Lower than expected performance. Help me out!

[imported_Thanatos]

I recently upgraded my video card so that I could run games at the native res of my new lcd monitors without stuttering\low fps. It's a radeon x800 xl 256 agp upgraded from a radeon 9800 pro 128.

From reviews of this card I was expecting 80-100 average fps in HL2 at 1600x1200 high quality but I'm getting 70-80 average fps at 1280x1024 high quality. My system specs are not far below the test system used by anandtech and are based off a previous buyers guide:

MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum mobo.
OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 / 400MHz / Platinum / Revision 2 ram. x2 512 mb.
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ socket 939.
Radeon x800 xl 256 mb agp.

(Using the timedemo's from anandtech)

HL2 benchmark: High quality no aa\af 1280x1024:

at_canals_08-rev7
5341 frames 60.655 seconds 88.06 fps 7.792 fps variability

at_c17_12-rev7
3145 frames 55.295 seconds 56.88 fps 5.024 fps variability

Not only are those waaaay lower than the ones on anandtech's review of the card they're not better than my 9800 pro in terms of lows during complex scenes.

Does anyone have any suggestions of things I could look into? Bios settings, video card settings\tweaks, anything? I have the latest drivers for the card and relatively recent ones for my chipset.

(Edit: Ran benchmarks again after a fresh reboot. Faster but still hitting sub-30 fps and still lower than the ones in the anandtech review which is run at 1600x1200)

 

[imported_Thanatos]

Uh, anyone?

 

[aGreenAgent]

What're your memory timings?

 

[aGreenAgent]

And the Anandtech review never says high quality, I don't think.

 

[imported_Thanatos]

It says "Highest Quality" and how do I find out my memory timings?

 

[Creston]

The OCZ is 2-2-2 I think, but that won't be your issue with an Athlon64 anyways, since it has an integrated memory controller.

A possibility is that your CPU isn't running at the speed you think it's running. Download a benchmark tool (3dmark or sisoft sandra) and see what clockspeed it's saying your CPU is running it.

I had a similar issue, and it turned out my 3500+ Athlon64 was running at 1Ghz, instead of 2.2 Ghz

Still, I wouldn't say that 80fps is all that bad, but yeah, I have an almost similar system (nforce 4 mobo, slightly better memory), same CPU, same graphics card, and I run at 150+fps at 1024x768 with details to max and 4xFSAA / 8xAF, so you're definitely losing speed somewhere.

Creston

 

[theMan]

get everest home edition and cpu-z to see what is going on. sometimes your bios will set your processor to the lowest multiplier when its new, or when you flash to a new bios.