Poor performance with a 4890

[GingaNinja]

Hi all. Just wanted to get your thoughts on this. My sys is as follows (nothing overclocked manually):

• PC Power and Cooling 910W PSU
• Q6600 quad core at 2.4GHz
• 2Gb ram
• XFX 4890 black
• 9.6 Catalysts (set to balanced)

Just swapped out my 8800GTX for the above card, but my 3DM06 score has barely changed (form about 12K to 12.5K). Any initial thoughts? I was wondering whether there are any hotfixes or anything that I should be applying to release the potential of this card.

Cheers

Ginga

 

[GingaNinja]

Yup - CPU needs some attention, but I nevertheless expected some improvement. Ran 3DM06 at default resolution. Also, I'm on WinXP 32.

Any thoughts? I'm considering re-installing the opsys, as it's been ages since I did this.

Ginga

 

[GingaNinja]

Oh OK - thanks guys. Didn't realise what an important factor CPU speed is in 3DM. Will try Crysis this evening.

Inthe longer term I guess I ought to get a better mobo, that will allow me to OC the CPU. I've heard of people getting well over 3GHz with these, which should make a difference.

Cheers

Ginga

 

[GingaNinja]

@ gurusan. I know I know. Criminal isn't it? My cheap mobo's letting me down. Must invest in a decent one with good OC potential. Can anyone recommend a good OCing mobo, preferably with Xfire capacity?

Ginga

 

[GingaNinja]

It's a cheapo ECS NF4 SLI-T I believe. Unstable above 2.6 GHz, so I didn' bother with it, intending to upgrade later.

 

[GingaNinja]

So I had a go at overclocking the CPU. Any higher than 2.7GHz and computer says no. However, I remembered that I hadn't optimised any other settings in the BIOS at all. After tightening the ram timings and overclocking the CPU to 2.7, I got a 3DM06 score of just under 15K, which is a bit more like it. I'm sure that if I could OC my Q6600 to 3GHz, then I'd get a score of about 17K.

I know it's not the RAM holding back my efforts at OCing, because I left them at default clocks. Also, I just got a pretty beefy PSU, so that leaves either the CPU or mobo. I'm inclined to suspect the mobo. Buy cheap, pay dear!

Ginga

 

[GingaNinja]

Thanks guys. I'll keep playing the OC and see if I can get any further.

BTW, am using a Dell 24" @ 1920x1200. Fired up Crysis last night and got 45 frames/sec. No AA though, but I did have the 'natural mod' applied. Might get more without it. Pretty pleased with game performance!

Ginga