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My 8800GT SLI Overclock with Thermaltake ND1's

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I think my PSU may not be enough after all... because here are my scores:

600core/1500shader/1800ram: 14893
675core/1674shader/1950ram: 15349
736core/1836shader/2100ram: 15437

I can't figure any explanation other than that, which could be causing this. You'd think an overclock of those levels would provide a larger performance increase than that, no? Anyone have any thoughts? People seemed to think it might not be enough (Corsair HX 520w) yet others thought it would be... I hadn't tested lower speeds until just now so I assumed it was just a slow CPU causing the lower score than I expected at my top overclock. However, with the low scaling here, I'm thinking otherwise :(.
 
i would also like to think that that much more speed should yield higher results.

Try stressing your cpu and videocard at the same time and see if it crashes?
 
White_Pawn said:
i would also like to think that that much more speed should yield higher results.


Try stressing your cpu and videocard at the same time and see if it crashes?
Click to expand...

Thing is, I can play Crysis for ages without issue at my "stock" KO speeds, and I looped the timedemo a ton of times at my top overclock. That game is stressful on both, so I'm honestly not sure.


Rattle said:
whats your cpu at? after a certain point overclocking the card is useless if your system cant push it
Click to expand...

Q6600 @ 3.15, 1.53v
2x eVGA 8800GT KO 512MB in SLI, with Thermaltake ND1 HSF's
2 hard drives
eVGA 680i NF68-A1 SLI motherboard
4x1GB RAM sticks
7 120mm case fans, plus two 80ish-mm fans that the aftermarket coolers use
Optical drive
X-fi sound card
Corsair HX 520w PSU
 
Rattle said:
whats your cpu at? after a certain point overclocking the card is useless if your system cant push it
Click to expand...
It's hard to believe he'd be cpu limited in 06. True he's only running at 3.15Ghz however that is a very gpu intense benchmark.
 
White_Pawn said:
he makes a good point. Your cpu is only at 3.15ghz. Is that a B3 q6600?

You may have to wait till you get a 4ghz q9xxx cpu to fully utilize all that power.
Click to expand...

Yep, it's a B3 Q6600.

3dmark06 is known to be CPU-limited at certain points, it may just be that this is the case here. I got a suggestion to unplug my optical and 2nd hard drive, then see if anything changes score-wise, so I'm thinking I should try that out as that would give more power to everything else.
 
Okies, just ran 3dmark06 through again with the second hard drive and optical drive, unplugged, and the result is....... .... ........ (dramatic break).... 15297. If it was a power issue, I would have expected it to go up :).
 
GoldenTiger said:
I think my PSU may not be enough after all... because here are my scores:

600core/1500shader/1800ram: 14893
675core/1674shader/1950ram: 15349
736core/1836shader/2100ram: 15437

I can't figure any explanation other than that, which could be causing this. You'd think an overclock of those levels would provide a larger performance increase than that, no? Anyone have any thoughts? People seemed to think it might not be enough (Corsair HX 520w) yet others thought it would be... I hadn't tested lower speeds until just now so I assumed it was just a slow CPU causing the lower score than I expected at my top overclock. However, with the low scaling here, I'm thinking otherwise :(.
Click to expand...


Is that on Vista or XP, not sure why my 3DMark score is so low (13000) :confused: running at 800/1650/2000 with E6750 at 3.6:shrug:
 
Brolloks said:
Is that on Vista or XP, not sure why my 3DMark score is so low (13000) :confused: running at 800/1650/2000 with E6750 at 3.6:shrug:
Click to expand...

try increasing your shader speed?

He also using 2x 8800gts vs your ONE 8800gt?

However, there IS some guy that got 15k with one 8800gt running 775/2000/1000 and a q6600 at 3.6ghz.
 
Yep, my score is SLI Brolloks, if you're on one GT that's darn impressive. I'm still not convinced my PSU isn't holding me back, because I've seen a couple of people saying they had the same problem with a lower-than-expected performance level, and when they replaced their PSU it went away.

Someone linked me on XS to their score of 15447 with a *single* GT and similar system specs to mine, so I'm reaaaalllllyyyy leaning toward just breaking down and buying a new PSU: http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=11898882

EDIT: Popped RAM timings from 5-6-6 2T to 5-5-5 1T and the score is up to 15971, but I'm 90% convinced it's the PSU so I'm going to look around then order one.
 
Last edited:
Yeah the PSU might be holding you back slightly. But then again if the 620HX model can run dual 8800GTX's with a quad I seem to doubt that its the PSU.
 
do you have any compy stores near you? you know what I am gonna say next. just dont get nailed on a restocking fee
 
Question for you guys, do you think I should remount so I can plop some RAMsinks onto the MOSFET's of the 8800GT that are covered by the stock heatsink normally? I have some airflow past them due to the ND1's design, but I'm wondering if that could be holding me back some too.
 
White_Pawn said:
try increasing your shader speed?

He also using 2x 8800gts vs your ONE 8800gt?

However, there IS some guy that got 15k with one 8800gt running 775/2000/1000 and a q6600 at 3.6ghz.
Click to expand...

As soon as I increase the shaders then my driver crashes and I get the screen to become a horrible mix of colors and verything freezes up...will probably need to back off on core speed to increase shaders

What is has the most impact on 3D performance in order of priority...core/memory/shaders, any advice...?
 
Brolloks said:
As soon as I increase the shaders then my driver crashes and I get the screen to become a horrible mix of colors and verything freezes up...will probably need to back off on core speed to increase shaders

What is has the most impact on 3D performance in order of priority...core/memory/shaders, any advice...?
Click to expand...

The order of priority is shaders first by a good bit (about 2x the next one), then core, then memory, with memory being a bit behind core, but probably 70% as effective to overclock as the core... I saw a test in one review overclocking each individually then all three together. I'll edit this with a link to it in a minute, gonna go find it :).

EDIT: Found it! http://vr-zone.com/articles/Nvidia_GeForce_8800_GT_Review/5369-13.html
 
GoldenTiger said:
The order of priority is shaders first by a good bit, then memory, then core, with core being a bit behind memory, but probably 70% as effective to overclock as the memory... I saw a test in one review overclocking each individually then all three together. I'll edit this with a link to it in a minute, gonna go find it :).
Click to expand...

Excellent, thanks for that:beer:, will play around with that sequence and see how it impacts 3DMark06
 
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