I broke 19k with my Ti4200 - 7th place

[Edward2]

After MUCH work and effort, I finally broke 19k with my Asus V9480TVD (Ti4200) video card. This weekend I reinstalled W2K with APIC enabled, because I read that it actually improved your 3dmark01 score. I also did the GPU volt-mod this weekend. I did not do the video memory volt-mod, because it is extremely hard to do and I did not have time to mess with it.

I did some initial testing last night (Sunday) and my score improved from 18.5k to 18.7k, but I did not have time to really work at it. Tonight I did. :D The result was 19,008 (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7213473). :D :eek:

All the details regarding my CPU overclock and video card overclock are listed in the description. One thing you will notice is that the 3dmark listing shows my FSB as being 291 MHz and my CPU as being 3.63 GHz. The reason for this is that for some reason my computer will not boot above 291 FSB with the 5:4 memory ratio. So I have to boot at 291 FSB 5:4, and then use Clockgen to increase the FSB to 302 MHz. I don't know how stable the computer is at 302 FSB, but it did not lock-up any while running the 3dmark program (over an hour).

Anyway, just wanted to celebrate a little. :clap: :beer: :attn:

[CamH]

WOW! That's awesome! Great job! :D I struggled to get over 16k with my Ti4200!

Goin' for 20k? ;)

[Edward2]

I would love to go for 20k, but I don't know if it is possible with air cooling (which is what I am using). Of the 6 people ahead of me, 5 used a prometeia/vapochill system and 1 used water. Maybe I should just move to Canada and set my computer outside. ;~)

[f00t]

grats man, leme se that big 20

[El<(')>Maxi]

Nice one Ed!

:p

[Overclocker550]

amazing! you beat many guys with 9700 and even 9800s! I would need an athlon 64 to have a chance at matching you with my ti4200 and id also need a good ti4200 plus v mod it. oh yours is actually a ti4800se but still nice

[krakhead]

wow. i cant even break 10k with my ti-4200. im in the process of oc ing the 4200 . im just wondering how high i can go lol.

[Edward2]

Let us know how your Ti4200 does, and if you need any tips or suggestions, please feel free to ask.

BTW, I got moved back to 8th place (another prommy system passed me). If only I could afford one myself.

[rxtrom]

Congradualtions

[johan851]

Yup, that beats my Softmodded 9500. Congrats...did you find that benching in Win2K instead of XP yielded a higher 3DMark?

[Edward2]

Thanks. I managed to retake 7th place with a score of 19,170 (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7232383) about a week ago.

I don't have XP on any of my rigs, so I cannot compare them. I have heard others say that W2K might be slightly better for 3dmark01.

[Ray@VSK]

Nice OC ;)

[Emberghost]

Very nice job there Edward, nvidia would be proud :p . I own a MSI ti-4200 and cannot really manage to get anything above 10k. Here is a link to compare:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7267179

I would be very thankful if you could tell me some tricks or a link to those drivers you use to up my score a little. I test my machine how it runs everyday, ie: vid card @ 270/540, cpu at 13x175. I do not overclock my video card to the max because that is not the settings I use for everyday gaming and such. I will be able to push my cpu a lot farther once I get my 1 gig of mushkin lvl1 black 3200 from newegg (in the mail). But until then I would like to successfully up my graphics score. Thanks for your time and help I really appreciate it.

[Edward2]

HERE (http://download.guru3d.com/detonator/) is a link to the nVidia drivers on guru3d.com. On about the 3rd page, you will find the 42.01 driver for Win 2000/XP which I am using. You should get a much better score with this driver. You can also download RivaTuner from this website. RivaTuner can be used to tweak your video card settings.

Some of the tips I have are not good for actual gaming, but are only good for 3dmark01. You can try the following and decide which ones work for you:

- Overclock CPU/FSB/memory
- Overclock video card GPU/memory
- Turn Off AA/AF and Vsync
- Set all Direct3d and OpenGL settings to max performance
- Set your monitor to 60 hz refresh rate
- Set 3dmark01 to "realtime" in windows Task Manager
- Shutdown as many programs running in the background as you can (such as antivirus, internet security, MBM5, etc.)
- Defrag your hard drive

That's the basic things that I can think of ATM. The items that will improve your score the most are overclocking CPU/FSB/memory, overclocking video card, and using the 4x.xx drivers.

[Emberghost]

I installed the new drivers, set 3dmark to realtime, closed all bg apps, and defragged. And I ran it all happy knowing I would get a better score, it stopped showed me the score, and it was a whoppin 200 points lower. I am going to set everything to stock and see what I get....

Edit: I score 9000 with everything at stock speeds, which is about 900-1000 less than what you see in my sig. This seems very low for the hardware that I have....could my 512mb 2100 ram be limiting me quite a bit?

[Edward2]

I'm surprised that your score went down. My score improved by about 300 points when I installed the older the video card drivers. You might also try some of the other 4x.xx drivers (40.72, 43.51, etc). You might find one that is actually better for your particular video card.

And yes your PC2100 memory is definitely holding you back. A big factor in 3dmark01 is your CPU speed, FSB speed, and memory speed. So you should definitely see an improvement when you get your new memory (assuming that you are able to run a higher FSB/memory speed).

[Emberghost]

Thanks for all your help. I am leaving over thanksgiving and that is when my ram should arrive. So I will repost when I get with some better ram etc.

[matrixzen]

It might be possible to overclock your RAM? I brought my Crucial DDR PC2700 to 3200 although it had slow latency so I took it to PC3000 which I had a perfect balance. I would try overclocking the RAM. See what you can get out of it.

[Emberghost]

Ok guys I am back with some new and improved scores. So far with my new mushkin ram I have got pleasing results. My athlon 2700 is @ 11x205 and mem is at 1:1. But this score still seems somewhat low for an OC'ed 4200, what do you think?.... =[

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7298071

Edit: Mem timings are at 2.5-3-3-8

[Edward2]

That is probably about right based on your video card and CPU overclocks. Can you overclock your video card any farther without getting artifacts (maybe 300/600)? Can you run your FSB speed any higher (like 10.5*215 or 10*225)? Both of these would help your 3dmark01 score.

[Emberghost]

Woo Hoo I got 12332 -> http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7308801

cpu: 11x213 1:1 ram @ cas 2
vid card: about 300x550

Thanks for all your help guys.

[Edward2]

Excellent job Emberghost. The higher FSB speed and the higher GPU overclock really made for a nice improvement.

BTW, I think you meant 213 FSB and not 113.

[shutoutkeeper3]

edward give me some tips, because I can barely break 16k with my 9800 np...

[Edward2]

shutoutkeeper3, CPU/FSB/memory speed play a "BIG" part in determining your score with 3dmark01. That is one reason that it is so popular, because it is an overall benchmark for your entire computer. My first suggestion would be to overclock your CPU, FSB, and memory to the maximum speeds possible. Keep in mind that your computer does not have to be Prime95 stable in order to run 3dmark01.

(copied from previous post) Some of the tips I have are not good for actual gaming, but are only good for 3dmark01. You can try the following and decide which ones work for you:

- Overclock CPU/FSB/memory
- Overclock video card GPU/memory
- Turn Off AA/AF and Vsync
- Set all Direct3d and OpenGL settings to max performance
- Set your monitor to 60 hz refresh rate, 1024x768, 32-bit color
- Set 3dmark01 to "realtime" in windows Task Manager
- Shutdown as many programs running in the background as you can (such as antivirus, internet security, MBM5, etc.)
- Defrag your hard drive (fresh install works best)

I have not benchmarked with an ATI Radeon video card, so I cannot tell you which drivers work best. But I would suggest that you try several and see which one gives you the highest score.

(edit) What CPU/FSB and GPU/Vmem speeds are you running? Do you have a link to your 3dmark01 score?

[shutoutkeeper3]

I'm running the CPU at 180x12, and the card is running at 415/333. Hopefully my scores will improve when I get some new memory and an NF7-S...

[Edward2]

You should definitely see some improvement with the NF7-S and new memory, especially if you could run something like 220x10 with DC memory.

[Emberghost]

I have a question for you guys. It seems that my msi 4200 gets scores that are close to the higher end cards in the bench's with higher detail. Is it just me or is this true for some reason?

Compare Link:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7308801

[Edward2]

I'm not sure what you mean by "scores that are close to the higher end cards in the bench's with higher detail".

[Emberghost]

Sorry I will restate what I meant. It seems to me that my card beats other cards that are within a few thousand points in the high detail tests in 3DMark01. But I dunno if it is just the ones I looked at or if I am just lucky =P

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7308801

[Overclocker550]

high details is cpu intensive. take car chase for example, its all about your cpu! and your score still sucks. you should use the 40.72 drivers, somethings not right, I beat your 12k score on my old ti4200 and lesser overclocks/fsb than you you should be like 14k marks im getting 14.6k at 190fsb!

[Edward2]

I just noticed that he is using the 5x.xx drivers. Emberghost, you definitely must change to the 4x.xx drivers (something like 40.72, 42.01, 42.51, etc.). You can d/l them at www.guru3d.com . You should see a nice improvement in your score with them. Let us know what your new score is.

[Emberghost]

This is very strange, with the 42.51 driver I scored 1k less...???

New settings with 42.51:

gpu: 300/550
cpu: 11x200 mem @ 1:1 at cas 2

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7321990

????????????????????????????????????????????????

[Edward2]

That is very odd. Did you uninstall the 52.16 driver before you installed the 42.51 driver? You might try uninstalling the video card hardware in Windows Device Manager and uninstalling the driver, then reboot and reinstall everything.

Also, do you have everything tweaked correctly in the video driver settings? Set everything to max performance, set 3d LOD to about 4.0, turn off AA/AF, turn off vsync, and set 3d textures setting to DXT3-DXT1 (something like that). All of these settings get reset to the factory default when you reinstall the driver, so you have to re-tweak them after installing the new driver.

[Breadfan]

Reinstall DirectX when you change the drivers, I had a problem a while back that new drivers hurt until I reinstalled DX.

BTW, I'm a recent ti4200 owner, the ASUS V8420"S" (3.3ns RAM)

Got it as a newegg refurb, works geat, I think it was refurbed b/c the RAM is EtronTech, ha! Still, it OC's beyond ti4600 speeds....

Anyway, At stock (300/550 I believe) I got 12900 with a Pally 1800 and 512mb of RAM both running at 133fsb. That's with Win2k, I think the 43.xx drivers too.

[DipStickTony]

I only score like 2000 points higher then that with the rig in my sig :(.

With my 9700pro at stock you beat me by like 10 points....but i dont do any of those tweaks or anything like that.

Still gotta give you some props, very very nice job

[Overclocker550]

im hoping for 17k on my ti4200 all air cooled with a tbred xp2000 :D

[Emberghost]

Don't get your hopes up. =P

[Edward2]

Overclocker550, you are probably going to need about 340/700 out of your video card in order to reach 17K with a Tbred rig running at 2.5 GHz and 225 FSB. The Tbred takes a pretty big hit in 3dmark01 versus a P4 due to the low FSB speed (225 vs 300+). I gained about 1000 points in 3dmark01 with the same video card when I switched from a 1700+ Tbred @ 2.5 GHz to a P4 @ 3.6 GHz.

[Overclocker550]

"Overclocker550, you are probably going to need about 340/700 out of your video card in order to reach 17K with a Tbred rig running at 2.5 GHz and 225 FSB."


The good news is some guy just sold me a ti4200 thatll do 340/700 without v mods. Its cooled by a thermaltake copper heatsink. the ram doesnt even have heatsinks, I am gonna add tweakmonster BGA ramsinks and should get like 730 on the ram. I am hoping for 225fsb on the nf7-s im getting with my ram at 2-2-2-11 timings. My tbred will be 2.47GHz

[Edward2]

Good luck. It sounds like you might just have what it takes to get there. It will probably still take some tweaking (like a fresh Windows install and optimized video card driver settings). Let us know how it turns out.

[Dave65]

Man I just broke 16K with my 9500 Pro and thought I was doing something:D
Man that must be one heck of a 4200,good job:D
I will have to dig out my old 4200:p

[Steven4563]

lol i got to break 17K with comp in sig haha i might overclock abit more on the cpu :) im gonna leave the 9700 at pro speeds becuase once overclock above that i broke 18k :) but i wanna see how good off a score i can get with a stock 9700pro

[Overclocker550]

My ti4200 would match ur stock 9700 pro ;)

[Dave65]

Originally posted by Overclocker550
My ti4200 would match ur stock 9700 pro ;)

Yes it would,don't know why or how,but I do not accept defeat:D