Reasonable overclock???

[NeilI]

Thanks to everyone who advised me on the thread about cheapo video cards.
I plumped for the 9700 form Retek and put it in the system for my sister.

I thought I'd benchmark it to see how decent the card was, so I did.

The system I'd built for my sister was using bits out of an 'older computer' in our house, XP2200, MSI K7N2G-ISLR, 512MB PC2700 etc.

Previously, I used 3dMark2001 on the system, via the IGP and got aorund 4200. lol.
So, I was expecting something decent with the 'new' video card and this is what I got.
Only 6277??? I was quite upset.

So for my sister's sake, I decided to overclock a bit.
Having never done the XP220 before, I was unaware of what to expect, so I tried the FSB first. It was uninterested in going anywhere over 152, and was stablest(?) at 150MHz.
I managed to whack the multiplier up to the fastest the board could manage, a decent 13.5, for a total overclock of 225MHz!
I was quite inpressed and running all manner or programs hasn't push the CPU over 45 degrees. It was overheating before, but that may have been due to the fact the front intake fan and CPU cooler looked like they had dead cats in them.
Here's the overclocked system, 13412, I am impressed.

So, after that long winded post, how come raising the CPU FSB by 17MHz more than doubles the 3Dmark score???

Cheers.

[BUFF]

It shopuldn't - you either had some kind of driver problem , were running with FSAA enabled or such, background programmes or you found a glitch in 3DMark.

[Rave]

Yeah, your first score was a glitch, or something was eating all your CPU time, or something like that. Don't forget that you can overclock the video card too, might be able to eke an extra 1000 points out that way.

I'm surprised that the board can't get over 150MHz FSB though. Have you disabled the IGP graphics in the bios? Any Nforce2 board should be capable of 166MHz at least.

[BUFF]

If his 2200+ is a T'bred A though it won't clock very well.

[skattrd]

The board will be capable of more than 150mhz - but the chip might not

Try lowering the multiplier and increasing the fsb - generally better performance with higher fsb.

[Rave]

If his 2200+ is a T'bred A though it won't clock very well.

True, it's probably topped out at 2025MHz. My old 1700 AIUGA wouldn't do more than 1.83GHz, but it ran at 166MHz FSB no problem. Since I was expecting to get a pally, I was pretty happy with that OC anyway, albeit that if I'd waited another month I probably would have got a Tbred-B.

Rich :¬)