Athlon 64 3200+ Low 3DMark CPU Score

ichief

Junior Member
Jun 16, 2004
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I currently have a Newcastle Athlon 64 3200+ (2.2 GHz, 512 KB L2) with an Asus K8V SE Deluxe. I've been running benchmarks exclusively these past couple of days and, although my system wasn't configured with the best of everything, I believe I should be getting better scores than I have been receiving. First I will finish listing my specs so that everyone can understand what I'm working with here.

RAM: Kingston ValueRAM 2 sticks 512 MB CAS 3.0 (i know, crap, but who cares!!)
PSU: Fortron 400W FSP400-PFN
stable at +3.3 V : 3.312 V
+5 V : 4.999 V
+12 V : 11.584 V (I know it's a little low, but I've got a dvd burner and cd drive, SATA150, etc.)
CASE: MGE G-Box 8011
TEMPS around 35C idle and close to 45-50C load for CPU; MB around 35-45C
GPU: Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB (Retail ATI)

I just upgraded to the latest VIA Hyperiod 4in1 drivers (4.51) and should have my other drivers and bios up-to-date. I do use Cool n quiet, but tried these benchmarks with it off and my graphics settings set to optimal performance.

Here are my scores in 3DMark, PCMark, Aquamark, SiSoft, and Super Pi:

3DMark 2003 (340) - 5904 (decent) CPUMark - 615!!! http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=2742619

PCMark 2004 - 4257 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm04=2455215

SiSoft Sandra 2004: cpu arith: 12935, cpu mult: 43555, mem band: 5285, file system: 48234, network/lan: 688, combined: 2654

Aquamark - 42186 (CPU: 8293, GFX: 5658) (again, somewhat low CPU, decent aquamark score)
http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=481210280

Super Pi : 1M in 49 sec (kinda low), 4M in 4 min 5 sec (slower than a 3000+)

Don't get me wrong, these scores are alright, but I just want to know if there is some configuration that I have incorrect or drivers that I am missing. Anyone else with this board and CPU, please let me know if you have experienced similar problems and how I would approach it. I know it doesn't have to do with timings because of this Tom's Hardware benchmark: http://www20.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040119/index-07.html. As you can see, I should still reasonably expect at least 700, and I know there are many people with similar configurations who have 650-700.

Thanks.
 

calam63

Member
Apr 27, 2004
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i am running the same cpu setup except one stick of 512 - my super pi time at 1M is 45secs
 

dababus

Platinum Member
Apr 11, 2000
2,555
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with my athlon xp running at 2.56 ghz and geforce fx 5950 at 500/1000mhz, i get 6576 marks on 3dmark03.
 

mitchafi

Golden Member
Mar 25, 2004
1,594
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It's probably the video card that is putting you over the edge. The 5950 is about equivalent to the 9800XT If I remember correctly.
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
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i thnk your scores are relatively close....

you say your ram is crap but who cares....

well, ram timings have a big influence on 3dmark scores as well as your super pi score....

if you could run cas 2 instead of cas 3 and tighten your timings all around, you'd see better scores.....

also if you could lower your mult and increase the fsb (HTT) then you'd also see a performance boost at the same speed... in other words 12 x 200 (2400) would give you better performance overall than 18 x 133 (2400)...

keep that in mind as well...
 

ichief

Junior Member
Jun 16, 2004
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I understand the arguments you bring in; the timings probably do affect results slightly, but the number I was getting for CPUMark is well below what it should be. I'm not sure if this has to do with my graphics card, since I suspect that even though it is supposed to be a CPU score the 9800 makes an impact on it as well. I currently have my system at 11 x 200 already; I haven't adjusted it from stock. My main argument is the large difference between my CPUMark score and the one reported on that Tom's Hardware article I linked to earlier as well as scores from similar systems on futuremark's site. I expect more than 600 points.
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
Super Moderator
Aug 22, 2001
31,705
31,602
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The sound test in '03 probably was partially responsible for lowering your CPU score. Honestly though, who gives a crap? your system will show no real world performance difference for most games and tasks based on those scores vs someone else's default scores with a similar setup but faster timings and better audio with lower CPU usage, so party on! :laugh:
 

ichief

Junior Member
Jun 16, 2004
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I didn't know that the sound test contributes to the CPU score...I guess that would pretty much explain why my score is lower than 650. I have a SB 5.1 Live in my older computer that I could use in the future if I need the extra performance, but right now I am content with my configuration. All I wanted to know was why 3DMark was reporting a low CPU score, so thanks for the information! If anyone else has any suggestions please feel free to leave them.
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
7,504
0
76
another thing... i'm pretty sure your 12 volt rail isn't running at 11.58... the fortron is a solid psu... if you have a mulitmeter measure it directly from one of your power lines (plugs into your hard drive or cd drive, etc.)...

and also... with a sweet system like that, you might really want to considering getting some better ram... ram really does effect performance believe it or not...
 

ichief

Junior Member
Jun 16, 2004
8
0
0
I don't really know what's going on with the 3DMark score, but I did manage to improve it a bit by closing down normal applications after I rebooted. I also disabled "File System Realtime Scan" on Norton, which I think had the biggest effect. On my older computer I turned it off to increase performance, but I held off on this one initially to see how much it bothered me. Anyways, my 3DMark score is now 5933 (increase of 29) and CPU score is 636 (increase of 16). At this point I'm not going to bother with benchmarking anymore, mainly because I hate having to tinker with drivers, settings, and processes just to improve scores. I'm assuming that's mostly my problem, especially when I notice that people might even use slightly older Radeon drivers to get better results. I am happy with the performance of my PC overall.

BTW, my Super PI scores after tweaking processes a little ended up being as follows:

1M: 42 sec (which is excellent)
4M: 3m 32 sec (which is also really good)

I'm still open for suggestions from anyone using the same motherboard and onboard audio, or the same graphics card.

It's now time to play some Call of Duty and Farcry.