Note that this problem may not be completely isolated to my CPU, but I have a feeling it's at least related to it.
Recently I built a (mostly) new computer, with the following specifications:
I initially became suspicious when I ran 3DMark06 and found that my score was 9777 - I'd been led to believe that someone with a similar system configuration could reach 11,000 on stocks speeds. After overclocking my video card about 8%, my score went up to about 10,540 points at maximum - not a terrible score, but still lower than I expected, especially considering that I had overclocked things.
I then started using the Half-Life 2: Lost Coast tech demo for benchmarking due to its easy-to-use stress test feature, and found myself disappointed. Despite whatever settings I use, my framerate stays consistent at about 100 fps average - at lowest settings, I get about 102 fps on average, and at highest settings with 4xAA and 16xAF, I get about 98 fps on average. I shouldn't be getting worse performance than benchmarking systems were a year and a half ago.
So, naturally, that sounds like a CPU bottleneck. However, after running SiSoftware's Sandra to benchmark my CPU, it seems to be fairly consistent with the reference model - some scores are a little higher here and some are a little lower there, but nothing too significant. On top of that, all reviews have indicated that the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ falls somewhere between the Intel Core 2 Duo processors in terms of performance, depending on the application, so I would expect much better performance out of the CPU; I highly doubt that at 3.01Ghz it's acting as a bottleneck for the video card. So, if the CPU is bottlenecking the video card, then Sandra isn't reporting it properly.
I've gone over everything that I can think of - I've made sure all my voltages are right, RAM is set up properly, BIOS updates and downgrades, driver installs, uninstalls and reinstalls, done tons of benchmarking with the same programs over and over, but absolutely nothing seems to help. I'm pretty much completely clueless about what the problem could be. I've tried posting on a couple of forums already, but nobody has been any help there so far, so I figured I'd try a place where the people are a little bit more expert than the average gaming forum. Any help would be appreciated.
Recently I built a (mostly) new computer, with the following specifications:
- * AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ processor
* ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard
* ASUS EN8800GT 512MB video card
* 2x1GB DDR2 667Mhz RAM
* CoolerMaster eXtreme Power Duo 600W PSU
I initially became suspicious when I ran 3DMark06 and found that my score was 9777 - I'd been led to believe that someone with a similar system configuration could reach 11,000 on stocks speeds. After overclocking my video card about 8%, my score went up to about 10,540 points at maximum - not a terrible score, but still lower than I expected, especially considering that I had overclocked things.
I then started using the Half-Life 2: Lost Coast tech demo for benchmarking due to its easy-to-use stress test feature, and found myself disappointed. Despite whatever settings I use, my framerate stays consistent at about 100 fps average - at lowest settings, I get about 102 fps on average, and at highest settings with 4xAA and 16xAF, I get about 98 fps on average. I shouldn't be getting worse performance than benchmarking systems were a year and a half ago.
So, naturally, that sounds like a CPU bottleneck. However, after running SiSoftware's Sandra to benchmark my CPU, it seems to be fairly consistent with the reference model - some scores are a little higher here and some are a little lower there, but nothing too significant. On top of that, all reviews have indicated that the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ falls somewhere between the Intel Core 2 Duo processors in terms of performance, depending on the application, so I would expect much better performance out of the CPU; I highly doubt that at 3.01Ghz it's acting as a bottleneck for the video card. So, if the CPU is bottlenecking the video card, then Sandra isn't reporting it properly.
I've gone over everything that I can think of - I've made sure all my voltages are right, RAM is set up properly, BIOS updates and downgrades, driver installs, uninstalls and reinstalls, done tons of benchmarking with the same programs over and over, but absolutely nothing seems to help. I'm pretty much completely clueless about what the problem could be. I've tried posting on a couple of forums already, but nobody has been any help there so far, so I figured I'd try a place where the people are a little bit more expert than the average gaming forum. Any help would be appreciated.
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