3DMark 03, dissapointing scores?

[darthmahon]

Hey,

Ok below is the spec of my system:

+ Athlon 1800
(altho is keeps saying I have a 1.15ghz processor???? Any ideas there?)
+ 512mb ddr, generic memory
+ Tyan G9600 Pro 128mb
+ ECS K7S5A Motherboard

I'm getting roughly the same score on 3d Mark 03 each time:

2974

Seems a bit low to me. Any idea what I should be getting roughly?

Also, what is the deciding factor on the score? Everything? Or a few components?

Cheers,
Chris

[Yosh]

Your talking about 3dmark 03 here

It looks as though your motherboard is picking up the processor wrong perhaps? Have you tried looking in the bios to see the multiplier its sat at.

Is the memory pc2100/2700/3200? The faster the better

And the card you have is ok, yet i hear there not as good as the ones they replaced i.e. the 9500pro but i would have to look into this more.

tbh that score seems to be ok. Try checking the bios for the processor settings it could be running slow.

Also you could try overclocking the processor a little but youll be better off upgrading to some decent ram first and selling that crapie ECS mobo cus there cheap and nasty

[darthmahon]

Well the thing is, just checked another pc that has an AMD 2600+, and it's running at 1.6ghz.

I was led to believe that the tiltle of an AMD chip isn't actually it's speed, unlike the Intel chips.

It's very confusing, I wish they would just tell me what 1800+ means in ghz or mhz terms.

As for the mobo, I know. My old one blew on my a while ago, it was meant to be a quick fix but blah, call me lazy, poor, haven't changed it yet.

Not sure what to go for. Asus or MSI?

P.S

Apologies for the 3dmark spelling mistake

[KVandal]

go into sys properties to see the clock speed, but 3DM is majorly dependent on the gfx card.

since it is 3dm2003, the scores wont be very high, if u want high scores, use 3dm2001SE.

ur score sounds fine for what u have tbh

[darthmahon]

Ok, just changed the frequency and can't remember the other thing from 100mhz to 133mhz in the bios.

It's now recognized the chip as a 1800+ and it's clock speed is 1.53ghz.

Seems better to me

[KVandal]

thats a more reasonable speed for the cpu, but ur score shouldnt change all too much

[darthmahon]

not too worried if it doesn't change too much, was just slightly worried about it being so damn low in the mhz considering...

[Yosh]

I was actually going to say that even though AMD call there processor different to the actual ratings 1.15 was actually still way to low. 1.53ghz is correct for that processor.

Also a 2600+ isnt 1.6ghz its 2.083ghz so if i were you id go check the bios on that rig also cus yes you guessed it, it must be wrong

[darthmahon]

Will do

I'll tell you something else I have noticed that is bugging the hell out of me.

With the graphics card comes Tyans own hardware monitoring/overclocking software. It says my card is running at the following:

Memory clock - 600 MHz
Engine clock - 400 MHz

Now I have just installed PowerStrip and it's telling me the following:

Memory clock - 297 MHz
Engine clock - 397 MHz

How can they both be so different? Which one do I trust?

The default speeds should be:

Memory clock - 600 MHz
Engine clock - 400 MHz

[blockers]

The Tyans software is maybe a bit sketchy, id go with the power strip stuff.

The RAM is half becuase its DDR (double data rate.) Basically Power strip is giving the DDR speed divided by 2. so 600/2 = 300 (i think.... )

There is only 3mhz difference....that is really that much.

Will

[darthmahon]

3mhz is fine by me...

I just thought because PowerStrip was showing only half the memory something was up

Thanx for clearing it up