Only scoring 6,000 on 3DMark05 with my 8800GT OC!?

[BrokenVisage]

Just got around to running 3dmark05 on my new MSI card and am flabbergasted at this low score. Everyone on Newegg is loving this card and applauding it but it seems to be under performing for me. My old 1900XT would get 11000+ easy if I remember correctly. I haven't touched the clocks on the core or memory but I shouldn't have to, it's factory overclocked @ 660/1900. What driver should I try for this card, I'm pretty sure I have the latest. Regardless, my card shouldn't be doing THIS bad even without proper, up-to-date drivers. Suggestions?

 

[BassBomb]

Did you clean drivers before installing the new card?

Get the latest drivers too.. Also, check to see whether your bus is running at 1x or 16x. There are occasional issues with motherboards and 8800GT which require card bios update.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
Did you clean drivers before installing the new card?

Get the latest drivers too.. Also, check to see whether your bus is running at 1x or 16x. There are occasional issues with motherboards and 8800GT which require card bios update.

GPU-Z

It looks like it is on x16, was hoping it was x1 because that would explain the huge performance loss.

And yes I did safe mode with Driver Cleaner Pro and CCleaner before installing the card, got rid of anything ATi related and went to MSI's website for the latest drivers.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Go to nVidia's website and make sure its the latest driver.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Damn, the drivers from nVidias site nearly doubled my score heh. Guess I'm a fool.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Don't feel bad, a lot of the manufacturers dont update the drivers, always check the parent companies for the latest drivers. Enjoy the new 12k

 

[BrokenVisage]

ROFL, ok so get this..

My 3dmark05 score seems to be going down every time I run the test, and not by just 5 or 10 marks either, by like 500 points every run! I'm now at frickin' ~8500 right now and don't know what the hell could be doing this. I realize it's just a benchmark program and I should only be concerned if my games don't perform as well, but I do notice average framerate loses in Crysis and throughout the 3dmark test, at the very beginning inside the tank I would usually push 58 FPS, and now it's struggling to reach 50 at ANY point of the opening scene.

Should I try Omega drivers just to see what happens? I've since uninstalled and reinstalled 3dmark05 to see what would happen and it's like this version just picks up where the other one leaves off after running the test. Simply incredible and aggravating.

 

[tigersty1e]

12K in 3dmark 05 is low as well.

Do you mean 3dmark 06?

Your card could be throttling.

Try turning off your system for an hour or so and then run the bench.

Run 3dmark 06 because most people are running it and it would give you a better comparison.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
12K in 3dmark 05 is low as well.

Do you mean 3dmark 06?

Your card could be throttling.

Try turning off your system for an hour or so and then run the bench.

Run 3dmark 06 because most people are running it and it would give you a better comparison.

Yes I'm very sure this is 3dmark05 lol, the reason I run it over 06 is because I understand there is more of an emphasis on the CPU when scoring in 06, and my CPU is very weak at the moment (3200+ @ 2.5) so I wanted to focus more on the cards performance for now. And while I wasn't too happy with 12k it was a much better sight then that 6000-flat I posted the first time I ran 05. I'll run 06 a couple of times when I get home I guess, I don't know why my card would be throttling though.

 

[JACKDRUID]

is your CPU bottlenecking your videocard? try another benchmark?

 

[agathodaimon]

Yeah, that's not right. My 8800gt is getting 15-16k in 3dmark05... And your system specs shouldn't be a big factor.

But, maybe the MSI k8n board doesn't play well with PCI-E 2.0? That would be my guess... Since it's getting older.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: JACKDRUID
is your CPU bottlenecking your videocard? try another benchmark?

You tell me lol, I mean it's an older CPU but should have some life left in it @ 2.5 Ghz. I will try 3dmark06 and maybe Sandra when I get home, but regardless of what might be bottlenecking it my score keeps falling.

 

[JACKDRUID]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: JACKDRUID
is your CPU bottlenecking your videocard? try another benchmark?

You tell me lol, I mean it's an older CPU but should have some life left in it @ 2.5 Ghz. I will try 3dmark06 and maybe Sandra when I get home, but regardless of what might be bottlenecking it my score keeps falling.

try OC your CPU a bit see if your score go up... if it does go up then your CPU is bottlenecking.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: agathodaimon
Yeah, that's not right. My 8800gt is getting 15-16k in 3dmark05... And your system specs shouldn't be a big factor.

But, maybe the MSI k8n board doesn't play well with PCI-E 2.0? That would be my guess... Since it's getting older.

Great, so my MSI board might not be playing nice with my MSI card, that's great news heh. I do still have my X1900XT and even though it artifacts like crazy now I could plug it back in and test that card to see if my score at least stops going down.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: JACKDRUID

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: JACKDRUID
is your CPU bottlenecking your videocard? try another benchmark?

You tell me lol, I mean it's an older CPU but should have some life left in it @ 2.5 Ghz. I will try 3dmark06 and maybe Sandra when I get home, but regardless of what might be bottlenecking it my score keeps falling.

try OC your CPU a bit see if your score go up... if it does go up then your CPU is bottlenecking.

2.5 might be the limit of my OC on this chip but I'll try, I'm currently shopping for a new one anyway so if it fries I won't be that irked.

 

[JACKDRUID]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: JACKDRUID

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: JACKDRUID
is your CPU bottlenecking your videocard? try another benchmark?

You tell me lol, I mean it's an older CPU but should have some life left in it @ 2.5 Ghz. I will try 3dmark06 and maybe Sandra when I get home, but regardless of what might be bottlenecking it my score keeps falling.

try OC your CPU a bit see if your score go up... if it does go up then your CPU is bottlenecking.

2.5 might be the limit of my OC on this chip but I'll try, I'm currently shopping for a new one anyway so if it fries I won't be that irked.

lol then try underclock it by 30%.. maybe safer that way...

 

[agathodaimon]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: agathodaimon
Yeah, that's not right. My 8800gt is getting 15-16k in 3dmark05... And your system specs shouldn't be a big factor.

But, maybe the MSI k8n board doesn't play well with PCI-E 2.0? That would be my guess... Since it's getting older.

Great, so my MSI board might not be playing nice with my MSI card, that's great news heh. I do still have my X1900XT and even though it artifacts like crazy now I could plug it back in and test that card to see if my score at least stops going down.

I don't want to say that it's the culprit, but it's a socket 939 motherboard with the first gen PCI-E... So... who knows. Maybe it's something to research.
I'd plop in your x1900xt and run the benchmarks again to see how it performs. If it's STILL giving you bad numbers, then it's something else with your setup. Might even be your Windows installation (if it's been a while since a good format/install and you have years of stuff on there).

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: agathodaimon

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: agathodaimon
Yeah, that's not right. My 8800gt is getting 15-16k in 3dmark05... And your system specs shouldn't be a big factor.

But, maybe the MSI k8n board doesn't play well with PCI-E 2.0? That would be my guess... Since it's getting older.

Great, so my MSI board might not be playing nice with my MSI card, that's great news heh. I do still have my X1900XT and even though it artifacts like crazy now I could plug it back in and test that card to see if my score at least stops going down.

I don't want to say that it's the culprit, but it's a socket 939 motherboard with the first gen PCI-E... So... who knows. Maybe it's something to research.
I'd plop in your x1900xt and run the benchmarks again to see how it performs. If it's STILL giving you bad numbers, then it's something else with your setup. Might even be your Windows installation (if it's been a while since a good format/install and you have years of stuff on there).

My Windows installation is very suspect now that you mention it. I've had issues with booting from my Raptor for the longest time and still have to use a shortcut just to boot up right. There are also random slowdowns I experience while doing video editing and such, but I always suspected that was the CPU just being weak. I install all my games to a RAID array off the Windows drive as well so I figured it wasn't an issue once I got into Windows. What do you suggest I do if I have to reformat/reinstall Windows? Can I keep the RAID array intact with all my games? I really wouldn't mind scrapping all data but would like to keep it if I could.

 

[tigersty1e]

All of the 3dmark programs are CPU dependant. They have to be because they are supposed to be sensitive benchmarks that show performance gains from system tweaks.


First... run your benches with everything at stock... 3dmark06 and SuperPi. Compare your superPi results with other cpus that are similar. Rule out your CPU before moving on to 3dmark06.

 

[agathodaimon]

Probably just need to have a clean drive to boot to windows and would still be able to run games off your raid array... I think. I'm not very familiar with raid.

But, if your Windows install is the problem, then it doesn't really matter where your games are... They still have to be run in that installation of Windows.

Other guesses would be spyware, viruses, defragging? Maybe a weak 12v on the power supply?

 

[Tempered81]

a single core athlon 3200+ is way too slow to compete with "q6600/e8400 OC + 8800gt combinations". your graphics card and mobo may be fine. but don't expect huge 3dmark scores with an old single core cpu.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
a single core athlon 3200+ is way too slow to compete with "q6600/e8400 OC + 8800gt combinations". your graphics card and mobo may be fine. but don't expect huge 3dmark scores with an old single core cpu.

Understandable. I didn't expect a huge score primarily because of my current CPU, that's why I was fine with just getting to 12000 at first. It's just very troubling to see my performance keep going down once it reached 12000, like, why can't it get to the same level enough though nothing is different?I just don't understand, it's like theres a memory leak all of the sudden.

 

[agathodaimon]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: jaredpace
a single core athlon 3200+ is way too slow to compete with "q6600/e8400 OC + 8800gt combinations". your graphics card and mobo may be fine. but don't expect huge 3dmark scores with an old single core cpu.

Understandable. I didn't expect a huge score primarily because of my current CPU, that's why I was fine with just getting to 12000 at first. It's just very troubling to see my performance keep going down once it reached 12000, like, why can't it get to the same level enough though nothing is different?I just don't understand, it's like theres a memory leak all of the sudden.

That's the thing... You SHOULD be getting ~12,000 with that CPU. But the decline in benchmark numbers is what is concerning.

 

[krnmastersgt]

A bad psu or bottlenecking cpu would not explain his declining score, I'd think it's his card throttling but that might not be right either, try uninstalling all your video card drivers, run CCleaner and then fresh install the latest drivers from nVidia.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
A bad psu or bottlenecking cpu would not explain his declining score, I'd think it's his card throttling but that might not be right either, try uninstalling all your video card drivers, run CCleaner and then fresh install the latest drivers from nVidia.

Sounds like a plan, I did install the new forceware drivers on top of the MSI ones without doing any cleaning, so hopefully they're just in conflict.