received my refurbished 9800 pro today, low scores

[MrMarbles]

9800 Pro, 128 mb, 256 bit ram @ $150. Popped it in, it works. Installed the latest Catalyst drivers, etc. Tried to overclock it using ATI tool (is there anything better?) but it doesnt go to XT speeds, starts artifacting at around 410 core/360 mem. I guess thats the reason it's refurbished. I dont really care about that - but I do get low cores on benchies.
3dmark01se - 14k
3dmark03 - 5570
Aquamark - 38k something
That seems kinda low (specs in my sig). Or is it normal?

Also, I really dislike the control center - I remember it used to be better for ATI, or maybe I was using some 3rd party tweak? Dont know. Anyway it loads slow and I cannot seem to find a way to turn off AA and AF, only reduce it to x2 or let the appliaction choose, which is what I did.

So I'm just a little worried about my low scores (though my CPU is hardly top of the line - unclocked 2.4b), and wondering if there are any 3rd party software I should know about. Any comments?

 

[mtb856]

Those scores don't seem unreasonable given your setup.... 3DMark 01 and Aquamark are overall system performance, so your score in those will be lower because of your un-overclocked cpu. 3DMark 03 is a video card performance test for the most part, and your score seems about on par with most 9800 Pro's. I think that my score is around that stock.

Alternative drivers are Omega drivers, they are some of the most popular next to the Catalyst drivers.... I've always used Omega's, never had much luck with the Catalyst drivers.

With Omega, there isn't really a control center... it's integrated into your advanced settings for your display. To get to them, right click on the desktop, click properties, settings, advanced settings, and then all the graphics settings will be under something "3D".

For benching, turn the AA setting bars all the way to the left, and all the other bars to performance, otherwise your score will be messed up.

If you want a comparison, here's my scores right now..... keep in mind, I flashed my 9800 Pro to XT which gives a small boost in performance and my processor is running more than a gig faster (my FSB makes my processor the eq. of a 3.6 gig), so your scores aren't that bad.... don't think your computer sucks just b/c your scores are lower. I think that if you overclock your processor you'll find your scores go up quite a bit.

3DMark01- 21,700
3DMark03- 7160
Aquamark- 51,000

 

[MrMarbles]

That makes sense - I had a feeling my CPU was the bottleneck.

What makes you prefer Omega over Catalyst? Do they improve performance?

 

[mtb856]

I like how well they work.... I've never had a problem with them, but I loaded the new Catalyst drivers yesterday and they gave me all sorts of problems (the Control Panel wouldn't even load for me).

Performance is just as good or better with the Omega Drivers as well if you're curious. Have you used ATITool to test your graphics card's max overclock yet? It's another excellent program that will find your max core and memory clock.... it stops and tests every few seconds and stops overclocking once it finds snow or another graphics error.

 

[Sevin7]

i had almost the same setup as you. My 9800 pro only scored 5800 in 3dmark03 unoverclocked, and overclocked it got 6370. My processor is also alot faster than yours cuz its oc'd and i scored over 20000 in 3dmark01.

 

[mtb856]

Yeah, that makes sense.... you scored high in '01 b/c your processor is so fast (I love 2.4C's ). Your other scores were held back by your video card.... did you make sure that all the setting were set to performance and that AA was turned off? My score went down to 6400 overclocked one time when I forgot to do that.

 

[MrMarbles]

There doesnt seem to be a way to completely turn off AA or AF on neither ATI control panel, nor Omegas (which I am now running). You can only set to "Application Preference". I am assuming everything is off though..

By the way I did a bit of overclocking on my GPU (not much since it stats artifacting, like I said) and I was able to bump 3dmark03 to over 6k and Aquamark to 41k

 

[Overclocker550]

your 2003 score shows that your 9800pro works fine but your very badly cpu limited as indicated by your 2001 score. Youll need to upgrade, preferabily to a winchester a64 to make good use of your new gpu. If it overclocks that bad, either just leave it stock or ebay it and buy another. I had one and it sucked as bad as yours so I got me a 9500np for 1/2 the price of that 9800pro and its 90% as fast at 350/330 and I broke 21k marks