Upgraded finally...what do you think? (1 Viewer)

[Kami]

Old system:
P3-700e overclocked to 933MHz
Asus P3V4X mobo (Via Apollo Pro 133a)
512MB Generic CAS3 PC133
Asus Geforce 2 GTS @ 220/370
Monstersound MX300 (good ol' Vortex2 chip)
Then there's my HDDs, burner, dvd, etc. which are unchanged.
New stuff added:
-Athlon XP 1800+ (right now it's overclocked to XP1900+ at default voltage and the temperature only went up 1 degree)
-Soltek SL-75DVR4 (Via KT266A)
-512MB Samsung PC2100 DDR
-MSI GeForce 4 Ti4200 w/ 128MB DDR @ 300/575 (painless overclock there, it smokes a Ti4400)
-Soundblaster Audigy
I get a little over 9800 3dmarks in 3DMark2001se...I think this is a decent score?
Very very happy Most painless upgrade I've ever done done in my 8 years of compulsive upgrading.

 

[Max Leung]

Hey not bad! I get the same scores, slightly bit higher at 9900 3DMarks on my Athlon 1800+ XP with nForce Asus A7N266-C motherboard and 1024 mb RAM. Although it's probably less now after I upgraded a few drivers since then.

 

[Andre F]

I'm jealous...I'm stuck with PII 450mhz...
-Andre F

 

[Kami]

Hey not bad! I get the same scores, slightly bit higher at 9900 3DMarks on my Athlon 1800+ XP with nForce Asus A7N266-C motherboard and 1024 mb RAM. Although it's probably less now after I upgraded a few drivers since then.

What video card and what's it clocked at?

I bet if I tweaked enough I could break the 10k barrier, but 3dmark isn't too important. My games all run flawless at 1280x960-1600x1200, and that's the only thing that matters.

 

[Max Leung]

I got a Visiontek Xtacy Geforce 4 ti4400, standard clock settings, 275/550. Overclocking the card causes crashes in GTA3 though. Unlike every other person on the net, I can't overclock this card worth crap. :frowning:

 

[Kami]

That doesn't make sense at all you should get at least 15-20% overclock on that memory...what's your full specs? (including power supply)

 

[Max Leung]

Enermax 431W dual-fan powersupply. 2x512mb Samsung PC2700, etc. However, I have AGP4x with sideband addressing and fast write protocol turned on. AGP latency is set to 64 (probably doubles as PCI latency, not sure).
I think it's just a chip that doesn't happen to overclock well. I crash if I overclock the memory only, or the GPU only.
Reviewers tend to get cards straight from the manufacturer, which I believe makes sure the card will overclock in the first place.

 

[Kami]

Well then that's a first...the very first GF4 I've heard of that won't overclock.
Anyway, I did a bit more tweaking and got 3dmark to 20 points below 10,000 No matter what I do it won't go above 10k (default settings). I guess i should stop worrying about a synthetic benchmark anyway and go back to the 1600x1200 gaming goodness

 

[Dave E H]

I've got a Abit GeForce4 4400 - never really overclocked a video card before. How much of a performance increase can I safely get out of this type of card? If it's only 5-10%, it's probably not worth the trouble. If it's more, I'd be interested. I'm not playing any relaly graphics heavy games right now, though I might start Dungeon Seige (don't know how intensive that is...)

 

[Jeff]

Kami,

Just wondering what you think of the 2D quality of the MSI. I'm hoping it's atleast as good as the Voodoo 3 2000 I am getting rid of.




Jeff

 

[Max Leung]

You'll likely see a 5-10% improvement for a modest overclock.

I cannot overclock my GPU, but I have been able to o'clock the RAM to 600Mhz successfully with the UT2K3 leaked demo.

I'm pretty sure it would still crash in GTA3 though, as it did last time I tried that last month.

Somebody probably didn't put enough heatsink grease on my geforce card when it was assembled. Hmm, I should check that out one day...

 

[Kami]

Dave E H,

Depends how far you o/c it. For example, I increased the memory bandwidth of my card from 7.1GB/sec to about 9GB/sec...this helps quite a bit. Overclocking the core doesn't do as much, it's mostly the memory that benefits. I wouldn't bother overclocking unless you have a fast CPU that can take advantage of the extra speed.

Jeff,

Before this card I had an Asus GeForce2 GTS, and before that card I had a Voodoo3. I thought the GF2's 2d quality was on par with the V3, and the MSI's is slightly clearer than the GF2. I'm running it on a 19" Samsung 950p @ 1280x960

 

[Max Leung]

Hmmm, I'm not sure where I got the 9900 3dmarks score from. I ran it again today at 1024x768x32, no AA, Pure Hardware T&L, 24bit zbuffer, only managed 7700 3dmarks. Maybe I had it running at 640x480 before, but I can't remember what the default settings are supposed to be. :frowning:

 

[Kami]

That sounds like default settings to me...to be sure just go to Default --> Reset All

 

[Jeff]

Kami, thanks for the info! I have a Samsung 900p 19" running at 1280X1024 and 85Hz. If the MSI can do that and it looks like the Voodoo I am using now, I'll be happy.

From what you state, it should.


Jeff

 

[Max Leung]

Did that Kami. I resolved the problem by uninstalling the refresh rate fix utility and the 29.42 drivers. Then reinstalled the 29.42 drivers again, and used Powerstrip to set the Direct3D/OpenGL refresh rates intead.

I get about 9600 right now, at 275/550 speeds, athlon 1800+ XP non-overclocked (1533 Mhz, 133Mhz FSB). I replaced the awful thermal pad on the video card's heatsink with proper grease, but it still won't overclock. Looks like I got a GPU that is on the borderline. I should've bought a 4200!