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weird overclock. comments please!

S

sugarkang

Senior member
here's the deal. i had an abit kr7a/athlon xp 1700+. after cleaning off the cpu with some isopropyl, it just didn't boot. man was i pissed. i didn't wanna upgrade until the athlon 64s got cheap next year.

anyway, so i needed a new mobo and cpu. i read on here that the 2500 bartons were the best cos they overclock like a mofo. so i came home with my new asus a7n8x-x/2500+ chip, and tried very modest overclock settings. none worked.

upon further investigation of the threads, i found that week 43 chips are all locked from the inside aka un-unlockable. just my luck i thought. i bet mine is a week 43 chip i thought. i take off the heatsink, and sure enough, there are the numbers "0343" so now i'm totally pissed, not having wanted to upgrade, i went into the bios and just put down 200mhz on the FSB just for kicks. BAM it boots. i've got a 3200+ chip. wow!

i didn't change the multipliers, voltages, absolutely nothing except the 166mhz --> 200mhz on the FSB. while i'm totally stoked, my aquamark scores still seem pretty damn low...

what the heck is the problem? am i bottlenecking from the other components? here's what i've got:
512mb PC2100 kingston ram
120gb western digital 2mb cache
radeon 8500LE 230/230 (yeah i know it's slow)

here are the aquamark results:
http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_userhome.php?s=e72165efd7d49dcbeb0bb9675594e898

is there anything i can do in my bios to boost my score?
why the heck am i able to turn a 2500 chip into 3200 when it's a *new* barton?
 
ok, your URL requires login so i have no clue what your score in but if i had to guess, i would point at the RAM as the bottleneck as it is very slow and you are running it out of sync with the FSB
 
my bad. here are the results:

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3200+ CR: 2204 MHz SRAM: 512 MB OS: Microsoft Windows XP
GFX: RADEON 8500 SERIES CM: 230 / 230 MHz VRAM: 64 MB DRIVER: 6.14.10.6396
# 1 AquaMark Score: 15374 (CPU: 5616, GFX: 1782) FPS: 15.38 TPS: 5123 K Compare
RES: 1024x768 x 32bit AA: Off AF: 4x DETAILS: Very High View

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+ CR: 1837 MHz SRAM: 512 MB OS: Microsoft Windows XP
GFX: RADEON 8500 SERIES CM: 230 / 230 MHz VRAM: 64 MB DRIVER: 6.14.10.6396
# 1 AquaMark Score: 14581 (CPU: 5010, GFX: 1707) FPS: 14.58 TPS: 4859 K Compare
RES: 1024x768 x 32bit AA: Off AF: 4x DETAILS: Very High View

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1700+ CR: 1467 MHz SRAM: 512 MB OS: Microsoft Windows XP
GFX: RADEON 8500 SERIES CM: 230 / 230 MHz VRAM: 64 MB DRIVER: 6.14.10.6396
# 1 AquaMark Score: 13898 (CPU: 4888, GFX: 1620) FPS: 13.90 TPS: 4631 K Compare
RES: 1024x768 x 32bit AA: Off AF: 4x DETAILS: Very High View

--------------------------------------------------

there's a big jump between the 2500 and the 3200 but there's barely a difference between my old xp1700+ and the xp2500+. does the out of sync memory affect the cpu score?
 
yep definately the pc2100 ram i have the same problem right now, cept my ram is also limiting my overclockin.
 
i'm sure if i get faster ram, i'll have a faster machine.
but i'm talking about the difference between the 1700 and the 2500.
there's hardly any difference in cpu scores.
everything else is the same.
same hard drives, same pc2100 memory.
the only difference is the mobo... so i'm wondering if i have something set poorly, or if asus is just not as good as ABIT.

or are you guys saying that because the memory and cpu are different, that it's actually making my machine worse? that is, an athlon 1700 on a kt266 board will outperform an athlon 2500 on kt400 board because the memory is not in sync?
 
Originally posted by: sugarkang
i'm sure if i get faster ram, i'll have a faster machine.
but i'm talking about the difference between the 1700 and the 2500.
there's hardly any difference in cpu scores.
everything else is the same.
same hard drives, same pc2100 memory.
the only difference is the mobo... so i'm wondering if i have something set poorly, or if asus is just not as good as ABIT.

or are you guys saying that because the memory and cpu are different, that it's actually making my machine worse? that is, an athlon 1700 on a kt266 board will outperform an athlon 2500 on kt400 board because the memory is not in sync?
Click to expand...

the reason is because with the 2500+ running pc2100 ram async there is a performance penalty for running the ram at a differrent speed than the FSB. Not only is the slow ram choking the 2500+ but it is being penalized again because it is running out of sync with the FSB. with the 1700+ the ram was running at the same FSB as the cpu so there was the async performance penalty doesn't come into play. the 1700+ and the pc2100 ram running in sync is the most efficient setting for them to run together. The 2500+ with the ram at 133/266FSB while the cpu is running 166/333 is about the most inefficient combination of settings for that cpu.
 
okay so i got the RAM, and things have improved. still, i'm really underperforming compared to other people with 3200 cpus. here are the results:


CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3200+ CR: 2204 MHz SRAM: 512 MB OS: Microsoft Windows XP
GFX: RADEON 8500 SERIES CM: 230 / 230 MHz VRAM: 64 MB DRIVER: 6.14.10.6396
# 1 AquaMark Score: 15913 (CPU: 6923, GFX: 1797) FPS: 15.91 TPS: 5302 K Compare
RES: 1024x768 x 32bit AA: Off AF: 4x DETAILS: Very High View

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3200+ CR: 2204 MHz SRAM: 512 MB OS: Microsoft Windows XP
GFX: RADEON 8500 SERIES CM: 230 / 230 MHz VRAM: 64 MB DRIVER: 6.14.10.6396
# 1 AquaMark Score: 15374 (CPU: 5616, GFX: 1782) FPS: 15.38 TPS: 5123 K Compare
RES: 1024x768 x 32bit AA: Off AF: 4x DETAILS: Very High View
 
your cpu score actually doesn't look to far off the mark to me. looking in the aquamark database i see scores similar to yours with that cpu and gfx combo. I always discount the top 15 or so scores the search shows me as those are heavy tweakers and usually do not realistically reflect a normal score. If you are comparing yours to someone running say a radeon 9700 pro well then yea yours is underperforming but the comparison is flawed. your cpu score is about right given your hardware config. I saw your scores in the Aquamark database. all those guys that have higher scores (all18 of them) are overclocking the vid cards most of them are rinning 275/275 clocks on the vid card or better you on th other hand are running the stock 230/230 clocks on your vid card. That is what i think is causing the differrence in scores. Your score actually look right for that setup.
 
Yeah your scores do seem to be OK for your rig, remember also that with only one stick of RAM you're not running in Dual-Channel mode, which will affect your score a little. Also, even though you're aware the 8500 is slow, I suggest upgrading to something betetr very soon, there's no point having a decent system CPU/MOBO/RAM if the graphics card isn't up to scratch, especially since you seem to be a gamer. I'm sure you could pick up a 9600PRO cheaply from an online store or even the FS/TRADE forum here on Anandtech. Ideally though, you want an 8-pipeline card which is either the Nvidia's GeforceFX 5900 and above line, or my personal preference would be an ATI 9700 or 9800 non-pro or PRO. They have come down in price lately and are far more affordable.:beer:🙂
 
did you see that guy with like a 9000+ cpu score? his MHz is about or lower than mine.
i guess i'm wondering how people do that. i mean running at the same clock, but he's kicking my a55.

will the cpu score go up when i get a new video card?
i know it doesn't matter that much at this point, i mean since the gpu is the bottleneck.

anyway, i'm not *really* a gamer. the last FPS i played was unreal tournament, and briefly ut2k3.
i trudged through max payne 2 and gta vice city. it wasn't great, but still barely playable.
i totally wanna hold off buying anything until the 9800 pro comes down to under $200.
that should be right about when doom comes out and when i become a *gamer* again.

 
that 9000+ cpu score is an unrealistic number for a 3200+. I can't say how he did it but I know there are guys that find ways to cheat the benchmark so they can get a high ranking in the listings. That is why i discard at least the top 15 scores or so to get into the reality area of the scores. don't know what compare criteria you used but i don't see any 9000+ cpu scores for a comparable chip. for cpu compare i did athlon 2200mhz-2210mhz
 
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