low 3dmark score?

[Alan]

Hi there
i was told by someone that my 9600 PRO 256mb should get me 13k-14k scored in
3dmark 01
unfortunately my best score is about 10700 points... and was wondering whats
going on?
the card is clocked as high as i can push it before i get glitches and
unstableness

is something else in my system playing the limiting factor?

my system is as follows
AMD AthlonXP 2800+ Thoroughbread, stock mhz speed but with FSB overclocked
to 200mhz (lower multiplier) (most benshmarks seem to put it just above
3200+ speeds) namely sandra2004
Jetway N2PAP400 Ultra motherboard (Nforce 2)
Peak Radeon 9600 PRO 256mb 480 core/450 memory (using rage3dtweek)
512MB DDR400 ram
20 GIG ATA133 harddisk in UDMA133 mode

ATI Catalyst 4.3
Nforce 3.3 motherboard driver

so what do you think is limiting me, or do you thing im doing something
wrong?
any feedback welcome

thanks

alan

 

[ludwig]

I have a 9600 PRO 256mb made by Sapphire. I have not attempted to overclock
this card, and I get about 10700 benchmarked using 3DMark2001SE. The core
clock speed as reported using 3drage tweaker is 391.5 Mhz and the Memory
Clock Speed is 297.0 Mhz (x2 or about 600 Mhz). What was the core clock
speed/memory speed of your card before tweaking? I am assuming the value of
the memory speed is before multiplying by 2.

 

[blah]

Do you have any custom settings in the ATI display
properties/settings//advanced/3d tab?
If you choose to customise programs they will apply to 3Dmark as well
(anti-aliasing etc..).
Did you check the 3Dmark database to see how your scores compare?
Don't sweat 3dmark results, they are only good for pissing contests anyway.
Use some in game demos to get a better measure of different driver effects.

http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html

here for a comparison.

 

[KCB]

Hi there
i was told by someone that my 9600 PRO 256mb should get me 13k-14k scored in
3dmark 01
unfortunately my best score is about 10700 points... and was wondering whats
going on?
the card is clocked as high as i can push it before i get glitches and
unstableness

is something else in my system playing the limiting factor?

my system is as follows
AMD AthlonXP 2800+ Thoroughbread, stock mhz speed but with FSB overclocked
to 200mhz (lower multiplier) (most benshmarks seem to put it just above
3200+ speeds) namely sandra2004
Jetway N2PAP400 Ultra motherboard (Nforce 2)
Peak Radeon 9600 PRO 256mb 480 core/450 memory (using rage3dtweek)
512MB DDR400 ram
20 GIG ATA133 harddisk in UDMA133 mode

ATI Catalyst 4.3
Nforce 3.3 motherboard driver

so what do you think is limiting me, or do you thing im doing something
wrong?
any feedback welcome

thanks

alan

Have you set your performance sliders all the way to "Performance" side?

 

[Alan]

I have a 9600 PRO 256mb made by Sapphire. I have not attempted to overclock
this card, and I get about 10700 benchmarked using 3DMark2001SE. The core
clock speed as reported using 3drage tweaker is 391.5 Mhz and the Memory
Clock Speed is 297.0 Mhz (x2 or about 600 Mhz). What was the core clock
speed/memory speed of your card before tweaking? I am assuming the value of
the memory speed is before multiplying by 2.

defaults were 399 core and 202 memory... these get me 900 marks...
whats going on?
the ram on this card runs hot... would adding ramsinks help me push the
memory harder...

:-| its odd why my card is so slow compared to everyone elses

alan

 

[Alan]

Have you set your performance sliders all the way to "Performance" side?

yes

 

[Lars Hansen]

Here is your problem "Peak Radeon 9600 PRO 256mb 480 core/450 memory (using
rage3dtweek)"

This means you have your memory running@450Mhz, it should be at atleast
600MHz for a Pro Card. The card you have is stock memory clocked as a Non
Pro card. I had the same experience when buying a 256mb "pro" card from
Club3d. They would sell the card with the GPU running@400MHz instead of the
lower non pro stock GPU speed.
However, the memory would only be clock at 400MHz DDR. It seems they cut
their costs by using slower memory modules, which may also be way they had
put 256Mb on it. The card should have been called something like "value
edition" or maybe "se", surely not Pro.

What I did was to return the card to the retailer and get my money back,
since it surely wasnt a real pro card, even if the chip would be called Pro
in benchmarking programs and such the memory wasnt up2specs.

FYI I got around 8200 3dmark 2001 with the stock speed, but keep in mind
that was on a XP1600 and with oooold PC133 SDRAM. My newer 9600XT only gives
me 9700 3dmarks, but again, thats because I have an old m/b w/old SDRAM.

With regards

lars

 

[ludwig]

Alan,

I think the problem is that your card's memory is slow. I read
somewhere that *some* 9600 pros do not come with memory at spec ( @300 Mhz
or x2 @600 Mhz) . That's why I had to check the card using 3drage tweaker
to make sure it was at spec after I bought it. I will see if I can find
that thread or article and post it for you.

Sorry about your card, hope you can return it.

Ludwig