Overclocking video card, and performance goes DOWN?

[souljourner]

OK, I have a x800xl with a zalman 700cu cooler on it.

I ran 3dmark05 with omega drivers and got 5095
then I overclocked it to 424/1000 (using ati tray tools auto over clocking thing to find my most stable point) and ran it again and got 5279

OK cool I thought not crazy good, but enough for me to feel cool (this is my first time overclocking anything whatsoever ).

Today, for giggles, I dl'd 3dmark01 and ran it.

At stock core I got 20539

I then bumped the clockspeeds back up and got.... 20418????

I tried again and got 20292 doubleyew tee eff.

So I tried back down to the normal speed and got 20092.

I understand that my temperature was going up (although I let it cool back down to normal temps for the last stock run) but I thought temperture messed up stability, not performance.

In other words, as long as it will run stable at a certain freq, it should get around the same benchmarks.

Can someone 'splain this to me?

 

[Wentelteefje]

You shouldn't use 3DMark01 as a graphics card benchmark anymore... Throw '03, '05 or AquaMark 3 at it for more consistent numbers...

 

[souljourner]

I will give that a shot and see what pops out.

Any other good graphics card benchmarks?

 

[Wentelteefje]

Not exactly one that'll give you a performance number, but if you want a program that stresses your GPU to the max, then take RTHDRIBL...

EDIT: Welcome to the forums!

 

[souljourner]

Originally posted by: Wentelteefje
EDIT: Welcome to the forums!

Thanks, and thanks for your help!


I think I am finally catching the modding/oc'ing bug. So I imagine I will be here quite a bit

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

second what Wentel said, and I will also throw in that I have seen 3DM scores go down when OC'ing - suffice to say, that going slightly over the stable speed will result in reduced performance without noticeable stability issues, until one day it crashes. But yeah, 3DM01 is basically just testing your CPU.