How is this possible?

jediphx

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2000
2,270
1
81
I have a new dell inspiron 530 with a Q6600 Quad Core, 2 gigs of ram and 8600GT 256 meg OCed to 705/825 Running Vista Home Premium with SP1. My 3dmark03 score is 19800 and my friend with only an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2 gigs of ram and a 7900GT 256 meg video on Winxp SP2 gets 28000 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=4908344

I know my dell cant be tweaked or OCed unless I switch out the mobo but that difference makes no sense.

 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
His video card is much faster then yours in 3DMark03.

tru dat. 8600 is a midrange card while 7900 was more toward the higher end of that generation.

Another thing is driver settings. If your friend has "let the 3D application decide" while your drivers are set to forced 16x antialiasing, that makes a huge difference.
I posted a thread about terrible Quake 4 frame rates, and the problem was that "multi-display performance" kills the frame rate of Quake 4. Setting it back to "let the 3D application decide" literally doubled the frame rate without lower the video quality. Pay very close attention to your driver settings.
 

Pelu

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2008
1,208
0
0
if you want something faster you better go for the x8xx or x9xx in each generation...
example....

8800...
7900
6800

the x6(5,4,3,2,1)xx are usually midrange cards.. in other words budget cards that are cheap with a not so good performance at all...
examples...

8600
8500
8300
6600

for nvidia the first numbers mean the generation... the second one is if is high end.. mid or full budget... third and fourth number... is for new rev. or improvements on that model which sometimes make them a whole lot better...
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
Originally posted by: jediphx
i get 6300 in 3dmark06

Yep something looks wrong. 3DMark has a database of uploaded results here

Some guys who also have a C2Q 6600 with a 8600GT:
12606
12259
10973
10693
10509

Do you have any forced driver settings, or is it all set to allow the application to decide?
 

yepp

Senior member
Jul 30, 2006
403
38
91
Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Originally posted by: jediphx
i get 6300 in 3dmark06

Yep something looks wrong. 3DMark has a database of uploaded results here

Some guys who also have a C2Q 6600 with a 8600GT:
12606
12259
10973
10693
10509

Do you have any forced driver settings, or is it all set to allow the application to decide?

His score looks about right, those scores are top of the list, highly overclocked or in SLI and who knows what kind of optimisation they've done.

Bet your friend scores lower than you in 3dmark06.
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
Originally posted by: YEPP
Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Originally posted by: jediphx
i get 6300 in 3dmark06

Yep something looks wrong. 3DMark has a database of uploaded results here

Some guys who also have a C2Q 6600 with a 8600GT:
12606
12259
10973
10693
10509

Do you have any forced driver settings, or is it all set to allow the application to decide?

His score looks about right, those scores are top of the list, highly overclocked or in SLI and who knows what kind of optimisation they've done.

Bet your friend scores lower than you in 3dmark06.

I think it puts SLI in a separate category. My system is a C2D 6600 with an 8800GTX in Vista and my score was about 13k. Looking at the databse of results, the highest score with the same system specs as me is just under 16k, or about 23% faster than my setup. The difference between the OP's result and the highest result for the same specs is upwards of 100% difference. That probably isn't attributed to something as simple as overclocking.
 

v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
2,720
0
0
3dmark is influenced by CPU speed. OP's machine is a Dell, which means he's running at 2.4 ghz on his quad. Some of the 8600GT pilots posting those eye-popping (for an 8600GT) scores no doubt not only overclock their 8600GTs to well over 8600GTS levels but are probably at least a ghz faster on the CPU.

Could also be a difference of DDR2 8600GT vs DDR3. I know 512 meg DDR2 8600GTs were fairly common, not sure about 256 meg variety though.

edit: confirmed. top scorer has his quad at 4.12 ghz (!!!!), so is clearly a pro overclocker with a no doubt extreme OC on the 8600 as well. Nobody pairs a professional cooling solution with a hand picked quad (possibly suicide run with liquid nitrogen) with a stock clocked 8600GT.

edit2: just noticed the OP has a fantastic OC on the GPU core, but the ram clock implies DDR2 speeds.
 

yepp

Senior member
Jul 30, 2006
403
38
91
Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Originally posted by: YEPP
Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Originally posted by: jediphx
i get 6300 in 3dmark06

Yep something looks wrong. 3DMark has a database of uploaded results here

Some guys who also have a C2Q 6600 with a 8600GT:
12606
12259
10973
10693
10509

Do you have any forced driver settings, or is it all set to allow the application to decide?

His score looks about right, those scores are top of the list, highly overclocked or in SLI and who knows what kind of optimisation they've done.

Bet your friend scores lower than you in 3dmark06.

I think it puts SLI in a separate category. My system is a C2D 6600 with an 8800GTX in Vista and my score was about 13k. Looking at the databse of results, the highest score with the same system specs as me is just under 16k, or about 23% faster than my setup. The difference between the OP's result and the highest result for the same specs is upwards of 100% difference. That probably isn't attributed to something as simple as overclocking.

Well those scores are insanely high, encroaching in 8800 territory. If you check further down the list i think you'll find his score falls perfectly in place. Actually its higher than most with similer specs.