original geforce 256 beats GF4mx420!!

[freeflap]

I recently built a new computer for wife and kids. Athlon XP 2000+,geforce 4mx 420, 512 ram, gigabyte 7vaxp, maxtor 7200 drive, win XP home. My other computer is an original athlon 850, with original geforce 256 (not ddr) on a MSI mobo. I know the GF4MX is a bargain card, but thought that it had to be better than my ancient (3 years) original geforce 256. amazingly, I was wrong. the mx is noticeably slower and jerky on 1st person shooters, and scored a 2107 on madonion's 3dmark 2001 version2. my old computer scored a ~2300. how is this possible? is the MX line that crappy? Had I known, I would have bought a discontinued GF3 ti200 instead, or a GF4 4200ti. Fortunately, my wife and kids don't play any 3d games, so it's not a problem, but I was disappointed with the results.

any thoughts? any tweaks to up the performance or is it simply lame and should be shot?
thanks.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Strange.
How can you get such a low score with a XP2000+?

I got around 1000 points with my Celeron @ 500 with a GF2MX400 PCI

 

[LS20]

the gf4mx setup should hit about 5000pts

 

[Engineer]

The GeForce 4MX420 comes in two flavors....the one with SDRAM and the one with DDR. The DDR version hits around 4k or so on my Dell (1024 x 768 x 32) 2.4GHz P4. The SDRAM version runs at half the memory speed...so that may very well be your problem. Do you know if it's SDRAM or DDR?

 

[JAV1]

1. Yes it is a lousy card to begin with. You can try ocing it w/Riva Tuner to get it up to the 3200~3500 it should score in 3D Mark & disable AA & Vsync. Enable SBA & FW & AGP4x & max accel. Good luck. Try ythe 30.82 or 28.32 driver. The 4x.xx are more GF4 Ti optimized, it seems.

2. My 500 Celery & MX400 PCI scored ~1500 & w/a PIII 650 it got ~2500. Both w/sdram & locked bios mobo's.

3. A MX420 ~5000 is hard to do w/o major tweeks (vmod, bios, AGP @83mhz) & it won't run w/any graphic quality (mip-map @ 4+). 3000-4000 is average for a 1gig-2gig CPU & a MX420, about the same as a MX400.


Have a good one,

 

[spanky]

i love my gf256 ddr... still kicks ass in CS

 

[freeflap]

thanks for the responses.
1. I'm not sure whether it is sdr or ddr. I assume sdr. Aopen: GF4MX-V64 AGP. PART # 91.05210.42F

2. I should clarify one issue. this mobo is acting funny. the USB 2.0 doesn't work, and the LAN stopped functioning, eventhough it is still listed in the device driver as working properly. The LAN doesn't work in linux or win xp home, so I assume it's a hardware issue. I've flashed and upgraded the BIOS, however, I'm unable to restore the LAN. I have a RMA on this mobo, but thought that these two issues shouldn't be a problem with 3d mark, since the videocard seems to be working. My replacement mobo will be here monday or tuesday, so I'll repost 3d mark scores.

 

[vss1980]

Nah, that is way wrong. The GF4 MX420 with SDR should be able to beat out the Geforce SDR comfortably and perform a bit better than the GF2 MX.

 

[Intelman07]

When I used to have my MX420 i scored 3568 with it. P4 1.6 256MB of DDR ram and my MX420.

 

[freeflap]

just to make sure it wasn't my cpu, i ran pc mark2002
old computer: (athlon 850, geforce 256, win 2000 pro): 2124 cpu, 1700 memory, 785 hdd
new computer: (athlonXP2000+, geforce4mx, winXP home): 4308 cpu, 2621 memory, 632 hdd (old maxtor refurb)

I assume that this is expected result for the CPU. Hence, that's not the source of my low 3d mark score. Could i have a "bad" video card?

 

[holdencommodore]

You have got the latest VIA 4-in-1's installed haven't you?

BTW, that memory score for your Athlon 2000+ is kind of low..... I'm getting the same memory score on my Duron 1200 at 1333. Check the BIOS settings.

Cheers

 

[freeflap]

you're right. I checked the BIOS and selected 133 memory instead of auto mode. Jumped my memory score to 2859. after playing with the easytune oc utility, I got:

CPU: 4995, memory: 3049, hd 641. This is my first time OC'ing. Do you press the system until it fails, then step down a notch? When do you know enough is enough? My temp went up 1 C. from 55 to 56 C. what is acceptable?
thanks

 

[tart666]

The GeForce 4MX420 comes in two flavors....the one with SDRAM and the one with DDR. The DDR version hits around 4k or so on my Dell (1024 x 768 x 32) 2.4GHz P4. The SDRAM version runs at half the memory speed...so that may very well be your problem.

The DDR version uses 64-bit memory interface instead of 128-bit layout on the 420 SDR.

The final bandwidth is EXACTLY the same for both flavours of GF4 420. The benchmarks show between 0-20% improvement, depending on the bench.

 

[holdencommodore]

Yeah, usually let the easy tune software get the max, then back off a little. You also may want to adjust the CAS and other memory settings in the BIOS... setting these to optimum values usually gives a nice increase in performance, if good quality memory is installed. The temps seem a little warm, but that depends on your case temp too and what HSF is in use... I generally like to keep the systems I make at about the mid 50's at full load.

Cheers

 

[faye]

i have 2600

 

[tart666]

You also may want to adjust the CAS and other memory settings in the BIOS... setting these to optimum values usually gives a nice increase in performance, if good quality memory is installed.

CAS 2 is great and all, until your Crucial memory dies. Thank god for lifetime warranty, though

 

[holdencommodore]

Never had memory die because it was set to CAS 2... Currently running Nanya, Hynix and even 'cheap as chips' NCP memory at CAS2 all seem to manage... but it can cause stability problems and usually sorts out the good chips from the bad ones, so if it causes problems, adjust it back...

Cheers

 

[freeflap]

excuse my ignorance, but what is cas2? how does it help performance? thanks

 

[ant80]

cas2 is latency. Lower the better.

 

[tart666]

Never had memory die because it was set to CAS 2...

Mine ran fine for a year, no memtest errors, very nice. Got 20% higher scores in sandra vs stock speeds.

And then -- BAM -- dead. Good thing Crucial has lifetime warranty, otherwise I'd be out $80.

 

[freeflap]

does crucial's warrantee cover OC's?

 

[holdencommodore]

Doubt they will warrant oced mem (they may check the mem, but I don't know how they would prove that o/c killed the mem), but most mem from Crucial is rated to run at CAS2... lifetime warranty cartainly is a good thing to have.

Cheers

 

[tart666]

(they may check the mem, but I don't know how they would prove that o/c killed the mem

They may be able to check if the voltage had been upped or not. Just changing the timing may not be against the warranty. I guess I will find out soon enough