Rebuilt my PC - Now you should help me explain this...

[BJWilliamsF1]

Hello,
I recently rebuilt my PC with some new components, let me just start with specs. My old PC was a Athlon 64 3200+ (Socket 754), MSI K8N Neo Platinum (NF3 250GB) Mobo, 1024mb PNY PC4000, PNY Geforce 6800 Ultra (425/1100 MHz), 160GB 7k RPM SATA drive, SB Audigy 2 ZS, ATI HDTV Wonder, Ultra Xconnect 500w PSU. OK Now heres what the "new one" is...

Athlon 64 4000+ (Socket 939), Abit AV8 (KT800 Pro) Mobo, 1024mb PNY PC4000, PNY Geforce 6800 Ultra (425/1100 MHz), WD Raptor 10k RPM SATA - 160GB 7k RPM SATA Storage, SB Audigy 2 ZS, ATI HDTV Wonder, Ultra Xconnect 500w PSU

The changes are in bold, not much but significant processor and memory power increase (Same memory, but now in dual channel mode.)

In Benchmarks, Sisoft Sandra is report in the CPU test 11181 at 2480MHz on the A64 4000, With my Socket 754 3200+ Overclocked to 2.27GHz I was getting around 10600-10800. Not much of an increase. Now in that same benchmark, I saw about the same performance increase, percent wise, in the MultiMedia benchmark. And of course with dual channel memory, the bandwidth/scores nearly doubled from the Socket 754 - 939.

Now I get confused because my games have not shown a significant improvement, or really much at all. And 3D Mark 05 is just crazy. With the above mentioned speeds, (939 @ 2480MHZ and 754 @ 2.27) I get these results.

3D Mark Overall - 939:5655 - 754:5799

Game 1 - 939: 24.4fps - 754: 25.9fps
Game 2 - 939: 16.4fps - 754: 17.3fps
Game 3 - 939: 29.0fps - 754: 27.8fps

CPU Test 1 - 939: 2.3fps - 754: 2.8fps (!)

Pixel Shader - 939: 172.3fps - 754: 174.3fps

As you can see, I have lost performance across the board. When I had the 754 Over clocked I dropped the multiplier down and ran a very high RAM or FSB setting with a 2x HyperTransport (400MHz x2). Now I am using default RAM settings but with a 5x HyperTransport (1000MHZ x2!). Could this be something to play with to get these scores up? I am still breaking in the CPU and all the new thermal grease I put on everything. I just cant beleive I shelled out around $900 for a new processor, motherboard,
and hard drive to lose 5-10% performance. Is the videocard holding me back?? Any suggestions would be helpful. The onl difference in drivers is abviously the different motherboard, but I am now using no WHQL 7.6.4.5 Nvidia drivers where as the Socket 754 system used non WHQL 7.6.4.4. Thanks for your time!!

BJ:disgust:

 

[Promethply]

Hi, welcome to AF.

Did you manually set RAM timings on both system -- make sure you set the memory Command Rate at 1T.

 

[MobiusPizza]

"Now you should help me explain this..." heh I should boss

When you overclocked your 754 you increased your FSB. Remember hypertransport 1000MHZ etc is just a marketting gimmick. The stock FSB is still 200Mhz. If you o/c your 754 to higher than 200FSB, you might get higher performance than 939 running 200Mhz FSB. Try overclocking your 939 CPU to the same FSB as well

 

[Ike0069]

Well for 3d Mark05, it's mainly just a VC bench. My guess is that the MSI board (with a nVidia chipset) is a much better performer than the Abit board (Via chipset), especially when using a nVidia VC.
Dual cahnnel does significantly increase bandwidth, but has very little effect on actual performance in A64's, as you can see.

In reality, all you did was go from 2.27 GHz and 512MB cache, to 2.4 GHz and 1MB cache. Not much of an improvement when viewed like that.
Then throw in the MB chipset issue, and I believe that would explain those results.

 

[exar333]

I agree with AnnihilatorX...I think the fsb increase is probably what is making the difference...2.27-2.4 isnt going to be really noticable in gaming...prolly only in encoding tasks or benchmarks. was your memory speed increased or did you keep the memory running at stock pc3200?