• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Overclocked 9700 Pro performs WORSE! then at stock speeds!

formulav8

formulav8

Diamond Member
Hi, as the title says I overclocked a ATI Radeon 9700 PRO to 400mhz Core/746mhz Memory! So, when I run 3DMark 2003 and 3DMark 2005 the scores lower by up to 800-1200 points or even higher. The system is: Chaintech VNF3-250 mobo (with latest October bios), AMD A64 3400+ (newcastle) and 1GB ram.

At stock speeds scores around 5008 in 3DMark 2003. When overclocked it drops!! to like 2800!! or so. Why in the world would the scores drop? As soon as I set the video card back to stock speeds the scores go back up!

I left the core at stock and only overclocked the memory to 720mhz and the score rose to 5128!

So, it must have something with overclocking the core!.

The drivers are the latest from ATI's website. I even installed the latest beta drivers from OMEGA.

So can someone please help me and let me know what the problem is?? Does ATI have something built into the drivers that detects a overclocked core and kill performance or something??

PS: I just now ran 3DMark 2003 again and only overclocked the core to 360mhz to match the memory speeds, and the scores LOWERED! down to 4652!! So the higher the core is clocked, the lower the score is!.

Also, when I ran it on a Athlon XP @ 2600+ speeds on a 225mhz fsb the scores rose by 18%!! when overclocked the 9700 PRO. So, would it have something to do with the system?? The A64 should definitely be faster then the 2100+ oced to 2600+ even if it is on a 225mhz fsb.

Sorry for such a long post, but I would like some help. Thanks for any help


Jason
 
Hi, the performance increased by 18% when it was running at the OC'ed speeds. When the core was at 400mhz on the XP system. So it can't be because of running out of sync. Thanks for the reply 🙂


Jason
 
have you tried running any programs like games or anything, see if the fps lower as well?

maybe a glitch in the way 3dmark is doing stuff?


dont really have any reason why this would be, just throwin ideas out : ).
 
Also try aquamark3. btw, I also noticed that if I overclock my 9700 pro too much it starts to degrade performance. I got it to about 350/350 which was good, but higher speeds actually caused lower score in aquamark3. Why bother with the slow and ugly 3dmarks, when you can run aquamark and get a score which is correlated more precisely to overall gaming performance on the system, and have in less than 2 minutes ?

I'm running winXP sp2 on AthlonXP @2.5GHz (210x12), and Radeon 9700 pro at 350 core and 350 mem. If you notice even in ATITool when you start the process to find max clock, once it reaches a certain point it actually start to slowly decrease the clock, despite not showing any visible problems. My guess is that it causes internal latencies on the video cards because of the frequency changes.

btw, I'm getting 40.5K score in aquamark3, and I guess around 2350 in 3dmark5. Don't remember 03 and 01.
 
Originally posted by: formulav8

So can someone please help me and let me know what the problem is?? Does ATI have something built into the drivers that detects a overclocked core and kill performance or something??

Jason
Click to expand...

Hummm.... I see the conspiracy theory syndrom is defintely there.... but seriously it's becuase you're overclocking past the speed that the core can handle. How did you get to your magical overclock speed ? you have to do it responsibly and slowly and use ATItool. 400 MHz core ?!? it's way too much for 9700 pro, dude. Try 350 or so. If the score lowered, it means the card has internal errors and latencies, which is bad.

And as for running on the AthlonXP - don't you know that 3dmark3 doesn't measure cpu, only GPU, so it's likely faster because the AthlonXP system's FSB clock is faster than the A64 system's.
 
I'll try with a lower clock and see what happens. Thanks for the posts 🙂

Edit: I did try at 360mhz core before and the benches were much worse than stock. I even tried flashing the bios to no avail. I am running the bench now at 330mhz. It should be able to do a 5mhz oc without having internal errors. At least I would think so 🙂


Jason
 
I don't inderstand why you are overclocking a customer's video card?
They wanted it done?

OCing is never guaranteed, & your card obviously doesn't like being OCed very much.
 
Of course he wanted it oced or I wouldn't be doing it. Why did the card have no problems running at 400mhz core if it didn't like ocing? It is on the A64 system, when the core is oced that the performance worsens. Thanks 🙂


Jason
 
If you can't increase the core, then dont! If you notice a performance improvement with just memory, then stick with that overclock. There are small variations in video cards and I guess the core doesn't like it. The only reason you would want to overclock the core is because it's not keeping up with the memory, have you tried overclocking JUST the core? I have on many cards and I have to say I get a <1% performance increase but when I increase the memory I get a HUGE increase (relatively). So try just memory and if you see a decrease then thats how it is, cards vary and strange things happen. Just be happy with the memory overclock increase because thats all that really matters until the core can't keep up with the memory.
 
Originally posted by: formulav8
Of course he wanted it oced or I wouldn't be doing it. Why did the card have no problems running at 400mhz core if it didn't like ocing? It is on the A64 system, when the core is oced that the performance worsens. Thanks 🙂


Jason
Click to expand...


It may be that the driver is smoothing out problems with the card by either waiting longer for stuff, or doing it twice, or even processing some parts in software instead of hardware. All this probably because something is not working properly with the hardware when it's running at 400 MHz.

I've noticed a performance degradation as well when I overclocked beyond 350.
 
Well if I just oced it by 5 or 10 mhz it would score lower. And remember, on the Athlon XP system the performance increased 18%! when the core was oced to 400mhz. So it can't be anything inside the core that is screwing up when it is overclocked. It is just very very wierd on what was going on. The guy has his computer now so I can't do anymore testing. I just wish I knew what the problem is so I could eventually do something about it. Well anyways. Thanks for the replys 🙂


Jason
 
Originally posted by: user1234
400 MHz core ?!? it's way too much for 9700 pro, dude. Try 350 or so. If the score lowered, it means the card has internal errors and latencies, which is bad.
Click to expand...

I am running mine at 435 when i have the vmod turned off, and the 9700tx clocks even lower than the 9700np at stock. I can easily hit the 480 mentioned in my sig with the voltmod, I can even hit 490 for benchmarking.
Even without the TEC that i have on, ie just on an ati silencer, i can hit 410. And this is on a MUCH lower binned card.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top