3dMark Vantage Cpu Score much worse with new video card.

[igloochan]

So I have the following installed in my system.
e6600
8800Gt
Gigabyte GA-73vm-S2
4GB G.Skill Ram
Rosewill 600W power supply.

With this setup I received the following score from 3dmark vantage, on performance setting.
GPU 5379
CPU 21152

I recently purchased a Asus EAH4870 BK 1GB and after installing with all the other hardware exactly the same, these were my new scores:
GPU 8801
CPU 4106

What can account for my CPU score dropping to almost 20% of what is was before? When testing games I get roughly the same FPS with the new video card. Maybe 10-15 FPS more in some games. This is definitely not the boost I was expecting.

The ATI card was installed after reinstalling windows, so my nvidia drivers were most certainly eliminated. My first thought was that it's possible that my power supply is inadequate and that the new video card is hogging power away from my CPU. The system is completely stable. I ran Orthos for a couple hours to make sure. Overclocking my CPU to around 3.150Ghz yielded slightly better frame rates but still nothing like what I'd expect with a new video card. All video drivers were up to date downloaded from the aTI website.

What are your thoughts?

[Syllopsium]

Possibly PhysX being enabled. It counts towards the CPU score, but shouldn't..

PK

[jonathan_phang]

What resolution are you playing the games at??? If you are using a low one, then you arent going to see as much of an effect, as I believe that you are more CPU bound at lower resolutions (hence why most CPU tests run at 640x480).

Also, what games are you testing with? Are they are RTS or FPS or other??? You should def get a nice increase in FPS - but what you really want to see are higher minimum frame rate, hence a smoother experience.

JP

[kalniel]

This is just the fake boosting of CPU score that you get from nVidia PhsyX. Now you don't have an nVidia card you're seeing the real CPU score.

[nightkhaos]

Another reason why PhysX is bad!

[kalniel]

Another reason why PhysX is bad!

Hehe - it's not bad in itself, just the way it's used, especially in this case, to give such a misleading result!

[nightkhaos]

Hehe - it's not bad in itself, just the way it's used, especially in this case, to give such a misleading result!

Look at my 8080! It has a 3D mark score 27K!

PhysX is helpful, and it does improve the performance and playablity of some games, but some aspects of it, namely vendor lock in, I don't like.

[t4ct1c47]

In future, if you want to get an accurate score in 3DMark Vanatage, and you have an nVidia card in your system, make sure you disable PhysX. Sure having a higher CPU score might seem 1337 but in reality it doesn't give a true reflection of what your system is capable of. HWbot doesn't allow for Vantage scores wih PhysX enabled and most benchmarkers don't count PhysX obtained scores as legit either.