Low 3DMark03 score... help!

[Ludivous_Kain]

For some reason, my 3DMark03 score is rather low here. Right now, my system (the one in my sig) is OC'ed to 2.77Ghz. Radeon 9800 Pro, running at 8xAGP, OC'ed to 80mhz.

Yet, for some reason, I keep getting a 3DMark03 score of around 3345. This seems horribly low, considering some of the other scores I've seen for non OC'ed of similar types.

What can I do to raise my scores?

[El<(')>Maxi]

Re-install all of your driver's clean.

[Ludivous_Kain]

Softmodded my 9800np to pro, and still horrible scores. So I reformatted my comp and installed WinXP fresh, with the Caty3.7, and my score still sucks. I think this mobo is the problem now. What mobo do you suggest for high OCing? Abit IC7-MAX3, or the Asus P4C800-E Deluxe?

[Bobtod]

It may be an obvious one...but, are you sure that AA/AF is turned off in the ATI control panel? Also have you installed the mobo chipset drivers?

Intel INF installation GA-8IK1100 (http://america.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/FileList/Driver/driver_chipset_intel_inf.exe)

BT

[Ludivous_Kain]

AA/AF? What do ya mean?

[Bobtod]

Ludivous, open display properties - direct3d tab, make sure Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering are set to application preference ie: the boxes are ticked which will disable AA/AF and also turn the Texture Preference and Mipmap Detail Level to High Performance. This should raise your score.

BT

[Ludivous_Kain]

As soon as I read your post, BT, I went "Duh... Go me..." I already knew what they were, but I had a senior moment. *lol* With both of those tabs set to Balanced, my 3dMark03 score jumped from 39xx to 6045. I had no idea those made a difference in 3DMark. *lol* Also, since it's a 9800np modded to a pro, do you know of any other mods I can do to get the memory to run at the pro speeds? They're Infineon chips on the board, so unmodded they're unable to handle the pro specs.

PS. the core is running solid at 432 mhz, before I start getting speckles in higher-quality renderings.

[Bobtod]

Ludivous, I don't think the Infineon memory is that great for overclocking but attaching some old cut down CPU heatsinks to your mem should give you a boost. The pic is how I did it to my Samsung 2.8ns which increased my OC quite a bit (can't remember but I think about 30-40mhz more). I think they were some old Duron heatsinks.
http://www.bobtod.com/Overclocking/Pics/Sapphire9800pro.jpg

[Ludivous_Kain]

Interesting... Because right now, mine can't handle being run at the Pro specs. The highest I can keep mine at is 324mhz. Any higher, and I eventually get real bad crashes. Like, when running 3DMark03, it'll get partially through the first test, but will become garbled with tons of artifacts, and a spiral-shaped polygon appears in the center of the screen and makes everything look horrible. Flashing and vibrating, it makes it look almost like someone cut my screen into slices like a pizza.

I'm not too worried about it, though. Because I have liquid cooling, I can crank the core up to 437 before I start to get white speckles. I'm not going to blow more cash on a pro card just to gain a bit of memory speed. I'm very happy with my 9800np, and its 6107 score. ;)

But anyway, I'm getting off subject. Do you really think that adding heatsinks onto the memory will allow me a higher clock speed? I thought it was just a matter of the memory not being able to handle the speed, rather than their temperature...

[Bobtod]

When I added heatsinks it reduced the amount of 'artifacts' on screen ie:

Before heatsinks - mem@750mhz = lots of artifacts on screen
After heatsinks - mem@750mhz = no artifacts

After adding heatsinks you may* be able to run at default pro speeds without artifacts, otherwise just lower the mem speed with rage3d or similar. *Your mileage may vary.

This was based on my samsung 2.8ns memory and it worked for me, bare in mind this will void your warranty etc as attaching the heatsinks is very permanent.

BTW nice oc on the gpu, I gained another 45mhz out of mine after watercooling it ;)

BT