Lackluster Celeron performance

mybrainisawaffl · Jan 18, 2005

My system is as follows:
Asus P4S800
Celeron [email protected] gHz(117 FSB)
512mb PC2100 Kingston ValueRam, 256mb PC2100 Samsung Generic
Nvidia AGP 6600 GT
400Watt Rosewill power supply

Now when I assembled this, I expected some wailing 3Dmark01 scores, but I got 7999. Frankly, that blows. Is it my PC2100 memory, my Celeron, or both?

dicecca112 · Jan 18, 2005

that seems a little low. But 2k1 is sorta dependent on CPU, so I'd say its the CPU.

Sentential · Jan 18, 2005

mybrainisawaffl said:
My system is as follows:
Asus P4S800
Celeron [email protected] gHz(117 FSB)
512mb PC2100 Kingston ValueRam, 256mb PC2100 Samsung Generic
Nvidia AGP 6600 GT
400Watt Rosewill power supply

Now when I assembled this, I expected some wailing 3Dmark01 scores, but I got 7999. Frankly, that blows. Is it my PC2100 memory, my Celeron, or both?

Forgive me for saying this....are you SURE you ran 01SE? That looks alot like what your 03 score should look like

mybrainisawaffl · Jan 19, 2005

I ran 3Dmark01 again, and I got 8229. I was looking at the 6600 GT's properties,

and it said that it was on PCI bus 6. Now, I only have 5 pci slots, why does it say my AGP slot is PCI? Here's Cpu-z incase you were wondering.

dicecca112 · Jan 19, 2005

thats right, it should say that its on there. For some reason windows doesn't read it as the AGP slot.

Sentential · Jan 19, 2005

That score is quite low. Is everything set to peformance and are you sure all your drivers are installed properly? You should be getting much closer to 20k

mybrainisawaffl · Jan 19, 2005

What exactly do you mean, Sentinental? Which drivers besides the videocard could I update?

Albuquerque · Jan 19, 2005

Several things you've got going against you:

First, that Celeron is definitely slower than any other processor in it's clockspeed range. Even at 2.9ghz it's likely to be outperformed by most (if not all) P4 2.0's that were running at stock speeds.

Second, your two memory sticks are different sizes, which means dual channel mode cannot function. Your ram bandwidth is being starved not only by the fact you're running in single channel mode, but also by your horribly low front side bus speeds.

Third, I'd bet a free cup of coffee you haven't installed the proper SIS chipset drivers. Click start, select run, and type DXDIAG and press enter. Click on the Display 1 tab, and look to see if AGP Texture Acceleration is enabled. If it is not, you need to install the SIS chipset drivers either from the CD that came with your motherboard.

mybrainisawaffl · Jan 19, 2005

Thanks everyone for the advice. I suppose it's just my bad hardware. So could you recommend a good motherboard/RAM/CPU combo?

Albuquerque · Jan 19, 2005

Wow, your AGP was actually turned on and you still got that horribly low score. The only remaining items are the lack of dual channel ram and your really REALLY low front side bus speed. Since your ram is rated for PC2100, that likely means your ram is running at 1:1 mode in single channel. You're probably pulling DDR speed of 234mhz (117 actual) with generic 2.5-3-3-6 timings. That's likely your biggest bottleneck.

If you could get a pair of same-model memory sticks that were rated for PC3200, you could probably be doing a lot better. This would not only allow your motherboard to run in dual channel, but the SPD should detect that it can run in 3:4 mode and run your memory at 312mhz ddr. You'd more than triple your memory bandwidth just by getting a matched pair of PC3200 memory sticks. Hell, that might even allow you to overclock just a bit further since the memory won't be holding you down...

mybrainisawaffl · Jan 19, 2005

I don't think my board can do dual channel. Is the ability to run dual channel a specific feature or can all motherboards pull it off?

Albuquerque · Jan 19, 2005

I did several google searches to discover the basics on your P4S800 before posting. That motherboard comes with either the SiS 655 or 661 chipset, both of which support dual channel ram. In fact, the 655 beat out Intel's very own 875P chipset in a few synthetic memory benchmarks (Sandra as a prime example).

mybrainisawaffl · Jan 19, 2005

No clue if 648FX supports dual channel.

Albuquerque · Jan 19, 2005

Dude, you got the most bargain basement board available I guess... The lowest denomination of P4S800 is the 648FX chipset, which indeed comes with only single channel DDR support.

Uh, well, you're pretty SOL. Between your lackluster CPU, slower-than-molasses ram and your slower-than-your-ram motherboard you're pretty much hit the bottom.

Good news? You may not have saved money on car insurance, but at least you have a good video card

hawtrawkr · Jan 19, 2005

Albuquerque said:
Dude, you got the most bargain basement board available I guess... The lowest denomination of P4S800 is the 648FX chipset, which indeed comes with only single channel DDR support.

Uh, well, you're pretty SOL. Between your lackluster CPU, slower-than-molasses ram and your slower-than-your-ram motherboard you're pretty much hit the bottom. Good news? You may not have saved money on car insurance, but at least you have a good video card

the part about the slower than molasses ram was too much.

it is hard to get a good score with that ram cpu combo though and i cant help but think a board with a intel chipset wouldnt hurt either. (or if your really looking for 3dmark scores a a64 system or something like that)

the cache on the celeron and its lack of ht or any other bells or whistles tends to put it in the bottom of the barrel as far as 3dmark cpus go.

getting a new mobo and ram that could run dc would probably give you the biggest boost if you had to just upgrade somethings. a new cpu would make a nice diffrence too but i think the dc and faster memory would make the bigest impact on your score.

mybrainisawaffl · Jan 19, 2005

So what's my best bang for the buck solution here?

hawtrawkr · Jan 19, 2005

mybrainisawaffl said:
So what's my best bang for the buck solution here?

depends on what your looking to spend your bang for the buck is probably diffrent from mine.

your best bet would be to build a computer around what your wanting to do with it. if you want to have great 3dmark scores you could go a couple diffrent directions in alot of diffrent ways.

my main advice rather than to say this motherboard a is the best buy it because blah blah blah or get this cpu it can do this better than that cpu would be to look around the forums here and try to see what some of the other people have done/are doing with thier pcs and setups and ask if thats something youd want to do too then build something that suits your needs.

you can go to newegg.com and look at the various prices and do google searches for hardware you think is interesting and then read about its pros and cons

the real power of these forums is to read from others experiences and learn from thier mistakes so you dont make them yourself. (ive bought alot of hardware only to read about something thats better a week later and see the thread had actually started 2 weeks before i bought said hardware

)

mybrainisawaffl · Jan 19, 2005

I'd like a decent gaming machine. I already have a respectable card, I just need the motherboard and memory to back it up. Newegg has a Asus P4P800 on the cheap, which has dual-channel RAM, and I could sell my P4S800 to cover the cost of it. Could you recommend a good pair of PC3200 to go with it?

Albuquerque · Jan 20, 2005

Be careful of "on the cheap", as that's how you landed in this mess to begin with

A brand new motherboard would be my suggestion as well, one with more reputation for overclocking and stability. I always like to p1mp Albatron's PX865PE series; you can get it over on Newegg for $68: Albatron "PX865PE PRO" i865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU - Retail

Great options on the board, good overclocking abilities, good warranty, full BIOS and mosfet support and Intel certification for prescott processors (for future upgrades), and it's not expensive

No matter what board you end up with, you should really match it with a pair of at least PC3200 memory sticks. Even if they're only 256mb each, that would still perform a lot better than a mismatched pair of PC2100.

mybrainisawaffl · Jan 20, 2005

I'll look into that Albatron. One thing I wish this forum had was a dedicated thread to point out the better boards, reviews of them, etc. When you say "at least PC3200" are you implying I could possibly throw some PC4000 or higher in there?

Lackluster Celeron performance

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