Question about 3dMark05 freezing...

Hey,

I had my opty 146 at 2.8Ghz (this is a stable oc) and my ram ay 280 3-3-3-6 (also stable) and I wanted to bench my new 7900GT CO. I found the max core (555Mhz) and I just put the ram to 1600Mhz and ran 05.

Everything worked perfectly, I scored about 9.5k.

Now I decided that the memory can probably go much more than 1600, so I kept upping it and each time running ati tools artifact test for 2 mins, at 1760 it started to get artifacts. So I backed it down to 1750 and it was artifact free for like 3 mins. I decided this was good enuf to run 3dmark 05 again.

So I ran 3dm and it went through the 3 game tests withouth a hitch and great fps, the first cpu test went fine but then nearing the end of the 2nd CPU test it just froze, I coudlnt do anything. So i rebooted and everything is fine.

My question is this, is it possible that 3dmark froze during a CPU test because of the 1750 speed on the ram of the video card? I thought CPU tests didnt even use the video card?

Or is it actually becuz the CPU wasnt stable enough so it froze?

Thanks

Have you run prime 95 to see if your CPU is stable for at least 12 hours?

No I havnt, are u implying that it is infact an unstable OC and that my GPU OC cant affect my CPU test in 3dm?

Well since you haven't tested the CPU for stability I would be willing to say yes.

I would say it's more than likely the cpu because I've had that happen to me when my cpu wasn't stable at a certain clock. IMO I don't think it's the card because most 7900GT ram goes to 1800mhz or higher at stock volts. Although if you don't have ramsinks or poor airflow that might be your problem. I would try backing the core down to 545-549 and run the test again and see if it's stable that's where I got best results at stock volts 549/1800. Most chips are unstable over 550mhz at 1.2V