GTX 970 and First Strike Results

jayt101

Member
Jun 16, 2011
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Hi all,

I'm a little dissapointed with my results from First Strike. My score was 8581 running at 1920x1080. I'm just wondering how everyone seems to be getting above 10,000 at 1080p. I've attached an image of my results.

I suspect its because I'm running a core i5 2500k which might be bottle necking me? I also think it might be by mobo which only has PCI 2.0 but I'm just guessing at this point.

Please, help me reach your level at 10,000 points!

http://imgur.com/rzwPFEY

rzwPFEY
 

Wall Street

Senior member
Mar 28, 2012
691
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91
Are you comparing your score to people with much higher clocks? I know that that GPU can get at least 20% higher core clocks in an overclock and the 2500k can often get over 30 higher clocks when overclocked. If you are comparing your stock results to other people's overclocks, don't be surprised if you are 15% below your 10,000 target score.
 

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
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Your video card is working perfectly, but you'll never hit 10,000 with a 2500k. That doesn't mean the system won't play games well. 3DMark uses Hyperthreading, which your cpu doesn't have, so it's not the same as a typical game.

Just relax and enjoy some games!

My 4690K with a 780 Ti barely breaks 10,000 at 4.2GHz. Sure you could try to get there with a 4.8GHz overclock, but you'd be wasting your time, honestly.
 
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amenx

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
4,676
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Your video card is working perfectly, but you'll never hit 10,000 with a 2500k. That doesn't mean the system won't play games well. 3DMark uses Hyperthreading, which your cpu doesn't have, so it's not the same as a typical game.

Just relax and enjoy some games!

My 4690K with a 780 Ti barely breaks 10,000 at 4.2GHz. Sure you could try to get there with a 4.8GHz overclock, but you'd be wasting your time, honestly.
It will hit easily hit over 10,000 with 2500k OC'd at 4.5ghz+ and GPU at 1500mhz +. A users score at another forum:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4090282
 

ctk1981

Golden Member
Aug 17, 2001
1,464
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Its 3dmark...who cares?!? Go play some games and enjoy what you got.
 

amenx

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
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1500mhz... that is over 300mhz faster than the OP's card
I wrote this: It will hit easily hit over 10,000 with 2500k OC'd at 4.5ghz+ and GPU at 1500mhz +

in response to this:
Your video card is working perfectly, but you'll never hit 10,000 with a 2500k.

And as far as 300mhz higher than his card, thats not an unusual OC with many 970s (incl mine).
 

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
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Something is definitely not right. Your graphics score is about 2k points low.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3337739

This is the kind of response that honestly isn't that helpful. You're posting a score with a heavily-overclocked 970 and telling the OP there's something wrong with his 970. There isn't.

If he can get a 225MHz OC on his GPU and a 1000MHz OC on his VRAM like you have and can't hit the same score, then yes, maybe there's something wrong, but as far as we can tell, he's completely at stock.
 

TahoeDust

Senior member
Nov 29, 2011
557
404
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This is the kind of response that honestly isn't that helpful. You're posting a score with a heavily-overclocked 970 and telling the OP there's something wrong with his 970. There isn't.

If he can get a 225MHz OC on his GPU and a 1000MHz OC on his VRAM like you have and can't hit the same score, then yes, maybe there's something wrong, but as far as we can tell, he's completely at stock.

OK. Bone stock clocked 970...still with a graphics score 1k higher than the OP. My cards base clock is 88mhz higher. I am not sure if 88mhz equates to roughly 10% higher performance.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3204844
 
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jayt101

Member
Jun 16, 2011
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Hi Thanks for the response everyone.

I am running completely stock on my CPU and my GPU. I thought I would be able to run a 10,000 score with a stock gtx 970 and a stock i5 2500k. I thought my biggest bottleneck could be my motherboard, which only supports PCIE 2.0. Would that be one of the reasons why I'm not getting a good score? Thanks
 

TahoeDust

Senior member
Nov 29, 2011
557
404
136
Hi Thanks for the response everyone.

I am running completely stock on my CPU and my GPU. I thought I would be able to run a 10,000 score with a stock gtx 970 and a stock i5 2500k. I thought my biggest bottleneck could be my motherboard, which only supports PCIE 2.0. Would that be one of the reasons why I'm not getting a good score? Thanks

No. PCIE 2.0 will not bottleneck a GTX 970.
 

xLegenday

Member
Nov 2, 2014
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Oh, and people still run 3Dmark? :D

Just play few games and make sure you get the FPS you want to run smooth .
 

amenx

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
4,676
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Oh, and people still run 3Dmark? :D

Just play few games and make sure you get the FPS you want to run smooth .
3DMark has its uses, namely to check if ones performance is up to par with similar machines and/or to see if overclocking is yielding good enough results. Sadly many use it only for its e-peen aspect and which some seem to thing that is its only purpose.
 

KaRLiToS

Golden Member
Jul 30, 2010
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3DMark has its uses, namely to check if ones performance is up to par with similar machines and/or to see if overclocking is yielding good enough results. Sadly many use it only for its e-peen aspect and which some seem to thing that is its only purpose.

3dmark is for competition in the first place.
E-peen? C'mon man! :thumbsdown:
 

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,505
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Hi Thanks for the response everyone.

I am running completely stock on my CPU and my GPU. I thought I would be able to run a 10,000 score with a stock gtx 970 and a stock i5 2500k. I thought my biggest bottleneck could be my motherboard, which only supports PCIE 2.0. Would that be one of the reasons why I'm not getting a good score? Thanks

It's more your cpu holding back your Fire Strike score if your worried about it.

Comparing your score to my run at stock clocks on my BestBuy reference design 970 makes me believe so. At stock I think my card is slower than yours.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3584559

Only real difference in score is the Physics part which is generated by the CPU. I'm running a 4690k @4.2ghz.

Even my reference design will boost above 1500MHz without any voltage added. Did a bios mod to up the power limit but haven't figured out the voltage yet as it doesn't seem to stick. Guess I'll have to do some reading if I want to play around with the voltage.

My best run which boosted in the mid 1500's

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3527952

Funny how I too wasn't happy as I wanted to break 11k :)

Just not going to happen unless I crank up or replace my cpu.

Fire Strike's only real world use is as amenx has already stated. The e-peen is kind of like a side effect I guess.

Fire Strike's score is calculated by....


Overall Fire Strike score
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[FONT=Droid Sans,Droid Sans][FONT=Droid Sans,Droid Sans]The 3DMark Fire Strike score formula uses a weighted harmonic mean to calculate the overall score from the Graphics, Physics, and Combined scores.

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[/FONT][FONT=Cambria Math,Cambria Math][FONT=Cambria Math,Cambria Math]����������ℎ������ [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Droid Sans,Droid Sans][FONT=Droid Sans,Droid Sans]= Graphics score
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[/FONT][FONT=Cambria Math,Cambria Math][FONT=Cambria Math,Cambria Math]������������������ [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Droid Sans,Droid Sans][FONT=Droid Sans,Droid Sans]= Combined score [/FONT][/FONT]
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XiandreX

Golden Member
Jan 14, 2011
1,172
16
81
For reference with my very modest overclock on my cpu and moderate overclock on my GTX 970 I hit around 10k (a hair over).