A7V8X - poor speed?

[aussie]

I am getting miserable performance out of a new system - AMD2400+, ASUS A7V8X, 2700 Corsair 'extreme' RAM, GeForce3 64meg GC, on XP Pro.

And I just don't understand what's going on...
The 3D Mark 2001 SE scores are around 4500 without overclocking - that's worse than my old 1.2gig ATHLON in stock settings!!..(which used to manage 5200 or so.

Memory speed according to Sandra is not good either at about 1900.

If I try to clock the fsb, it seems it can't handle more than around 145, with no memory timing changes (if I touch those it gets unstable..
CPU temps are at 35-40C, so I don't imagine it's a heat prob.

What I just plain can't understand is why this system does'nt kill the figures I was getting from my original Athlon 1.2, straight out of the box.

I'm wondring if any of you guys might have some ideas, or pointers?...thanks.

jgm

 

[Hoot]

I'm running almost the exact same system, aside from a slightly better video card and your results do not sound right at all. When I got my A7V8X, I noticed that the the FSB defaulted to 100 Mhz out of the box. With that CPU and RAM, you can easily achieve 12 or 12.5x166 with the stock core voltage and that is with the memory parameters all set to max speed, aside from having the Turbo set to Optimal. Your temperature is certainly not out of line.

If it's not too much trouble, pass along your various bios settings for perusal.

Hoot

 

[GosuWar]

I have the same system, except I have the geforce2 MX w/ Athlon 2200. I don't know if it's the heat because i'm at a stable 42-44c at 10/11 multiplyer.

What should you raise the Vcore if you want to go 180 FSB, or the DIMM Core as well?

I am on default right now, 13.5x133, but the max is 185, max. What do you mean by memory parameters? please explain.

 

[nikhsub1]

What is max VCORE and VDIMM on this board?

 

[aussie]

Hi Hoot...thanks for responding..
My BIOS settings are pretty much stock except for a few onbouard devices I have switched off..
All things are set to auto..
CPU 2000 (2400+), fsb 133, and default for memory timings.(2.5 3 3 7)
I am running in "optimal" mode, but have switched to "turbo" with no noticeable improvements.

I have tried various overclocked settings, both aggressive and tame, but never seem to notivce any real improvements, other than sandr's memory test figures...Graphics do not change.

I remeber at one point with some agressive figures, I did get a reading of around 5600 from 3DMark, but that was a very unstable set-up, with crashes..

Not sure what else I can tell you, Hoot.?

I appreciate any commentsor thoughts that you might have...thanks.

jgm

 

[aussie]

I think max vcore (from memory - I'm at work), is 1.85..can't remember the VDIMM, sorry.

 

[Gleep]

Max vcore is 2.1v and max vdimm is 2.85v.

 

[aussie]

Hi guys.
Thanks for the pointers yesterday..
As a result, I went back to scratch and was able to get my system running quite stably at 175x12 (350 on the fsb), without any memory setting tweaks.
The BIG difference was that I bumped up the cpu voltage to 1.80, and the memory voltage just a little (next step)

This gave me the stability.

BUT...I ran the 3DMark again, and scored 4200...AAHHRG!...that's miserable still..

Any ideas on why my system hich seems to be running smoothly now, would still get such low figures?
Is there an alternate graphics speed benchmark that someone could suggest I try, sI can cross check the 3Dmark?

Thanks again for the thoughts..
JGM

 

[AmigoThree]

Uhh this may sound stupid but if you havent already, make sure your drivers are updated for everything.

 

[Hoot]

It's not the drivers. His video card is the bottleneck. Using the same board, cpu and memory, I set my speed to 12x175 and retarded my memory settings to the same as his and my 3D Mark score was 9271 using the no-name TI4200 I have.

Unlike his GF3, the GF4 TI4200 can still benefit more from additional speed at the system and memory level. I returned my memory and AGP settings to the ones I normally use while maintaining 12x175:

CAS Latency 2.5 -> 2
RAS to CAS Delay 3 -> 2
RAS Precharge Delay 3 -> 2
Active Precharge Delay 7 -> 6
1T Command Control Auto -> Enabled
Bank Interleave Auto -> 4 Bank
AGP Capability Auto -> 4X
AGP Performance Control Enabled
AGP Fast Writes Enabled

and my 3D Mark score went up further still to 9601. I do not overclock the TI4200. Increasing system and memory speed further will bump the 3D MArk score up a little bit further, but it tops out around 9900 unless I overclock it. That is the limit of my video card. I Imagine if I had a 4400 or 4600, that score would go up further still. I'm quite happy with the 4200 and I got it for a reasonable price. It all gets down to what you are willing to shell out for performance.

Whether I am running this particular hardware setup at 2100 Mhz at stock core voltage or 2350 Mhz at cremation core voltage levels, the tangible performance increase is not there. There's an old saying from back in my Audiophile days that "If you can't hear the difference, certainly do not pay for it." I think the same applies to PCs.

Synthetic benchmarks are fine for experimenting with system limits, but if you can't physically experience an improvement, don't pay the price for it, either monetarily or in shortening the life expectancy of the components.

When I first started experimenting with overclocking using my 600 Mhz Duron and PC100 Ram, there was plenty of room for improvement. I think we are now seeing a compression of perfromance typical of the top of a bell curve. Just my $.02 worth.

Hoot

 

[aussie]

Hi guys..
Thanks for testing my settings out with your board Hoot...that was a big help, to point my attention at the vid card.

Last night, I did actually switch nvidia drivers, turned OFF the onboard ATA (although I don't see what that has to do with anything other than it should not have been 'on')
I overclocked the card a tad, because I now have the voltages turned up a notch on the AGP, and I my 3DMark figures went up to 8,127.
That's double the last bench more or so, and I saw an improvement in real world usage in gaming..

From this point, I don't think I can get much more out of things, other than to start getting into the 'hotter' overclocking zones.?

Overall, I would have thought that this setp would have produced much higher performance than it has, as I see on the 3dmark scores, guys getting up in the 13,000 range, on similar systems. (??).

That's way higher than mine, so I'm hecked if I know how they do that..

On the whole though, I agree with you, Hoot...it's easy to start chasing the numbers and get caught up in it all, with little noticeable result when you are at the top end of any tweaking. I see guys reporting a 300 figure improvement on their 3Dmark scores like they've captured the 'holy grail' when in fact, that 300 points would amount to zero in the real world, and at what expense.

I have the dosh for a new graphics card, and am trying to squeeze the geforce3 64 meg, just to get the most out of it before I spent - since fundimentally it's a good solid board.
I am hanging out to see what the next nvidia boards will provide, realizing that 8X will be touted like the 'second coming', when in reality they may not use much of the 8X bandwidth.....still I am hopefull for other improvements or features over the G4, minus the marketing hype. ...by then the G4 will be cheaper, also.

Thanks again for the help, guys.

JGM

 

[Mark099]

Make sure you have the VIA 4-in-1 drivers installed. Either 4.42 or 4.43. Otherwise, it sounds like you had AA enabled in the display settings.

 

[aussie]

Yep..you're exactly right.
In my harrassed state of mind to get things running at premium rates, I had failed to turn off antialiasing in the Gcard settings.
I hit the wrong button and merely switched it from Qin to 2X instead of off...(grrrr)

I found this out last night after reinstalling drivers...Now my scores are at 11,700 or so...and I think I get more out of it than that, yet.

Thanks for the tip...

JGM

 

[IR1]

your getting 11K in 3d mark with a Geforce 3 non TI?

Uh... can I see the link?

I got mine to 10,100 with a G3 ti500 with my Xp 1600 at 166*10.5, 1750mhz. stock voltage and locked processor.

If so I guess is the xtra Mhz that a 2400xp gives.

Ya I was gonna say while reading your post it became evident that it was not ur bios but your card and its settings. I was going to suggest checking AA, made that mistake once got 3k marks and thought wtf? Then looked and I had my Grfx cranked.

 

[aussie]

Actually..you are doing ok with that 3DMark score..
I did'nt elaborate in my previous post, but I have since upgraded to the TI4200 (64meg) G-4..I scored the 11,700 with THAT card.

I think I might be able to squeeze 12500 out if this system, but I am happily reliable now at my clocked current settings, so I will settle for what I've got. (for now)
JGM

 

[IR1]

Yeah, I know that my score is good, I just thought you got your 11k with a GF3 I was gonna ask how so I could try whatever your doing.

I havent seen to many people get to 11k or above with a GF3 without some extra cooling or any other modifications.
Thats why I was a bit surprised, I didnt mean for it to seem like I thought you were lieing.

I know Disolved got like 12k+ with his GF3 ti500 on Air, hmmm I am gonna have to go back to that post to see what his setup was, think he was running like 180+ fsb.

 

[aussie]

No probs.
I can understand why my 3D mark scores tweaked your curiosity, thinking it was a G3.