couple of days they changed to RADEON 9800 OEM.
- In Sapphire web site this card seems to be a 9800SE http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9800se.asp or a 9800 (non-PRO) http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9800atl.asp (the same card in the photo). Could be a 9800 128-bit, but there is no photo to check with.
What is really disappointing is the way the card tries to fool the user showing itself as a 9800PRO in the control panel, not being a PRO at all.
Could you post your exact brand/model? Maybe you have one of these 'particular' cards.
Regards.
--EDIT-->
Here is a PR from Sapphire with more information:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/press/128-bit-9800.pdf
I'll tell you about my own experiences with a Radeon 9800 PRO, which I finally returned to the vendor.
After testing several times with several games/benchmarks, I was disappointed as you. My previous card was a GeforceMX400, so the performance boost was really noticeable, but not enough.
Examining the specs of the card (I used AIDA32, or the more recent Everest http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=3 ), and checking with the information in http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&var1=88&var2=0 , I discovered they sold me another card, not a Radeon9800PRO. The control panel shows the device as 9800PRO, but the core/memory speed doesn't match with a PRO.
I searched the internet, and browsed the mfg site (Sapphire), and found the following information:
- This is the card they sold me http://www3.alternate.es/cgi-bin/info/showtechdata.pl?artnr=j9gs62. Originally, the description of the card was RADEON 9800PRO OEM, but after a couple of days they changed to RADEON 9800 OEM.
- In Sapphire web site this card seems to be a 9800SE http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9800se.asp or a 9800 (non-PRO) http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9800atl.asp (the same card in the photo). Could be a 9800 128-bit, but there is no photo to check with.
What is really disappointing is the way the card tries to fool the user showing itself as a 9800PRO in the control panel, not being a PRO at all.
Could you post your exact brand/model? Maybe you have one of these 'particular' cards.
Regards.
--EDIT-->
Here is a PR from Sapphire with more information:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/press/128-bit-9800.pdf
As competition between videocard manufactures and the ability to use as many squares on a DIE as possible, there has been made a lot of different deriviates of the basic videochips. I think to some point that it s.... cause we as customers has to know the difference of GT, Ultra, MX, LE, SE, XT and so on....
There are different memory types: 64bit, 128bit & 256bit - and there are models with 4 pipelines that can be XTended to 8 pipelines and so on..............
No wonder that someone (including myself :disgust: gets ´busted´ sometimes.
My last nVidia was a FX5200 (up from a MX420 which REALLY sucked!). What they didn´t tell me in the shop was that there was a 64bit and a 128bit memory system FX5200 - and of cause mine was a 64bit!
(Busted!)
Not long ago (being on a tight budget) I decided to buy a Club3D 9600Pro, and what a relief 🙂
This was in basically all of my aplications 2-4 times faster than the FX5200!!
I learned the following:
Shops want to earn MONEY (selling cards without telling the whole truth), factories want to earn MONEY (they ARE telling the truth though), and I want to spare MONEY (THATS TRUTH TOO 😉
I started to READ, READ and READ a lot of different articles in magazines and on the net, before I went bying a 9600Pro - and it actually plays DoomIII ok too 😉
But what about all of those who just want a FAIR deal for their money, without reading until 5 o´clock for a few nights or so?
Well, it´s here Anandtech and other good testing sites come in to play - Shout it out and READ, READ, READ - also the small print on the new flashy videocard box, that sometimes tells more of the truth than the salesman in the shop.........
(Besides: My 9600Pro gets around 3.6K in 3DMark03 @ GPU:425 MEM:451 - is that OK....?)
There are different memory types: 64bit, 128bit & 256bit - and there are models with 4 pipelines that can be XTended to 8 pipelines and so on..............
No wonder that someone (including myself :disgust: gets ´busted´ sometimes.
My last nVidia was a FX5200 (up from a MX420 which REALLY sucked!). What they didn´t tell me in the shop was that there was a 64bit and a 128bit memory system FX5200 - and of cause mine was a 64bit!
(Busted!)
Not long ago (being on a tight budget) I decided to buy a Club3D 9600Pro, and what a relief 🙂
This was in basically all of my aplications 2-4 times faster than the FX5200!!
I learned the following:
Shops want to earn MONEY (selling cards without telling the whole truth), factories want to earn MONEY (they ARE telling the truth though), and I want to spare MONEY (THATS TRUTH TOO 😉
I started to READ, READ and READ a lot of different articles in magazines and on the net, before I went bying a 9600Pro - and it actually plays DoomIII ok too 😉
But what about all of those who just want a FAIR deal for their money, without reading until 5 o´clock for a few nights or so?
Well, it´s here Anandtech and other good testing sites come in to play - Shout it out and READ, READ, READ - also the small print on the new flashy videocard box, that sometimes tells more of the truth than the salesman in the shop.........
(Besides: My 9600Pro gets around 3.6K in 3DMark03 @ GPU:425 MEM:451 - is that OK....?)
Tough for me to respond directly to everything so I'll just touch on some of the questions....
As far as driver removal, here are the exact steps I went through:
1. With 9600Pro in, I went to "Add/Remove Programs" and uninstalled my ATI control panel and display drivers (which I'm pretty sure were Omega's equivalent to Cat. 4.3.
2. I then ran Driver Cleaner and "cleaned" the ATI stuff it found and shut down my PC.
3. Removed the 9600Pro, replaced with 9800Pro and booted back up.
4. Hardware finder found but I canceled out the wizard because I had already downloaded the Omega 2.5.5.1 (Cat 4.7) executable to my desktop which I then executed/installed.
5. Rebooted, was detected as having a 9800XT and there were no problems.
From that point, I ran Doom3 multiplayer and found it to be no less choppy than on my 9600Pro. Could have been the server for all I know. But when I ran the timedemo demo 1 (twice), my average FPS was only a couple frames faster (approx. 25 with 9600P/approx. 27 with 9800P.) And then I ran 3DMark01 SE and you can see my results in my previous posts.
As for AGP Aperature, I'm set on 128MB. I can try 256MB, but I don't see my aperature bumping my benchmark from 11K+ up another 3K+ which would put me around what most 9800P users are getting. I will try though because I'm hoping to try EVERYTHING before having to format.
Power connector: Nope, didn't really double check that. I used a connector that was coming off the hard driver (I think) and popped her right on. I'll give that a shot as well. I AM using a 300W PSU which could be a little higher but it should still be fine given I'm only powering the 9800P, one floppy, one CD-RW, one hard drive and no case fans.
What else?? Oh, as for my card not "really" being what it's supposed to be, that's not the case. I bought a MSI retail version from Newegg. The core is R360 and it is in fact what it claims to be. It flashed as a 9800XT and came up with stock 9800Pro speeds. I have no problem getting the speeds up to true XT speeds. I think I can at least rule out this possible problem.
I brought my PC to work today so I can continue messing around. I will say this...last night 3DMark01 kept crashing on me, back to my desktop or doing a total reboot. I even tried running Doom3 to see what would happen. I got about 3 seconds into a map and my system crashed right back to the desktop and that was with my video card at natural Pro speeds, so I know it didn't happen because of my video card being OC'd.
I then went into my BIOS and manually lowered my FSB back down to 133MHz (natural speed for my 2200+). I booted back up and 3DMark01 ran all the way through. That was the good news. The bad news is that my score was 11, 047. With all of this in mind, I'm starting to wonder if my problem isn't related more to my CPU (and possibly BUS speed) than anything else. I'm tempted to just order the Barton 2500+. It's not much faster than my current CPU BUT it is a 333MHz chip and I would at least be able to run my memory in sync at 333MHz. I just wonder if doing that will give me 3K+ on 3DMark01.
Okay...off to test some more stuff. Any help is greatly appreciated because the last thing I want to do is RMA a video card if it's not in fact, the video card itself.
As far as driver removal, here are the exact steps I went through:
1. With 9600Pro in, I went to "Add/Remove Programs" and uninstalled my ATI control panel and display drivers (which I'm pretty sure were Omega's equivalent to Cat. 4.3.
2. I then ran Driver Cleaner and "cleaned" the ATI stuff it found and shut down my PC.
3. Removed the 9600Pro, replaced with 9800Pro and booted back up.
4. Hardware finder found but I canceled out the wizard because I had already downloaded the Omega 2.5.5.1 (Cat 4.7) executable to my desktop which I then executed/installed.
5. Rebooted, was detected as having a 9800XT and there were no problems.
From that point, I ran Doom3 multiplayer and found it to be no less choppy than on my 9600Pro. Could have been the server for all I know. But when I ran the timedemo demo 1 (twice), my average FPS was only a couple frames faster (approx. 25 with 9600P/approx. 27 with 9800P.) And then I ran 3DMark01 SE and you can see my results in my previous posts.
As for AGP Aperature, I'm set on 128MB. I can try 256MB, but I don't see my aperature bumping my benchmark from 11K+ up another 3K+ which would put me around what most 9800P users are getting. I will try though because I'm hoping to try EVERYTHING before having to format.
Power connector: Nope, didn't really double check that. I used a connector that was coming off the hard driver (I think) and popped her right on. I'll give that a shot as well. I AM using a 300W PSU which could be a little higher but it should still be fine given I'm only powering the 9800P, one floppy, one CD-RW, one hard drive and no case fans.
What else?? Oh, as for my card not "really" being what it's supposed to be, that's not the case. I bought a MSI retail version from Newegg. The core is R360 and it is in fact what it claims to be. It flashed as a 9800XT and came up with stock 9800Pro speeds. I have no problem getting the speeds up to true XT speeds. I think I can at least rule out this possible problem.
I brought my PC to work today so I can continue messing around. I will say this...last night 3DMark01 kept crashing on me, back to my desktop or doing a total reboot. I even tried running Doom3 to see what would happen. I got about 3 seconds into a map and my system crashed right back to the desktop and that was with my video card at natural Pro speeds, so I know it didn't happen because of my video card being OC'd.
I then went into my BIOS and manually lowered my FSB back down to 133MHz (natural speed for my 2200+). I booted back up and 3DMark01 ran all the way through. That was the good news. The bad news is that my score was 11, 047. With all of this in mind, I'm starting to wonder if my problem isn't related more to my CPU (and possibly BUS speed) than anything else. I'm tempted to just order the Barton 2500+. It's not much faster than my current CPU BUT it is a 333MHz chip and I would at least be able to run my memory in sync at 333MHz. I just wonder if doing that will give me 3K+ on 3DMark01.
Okay...off to test some more stuff. Any help is greatly appreciated because the last thing I want to do is RMA a video card if it's not in fact, the video card itself.
Alright...just ran 3DMark about 8 more times with various setups. Highest I have gotten is 11,926.
When I got that, my settings were:
Clock speed at 143MHz with memory set at 133MHz (PC2100), CAS 2.5T
AGP Aperature at 128MB and VGA speeds of 412/365...running Catalyst 4.4
1024x768/No AA
That's the best combination I could get and I'm still way too low for my video card. I'm really starting to think that Dark Knight is right about it being my FSB speeds. I think that if I had a 2500+/333MHz CPU and could run my PC2700 in sync with it at 333MHz, that I would see the performance I'm looking for. If anyone thinks that's not going to happen, please let me know before I go ahead and order a Barton 2500+ from Newegg today because I don't want to blow the money if it's not necessary. Not that I couldn't use the CPU anyway because video card aside, I WOULD like to run my memory at PC2700 speeds. Just curious I'm going to go from 11,926 to upwards of 15,000 by jumping up in CPU/FSB???
Is there ANYONE on this forum running a 9800Pro AND running PC2100 (133MHz) AND running a CPU at 133MHz (266MHz) who is getting much better benchmarks than me? That may help me figure out if it is in fact my CPU/FSB speed that is holding me back.
When I got that, my settings were:
Clock speed at 143MHz with memory set at 133MHz (PC2100), CAS 2.5T
AGP Aperature at 128MB and VGA speeds of 412/365...running Catalyst 4.4
1024x768/No AA
That's the best combination I could get and I'm still way too low for my video card. I'm really starting to think that Dark Knight is right about it being my FSB speeds. I think that if I had a 2500+/333MHz CPU and could run my PC2700 in sync with it at 333MHz, that I would see the performance I'm looking for. If anyone thinks that's not going to happen, please let me know before I go ahead and order a Barton 2500+ from Newegg today because I don't want to blow the money if it's not necessary. Not that I couldn't use the CPU anyway because video card aside, I WOULD like to run my memory at PC2700 speeds. Just curious I'm going to go from 11,926 to upwards of 15,000 by jumping up in CPU/FSB???
Is there ANYONE on this forum running a 9800Pro AND running PC2100 (133MHz) AND running a CPU at 133MHz (266MHz) who is getting much better benchmarks than me? That may help me figure out if it is in fact my CPU/FSB speed that is holding me back.
Gamingphreek
Lifer
First of all what motherboard are you running, i dont think you ever mentioned it.
Dont underclock your memory. First thing you need to do is OC you CPU FSB to 166 (166x2=333). Those old chips if you get a good one might even be able to make it up to 200 with a little more juice.
ALso do you have any open programs when you are doing this.
IF you were to upgrade then get an AXP Mobile 2400+ and OC that sucker. Also get a THermalright SLK-947U and a good 80mm or 90mm fan.
One last thing do you have fast writes enabled or disabled? Try switching it from whatever you have it at.
-Kevin
Dont underclock your memory. First thing you need to do is OC you CPU FSB to 166 (166x2=333). Those old chips if you get a good one might even be able to make it up to 200 with a little more juice.
ALso do you have any open programs when you are doing this.
IF you were to upgrade then get an AXP Mobile 2400+ and OC that sucker. Also get a THermalright SLK-947U and a good 80mm or 90mm fan.
One last thing do you have fast writes enabled or disabled? Try switching it from whatever you have it at.
-Kevin
My CPU is maxed out. I spent a great deal of time the other week trying to push it. Got it up to 150MHz with stability but anything higher and it gave me problems. It's locked as well so I can't get the mobo mulitipliers to even work. I tried lowering the mulitplier and turning up the FSB manually in the BIOS to 166MHz but it wouldn't boot. And everytime I could even get my PC to post, it was still posting with the factory set 13.5x multiplier setting so I know I'm tapped out there. My memory is PC2100/2700 and can be run at either speed. I have tried both settings and not really getting any different results in 3DMark. I had read that it's best to sync it with the CPU so I normally just leave it at PC2100 speed since my CPU's FSB is only 266MHz.
My motherboard by the way is an ASRock K7S8XE Rev. 3.0 I haven't really had any problems at all with my mobo and it's a 400MHz board. Just can't afford the memory/CPU to compliment it. I think my FSB is holding me back more than anything else and unfortunately, I can't unlock my CPU (without actually modding the bridges which I'm not trying) to get a higher FSB or lower multiplier setting.
Every time I've run 3DMark, I've had Fast Writes "Enabled" as far as I can remember. I'll try it once with it off just to see what happens.
jiffylube1024
Diamond Member
Do you have the latest chipset drivers for your motherboard/AGP/GART/etc installed? Do you have the latest (non-beta) motherboard BIOS installed?
Also, from your directions, it sounds like you missed a step with Driver Cleaner.
Uninstall your old drivers from add/remove, run Driver Cleaner 3.2 (if you like), delete any "ATI" folders on your hd if present, then shut down and swap the cards. Boot the machine in safe mode. Now, when the PC boots, cancel any auto-detection of the card and run Driver Cleaner again. This makes sure nothing gets installed.
Now, once this is done, install ATI's Catalyst 4.7 or 4.8 drivers from their website. Forget that Omega crap, especially if you are getting subpar performance. You can try that out later, once you know the card works fine.
------------------------------
I just thought of something else - do the Omega drivers enable AA or AF now by default? Regardless, make sure you have AA and AF off in your drivers. This would also explain the bad performance (if you had 4X AA enabled).
Remember to disable AA/AF for both D3D and OpenGL.
Also, from your directions, it sounds like you missed a step with Driver Cleaner.
Uninstall your old drivers from add/remove, run Driver Cleaner 3.2 (if you like), delete any "ATI" folders on your hd if present, then shut down and swap the cards. Boot the machine in safe mode. Now, when the PC boots, cancel any auto-detection of the card and run Driver Cleaner again. This makes sure nothing gets installed.
Now, once this is done, install ATI's Catalyst 4.7 or 4.8 drivers from their website. Forget that Omega crap, especially if you are getting subpar performance. You can try that out later, once you know the card works fine.
------------------------------
I just thought of something else - do the Omega drivers enable AA or AF now by default? Regardless, make sure you have AA and AF off in your drivers. This would also explain the bad performance (if you had 4X AA enabled).
Remember to disable AA/AF for both D3D and OpenGL.
Avalon
Diamond Member
I think I realized your problem right when you said 3dmark and Doom 3 were unstable and causing crashes, and that when you reduced your overclock, everything was fine. You've got no case fans, so I imagine ambient temps are fairly high compared to normal in your system. This is causing your components to be warmer. After putting in that 9800 pro, you were probably generating a lot more heat inside your case, not to mention straining your 300w PSU. System stability needs more voltage to stay stable on overclocks if your components are warmer. This is why water/phase cooled systems can overclock farther on the same voltage compared to air cooling. The 9800's power load is also reducing the stability of your system, since you're strained for power with it in. The extra load on your fairly weak PSU and the extra heat are your problem. I doubt your video card is defective at all. You should add two case fans and get a better PSU. You can get a 420w Enlight PSU for like $40 on the web, or get a good antec/enermax 350w PSU for around the same price. I'm pretty positive this would solve your problem.
OK, I underclocked my Barton 2500 to 133*11.5 (1530Mhz) and my memory to 266. I ran 3dmark2001 and I got 12600. So yours seem a bit low. I know the barton has more cache but I find it hard to believe that would make such a big difference since you are running a higher cpu speed.
BTW I have an EPOX 8RDA+, 2500 Barton, MSI 9800pro, Kingston DDR400.
Just humor me and plug the Floppy power directly on to the board (remove the supplied power cord completely)
BTW I have an EPOX 8RDA+, 2500 Barton, MSI 9800pro, Kingston DDR400.
Just humor me and plug the Floppy power directly on to the board (remove the supplied power cord completely)
Testing as I get more responses from you guys...
Did the Fast Writes OFF option and my score actually went down a little so that wasn't it.
I JUST flashed the newest BIOS for my mobo last week so I know I'm good there. Been awhile since I updated AGP/SiS drivers so I can try that but, I can't get our internet connection here at work to work on my PC so I can't download anything and my work PC doesn't have a burner on it. I'm sure I could get a connection if I tried but I will probably hold off on updating AGP/chipset drivers until I get home.
It could very well be a heat issue but I'm not sure. I don't have any case fans but I have been running 3DMark with the side panel off. I did however run my mobo monitor app last night when I was getting the reboots and my case temp was 102F and my CPU temp was 134F. Is that REAL high?....High enough that it's going to cause my benchmark to be low or would that just be the reason I was getting the reboots/freezes??
It could very well be a PSU issue. I bought a generic CompUSA 300W PSU awhile back that I'm using. It hasn't really given me any problems unless it's the source of my low benchmarks. Would a PSU affect peformance by 3,000+ points?
And to humor piesang, I will now connect the floppy power lead directly to the video card. Hell, I'm willing to try anything at this point. The two things I DON'T want to do if I don't have to are (1) format my hard drive and (2) blow $80 on a 2500+ CPU just so I can run at a higher FSB.
Trying the floppy thing now. If that doesn't work, I'm going to go buy a more powerful PSU on the way home. I can always return it if I don't see any significant results.
Did the Fast Writes OFF option and my score actually went down a little so that wasn't it.
I JUST flashed the newest BIOS for my mobo last week so I know I'm good there. Been awhile since I updated AGP/SiS drivers so I can try that but, I can't get our internet connection here at work to work on my PC so I can't download anything and my work PC doesn't have a burner on it. I'm sure I could get a connection if I tried but I will probably hold off on updating AGP/chipset drivers until I get home.
It could very well be a heat issue but I'm not sure. I don't have any case fans but I have been running 3DMark with the side panel off. I did however run my mobo monitor app last night when I was getting the reboots and my case temp was 102F and my CPU temp was 134F. Is that REAL high?....High enough that it's going to cause my benchmark to be low or would that just be the reason I was getting the reboots/freezes??
It could very well be a PSU issue. I bought a generic CompUSA 300W PSU awhile back that I'm using. It hasn't really given me any problems unless it's the source of my low benchmarks. Would a PSU affect peformance by 3,000+ points?
And to humor piesang, I will now connect the floppy power lead directly to the video card. Hell, I'm willing to try anything at this point. The two things I DON'T want to do if I don't have to are (1) format my hard drive and (2) blow $80 on a 2500+ CPU just so I can run at a higher FSB.
Trying the floppy thing now. If that doesn't work, I'm going to go buy a more powerful PSU on the way home. I can always return it if I don't see any significant results.
Just missed a couple posts....
No, I did NOT boot back up in Safe Mode when I removed my previous drivers. I can try that as well.
And no, I have not put the 9600P back in yet but it's on my to-do list. I just want to exhaust as many options as possible with the 9800Pro in before I conceive that my card is bad. I don't want to RMA this thing if I don't have to. Not to mention, I have already received payment for my 9600Pro from a fellow anandtech user and I promised him that I would ship it out today. 🙂
No, I did NOT boot back up in Safe Mode when I removed my previous drivers. I can try that as well.
And no, I have not put the 9600P back in yet but it's on my to-do list. I just want to exhaust as many options as possible with the 9800Pro in before I conceive that my card is bad. I don't want to RMA this thing if I don't have to. Not to mention, I have already received payment for my 9600Pro from a fellow anandtech user and I promised him that I would ship it out today. 🙂
Alright....
Disconnected power cable to floppy and ran it directly into Video card. Put floor fan on desk, blowing directly into case while running 3DMark and still can't break 12,000.
Show of hands here...
Is my problem CPU/FSB related OR Power Supply/heat related?
I can't afford to purchase a fix for both. I'm looking at some cases with 400+ PSU's/fan slots in them. (My current case doesn't even allow for case fans). And I'm looking at the Athlon 2500+ CPU. I just want to buy what will fix my problem. If I order in the next few, I may have it on Friday. What do you guys think? I just don't think it's the video card itself. And a coworker said that he found it hard to believe that going from a 2200+ to a 2500+ would make a significant difference, even with the higher FSB.
I have no idea at all and I just want my card to bench at average 9800Pro numbers. 😕
Disconnected power cable to floppy and ran it directly into Video card. Put floor fan on desk, blowing directly into case while running 3DMark and still can't break 12,000.
Show of hands here...
Is my problem CPU/FSB related OR Power Supply/heat related?
I can't afford to purchase a fix for both. I'm looking at some cases with 400+ PSU's/fan slots in them. (My current case doesn't even allow for case fans). And I'm looking at the Athlon 2500+ CPU. I just want to buy what will fix my problem. If I order in the next few, I may have it on Friday. What do you guys think? I just don't think it's the video card itself. And a coworker said that he found it hard to believe that going from a 2200+ to a 2500+ would make a significant difference, even with the higher FSB.
I have no idea at all and I just want my card to bench at average 9800Pro numbers. 😕
I went ahead and ordered a new case that came with a 430W PSU. I figured that it was a win-win situation by getting it since my current case has a cheap 300W PSU and ZERO case fans or holes for them. The case I got has a rear fan spot and a side panel slot (with fan included). Got the whole thing for #37.49, including shipping charges so I can't complain.
I needed that anyway so hey, if it helps my benchmarks, then it's just icing on the cake because additional cooling/power was needed anyway.
Hopefully, I'll have it here on Friday so I can get it up and running Friday night. I'll benchmark again then and see what I get. If I don't see too much improvement, I'll just go ahead and get the new CPU.
I needed that anyway so hey, if it helps my benchmarks, then it's just icing on the cake because additional cooling/power was needed anyway.
Hopefully, I'll have it here on Friday so I can get it up and running Friday night. I'll benchmark again then and see what I get. If I don't see too much improvement, I'll just go ahead and get the new CPU.
Concillian
Diamond Member
I doubt it's either. Power supply/heat issues would show up in poor STABILITY, not poor performance. And I double the CPU/FSB is causing scores that low.
You should be using 3Dmark03 to test with. It's much less CPU/RAM dependent, and will show scores related more to the VIDEO.
I'd continue to look at the software side: OS config, spyware, drivers, reformat and reinstall, etc...
Use 3Dmark03 to further partition the problem. Narrow the scope of the issue and target only what needs fixed. Shotgunning an issue like this is just going to get you spending money on parts that won't fix your problem.
Unless you have a 128-bit board or somehow have disabled pipelines, I don't think you need to spend any money to get the right performance.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That's the best advise so far.
RUN 3DMARK 2003!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You should get ~ 5500 + 600/-300. If you don't somethings wrong with your video card/video drivers.
People get all excited about RAM FSB, and whether it's in sync with the cpu fsb or not, but that really doesn't make THAT much difference. No where near the difference that you see. I've benchmarked my system between 512 MB RAM at 400 mhz fsb and 1 gig RAM at 266 mhz fsb, and the difference in benches was small. I run more memory at lower speed because load times are reduced dramatically.
RUN 3DMARK 2003!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's the best advise so far.
RUN 3DMARK 2003!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You should get ~ 5500 + 600/-300. If you don't somethings wrong with your video card/video drivers.
People get all excited about RAM FSB, and whether it's in sync with the cpu fsb or not, but that really doesn't make THAT much difference. No where near the difference that you see. I've benchmarked my system between 512 MB RAM at 400 mhz fsb and 1 gig RAM at 266 mhz fsb, and the difference in benches was small. I run more memory at lower speed because load times are reduced dramatically.
RUN 3DMARK 2003!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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