7600GT 256MB PCIe slower than 6600GT 128MB AGP?

[Bad Maniac]

Just recieved my new system, and I'm quite surprised by the poor performance.

My old system was an ASUS a7n8x-x Athlon XP 2700+, 1 GB DDR400 single channel, and a Club3D AGP 8x 128MB GF6600GT card.

My new system, bought specifically for upgradeability, is:
Asus M3N32SLI Deluxe nForce590 AM2, Sempron 3000+@1800Mhz, 2x 512MB ocz gold DDR2-667 dual channel and an XFX PCIe x16 256MB Geforce 7600GT.

Both systems use my Tagan 580W powersupply, rails are perfectly solid and never fall under the specified voltage.


On the old system with a 1 year old XP Pro SP2 install. In Oblivion indoors I was getting 80-100 FPS solid and 25-40 FPS outdoors.

Using the same driver version, and the exact same settings in Oblivion in a fresh XP Pro SP2 install, I'm getting 40FPS indoors and 10-15 FPS outdoors on the new system.

How the bleeping bleep does that happen? That's not just a small decrease, that's a third on the FPS on a much newer system with RAM that's about 5 times faster and what should be a vastly superior GPU.

 

[Damenshon]

maybe newer drivers would help?

 

[Bad Maniac]

Got the latest beta drivers from nzone. Like I said, the same version drivers on both cards. I'm at a loss here.

 

[White_Pawn]

power supply.

 

[nickyhoward55]

you have some problems there. the 7600gt should be well faster than the 6600gt. did u reinstall windows?

 

[almstsobur]

Why did you spend over $200 on a great MB, just to get a $50 POS CPU for it? Personally I would have went for the 570 and a better CPU, anyway...

what have you looked at? What has been checked out? Have you gone over all the BIOS settings? Does it benchmark lower also, or are you just using Oblivion as your test? Are tempatures getting to high somewhere and shutting things down?

 

[Bad Maniac]

power supply.

Brand new Tagan 580 with perfectly solid rails. No it's not the power supply.

you have some problems there. the 7600gt should be well faster than the 6600gt. did u reinstall windows?

Like it says in the first post, it's a fresh install of XP Pro SP2.

Why did you spend over $200 on a great MB, just to get a $50 POS CPU for it?

Upgradeability for cheap. I was "stuck" with a socket A system with single channel RAM, and it was at the end of it's life. I wanted to upgrade for as little as possible, but ensure that I would have headroom to upgrade for a couple of years in the future. I got the Sempron 3000+ because it's insanely cheap, and should be at least as fast as my old CPU. Once I get some more money I'll stick an Athlon X2 in there.

what have you looked at? What has been checked out? Have you gone over all the BIOS settings? Does it benchmark lower also, or are you just using Oblivion as your test? Are tempatures getting to high somewhere and shutting things down?

Everything at stock, everything on auto in the bios, latest bios version flashed.
Only used Oblivion so far, it's the only thing I had at hand. If I get 2378463264324 3Dmarks but still can't play Oblivion it's still useless. Temps are fine for stock air CPU 45-ish under load, GPU reaches low 50's.

The only thing that stands out is, my Sempron 3000+ should run at 1800Mhz, but it only runs at 1600, and I can't access the multiplier setting in the bios, it's greyed out.

 

[almstsobur]

Only used Oblivion so far, it's the only thing I had at hand. If I get 2378463264324 3Dmarks but still can't play Oblivion it's still useless.

The only thing that stands out is, my Sempron 3000+ should run at 1800Mhz, but it only runs at 1600, and I can't access the multiplier setting in the bios, it's greyed out.

I just question if maybe your CPU is your bottleneck, I'm not sure *if* the Sempron is faster then the 2700. I don't know much about oblivion, but maybe it is very CPU intensive? If you could run like a 3DMark it would at least test the theory.

As for getting 1800, you will likely need to up the FSB/MemSpeed/HT whatever they want to call it on these boards to get a higher freqency.

For instance my AM2 3800+ is stock @ 2400 12X200 it won't let me go above 12X but I can take it to 225X12 to get what I am running it at, 2700Mhz.

So you would try something like 225 X 8 for 1800 instead of 200 X 8. Or lower the muliplier the HT and mem divider and go like 300X6 HTT X4 or X3 Etc ...



EDIT; BTW, the Sempron 3000+ is 1.6 or 1600Mhz stock, though I'm sure it will handle 1.8

 

[Bad Maniac]

Yeah I upped the FSB to 225 and hit 1800 no problem, and on the box for my Sempron 3000+ it says 1800Mhz actually. The problem still persisted until I changed to last single component that differs between my old and new setup. The sound card.

The Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe comes with an onboard Soundmax ADI 1988B sound card. Aparently it SUCKS.

I found a particularely heavy spot in Oblivion with massive draw distance, loads of water and loads of trees visible. On my old setup I was getting 19 FPS in this particular spot, used the exact same ini file and the same save, on my new setup I got 9!

So I disabled the onboard soundcard and moved my old SB Audigy2 PCI card from my old rig to the new one, rebooted, installed the drivers and fired up Oblivion. loaded the savegame aaaaand... *drumroll*
.
.
.
59FPS!

Now, can someone explain to me how an onboard soundcard can be that bad? My Audigy2 isn't exactly the pinnacle of modern audio performance either, but 50 FPS difference from that one single change? Wow.

3DMark05 scores up next

 

[chevro1et]

Well well well, good to see that you seem to have it sorted... who'da thunk that onboard sound would hold you back like that????

 

[icedragn]

Yeah I upped the FSB to 225 and hit 1800 no problem, and on the box for my Sempron 3000+ it says 1800Mhz actually. The problem still persisted until I changed to last single component that differs between my old and new setup. The sound card.

The Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe comes with an onboard Soundmax ADI 1988B sound card. Aparently it SUCKS.

I found a particularely heavy spot in Oblivion with massive draw distance, loads of water and loads of trees visible. On my old setup I was getting 19 FPS in this particular spot, used the exact same ini file and the same save, on my new setup I got 9!

So I disabled the onboard soundcard and moved my old SB Audigy2 PCI card from my old rig to the new one, rebooted, installed the drivers and fired up Oblivion. loaded the savegame aaaaand... *drumroll*
.
.
.
59FPS!

Now, can someone explain to me how an onboard soundcard can be that bad? My Audigy2 isn't exactly the pinnacle of modern audio performance either, but 50 FPS difference from that one single change? Wow.

3DMark05 scores up next

onboard sound uses your sempron to process data, an external sound card such as the audigy has it's own spu so it doesn't need to use your cpu to do it's processing, and I have also never heard of that sound card, but i doubt a sempron needs anything stealing cycles from it when your gaming. Have fun with the new rig!

 

[almstsobur]

The Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe comes with an onboard Soundmax ADI 1988B sound card. Aparently it SUCKS.

Yea, I have heard a few complaints about the onboard sound, I am pretty sure my board has the same one. It scored higher than average on the CPU usage compared to most other boards .. though it should not have near that much of an impact .... anyway enough babbling, what I want to say is get the latest drivers from Asus's site, dated mid this month ... they are a hell of alot better.

 

[icedragn]

He could always try updating the soundmax drivers as well, that could be the problem... driver conflicts can get messy.

 

[leedbrierley]

Would not touch soundMax cards if my life depended on me having one , I would rather die then have one of them.