reeeeally low 3dmark03 scores.....

[CdnAtWork]

okay, so i ran 3dmark03 to see how my system makes out and i got a whopping 662. Here's my info:

Codegen 6066-CA case
ASUS A7V600 400FSB SATA Gbit LAN 6.1 Audio 8xUSB With Bios Rev 1006
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton Core 333MHz 512KB L2 Cache (overclocked to 3200+)
Vantec Aeroflow Heatsink with Arctic Silver 5 compound (keeps me around 45 at full load while overclocked)
Infineon 256MB PC3200 400MHz DDR Memory
ATI Radeon 9200 128 DDR with wxp-w2k-catalyst-7-981-040127m-013420c Drivers
80GB Maxtor HD 8mb
OKIA 420w ATX P4 Power Supply

I realize that some more ram will improve things, but damn, shouldn't i get better than a 662??? for most of the tests, my fps were like 1-5.

Any suggestions that don't involve buying new hardware (i'm completely broke) would be very much appreciated
Thanks in advance.
Cdn.

 

[myocardia]

First of all, welcome to the forums. Second, you've the start of a very good system there, but what were you expecting with a bottom-of-the-line video card? You are right, though, it would score higher with 512MB of ram, and a little higher still with 1GB of ram. But your video card is your bottleneck, for sure. Start saving!

edit: I almost forgot, you are supposed to turn off all of the "eye candy" (antialiasing, anisotropic filtering, and texture sharpening) in your video card's setup before you run any benchmark that uses the video card in any way.

 

[CdnAtWork]

damn...i didn't realize my vid card was "bottom of the line". it was the best i could afford at the time (or now for that matter).

Thanks for the quick response and the advice!
Cdn

 

[myocardia]

Well, it IS good enough to play nearly any game available now. I wouldn't worry. But, if you're after a 5,500 score on 3dMock2k3, you're gonna have to invest in a 9800pro, or faster. Hey, I've still got my GF3 Ti200! It DOES overclock like nothing I've ever seen, but I still don't have to overclock it any at all to play any game I want.

 

[wkabel23]

Don't be too worried about your scores in benchmarks like 3DMark2001 or 03. If the card is holding up in current games, I wouldn't be too worried about your low score.

I'm not sure if you were planning on buying a new card because of your low score, but if you are I strongly suggest you reconsider. Buy a new card because your video card can't handle the games out right now and then, buy a card that can support the games you need while not spending too much money. IMO, it's overkill to buy a card like a 9800XT or 5950U for any game out right now PLUS the fact the new GPUs are coming out very soon.

But don't worry about that score, it's what your score should be for that system.

 

[FPSguy]

While the Radeon 9200 is holding up your score significantly, your score is still low for your setup. I ran a 3dMark03 "Project Search & Compare" for all machines with a 9200 and an Athlon XP chip anywhere in the range of 1800 - 2200 MHz. There were 28 entries ranging from 1421 to 535. Your score would have been 24 out of 28, and none of the entries in the search had processors that got all the way to 2200 MHz (3200+ speed).

Was anything running in the background (e.g., virus scanner)? Also, you might want to optimize your card's settings with Rage3d Tweak and see if that makes any difference.

If you really want to up your score, though, the first thing I would do is buy a better video card. Then, assuming your motherboard does dual channel RAM, I would find two 256 MB sticks of low latency RAM and put them in the machine with the timings set tightly. None of that is necessary if your machine does everything you want it to do at speeds that are acceptable to you. If you want to up your 3dMark score, though, that is where I would start.

 

[CdnAtWork]

i double checked to make sure there were no other processes running and got the same score. I just ran a 3dmark2001 SE test and got a measly 4627. While i understand that my vid card is bottom of the barrel, and 256mb of ram is lacking, i still feel that i should be able to get higher scores. I just want to know that i'm getting the most out the stuff i have.

Thanks for the input folks.
Cdn

 

[Vette73]

What is the clock speed of teh Core and Memory of your video card? Also what drivers are you using> Try the newwest Omega ones, work very well. Then overclock your card a little and see what else yuan get.

You might have a 9200SE] card. If it is a SEhen that would explain your low #'s also.


I have a Athlon64 3000+ and a Radeon 9800 (Non-Pro) and get 6000K in 3dMark03

 

[CarpeDiem99]

in your 3d/opengl settings, do you have them set on high performance and custom all on highest performence?

 

[TGHI]

I am pretty sure that your scores are accurate - my mx440 still bests yours - but still.

 

[aka1nas]

your 9200 is a dx8 card so it can't do all the dx9 tests. Still that is a little low.

 

[high]

i threw up 8200's with my 9200 in this current rig with only 2100 ram instead of my ocz..... yes your score is definitely low...it's recommended to use the latest drivers and you can oc that card's mem from 200 to 250 no prob, which actually will probably give you ~2k more points in 2k1

 

[high]

Also noticed 256mb of ram, definitely gotta up that to 512 too

 

[dgerard]

Yeah, upgrade to a 9800 Pro or something in that range, and you'll get much higher scores.