3D Mark Vantage - Post your results.

[opendriver]

Im trying to hit 4.5 (500x9) at 1.53 in the bios and about 1.5 ish in windows, but no matter what I get a BSOD on boot. I dont want to push the vcore any higher than that; I might consider showing 1.6 in windows, but thats the limit for this chip, until I pick up and 8500 or 8600, in that case Id trow 1.8 at it and go for 5.1.



That's an expensive 'benching' rig you got there Pako.

 

[Pako]

Im trying to hit 4.5 (500x9) at 1.53 in the bios and about 1.5 ish in windows, but no matter what I get a BSOD on boot. I dont want to push the vcore any higher than that; I might consider showing 1.6 in windows, but thats the limit for this chip, until I pick up and 8500 or 8600, in that case Id trow 1.8 at it and go for 5.1.



That's an expensive 'benching' rig you got there Pako.

Right on! If you hear a little pop, it might be a cap....or a processor.

I know, it's ridiculous. I really need to get to playing some games on it....

 

[Eric.]

I haven't gamed but a couple hours since I built this system. Just benching all the time.

Just trying to beat my prior benches.

That's actually Intel's and Nvidia's 'game'.

 

[Pako]

Exactly. I have just got done restoring my image backup. So now, when I get a few BSOD or hard reboots, I can just restore my PC from my configured backup. It takes about 12 minutes to fully restore my system. Trying to find that sweet spot.

 

[Eric.]

I attempted to do that one time. Unfortunately my Vista disc is a DVD will all versions in both 32 and 64-bit (legit key though, before I get blasted for "pirating") and you can't do the full PC restore from it because the disc runs in 32-bit.

 

[Pako]

I'm using Norton's Ghost. Other than it removing my CD-Rom drive, it works great. (got that little CD-Rom error fixed with a little Regedit) I can boot from a Norton bootable CD and it restores from any backup image. No registering Vista-64 and no re-installing all my core apps.

 

[Omnis]

Sorry about not having benches yet, Pako. Every time I've been over there I've been playing Call of Duty instead of running 3DMV.

 

[Pako]

Sorry about not having benches yet, Pako. Every time I've been over there I've been playing Call of Duty instead of running 3DMV.

Come on man, get your priorities straight. Sheesh.

 

[Omnis]

Ok, I did a bench. I can't figure out how to find a comparison link on the 3DMV leaderboards though.

Omnis's Uncle - P11864 - HD4870 X2 765/970 E8500@~3.8GHZ

 

[bergauk]

I'm thinking about benching my laptop just to see where it stands. It isn't a gaming beast or anything but its brand new. Downloading 3DMV as I type.

 

[Eric.]

Ok, I did a bench. I can't figure out how to find a comparison link on the 3DMV leaderboards though.

Omnis's Uncle - P11864 - HD4870 X2 765/970 E8500@~3.8GHZ

That can't be anywhere close to right. My E6600 at 3Ghz and a single GTX260 did a lot better than that. Are you certain it was run on the Performance preset?

I'm going to see if I can get Vantage working in Windows7 so I can have a benchmark in here. You can put an asterisk next to it if you'd like since it won't be from Vista...

One suggestion, EVGA Precision is a really simple and effective overclocking tool for Nvidia cards, and works for other brands too. You just have to be a member on www.evga.com to be able to download it. It might be a good addition to the first post.

Edit: Crap, forgot I just posted in here. Care to merge these, Pako?

 

[Pako]

@Omnis,
Sorry, when to copy your bench, but I need the Futuremark link to verify your post. Thanks for running the bench though.


@Eric,
Yeah, I've used the Precision tool also. Very simple interface. Worked just fine on my BFG cards. 👍

 

[Omnis]

I checked the futuremark site and it's not listed. Wtf? Why wouldn't it be there?

The framerate was terrible through the whole test, though. I was surprised. Especially during the AI test with all the little planes flying around. Could the system or videocard have been clocked too high?

 

[opendriver]

Updating to 181.20 seemed to do the trick for me:

Opendriver-P7691-8800GT 794/2000/1035- E7200 @ 3.8

 

[Eric.]

Hm...Windows 7 wasn't too successful. The driver provided through Windows Update scored me a depressing 13k marks. I traced that down to it not supporting PhysX, I think. Turns out Vista Nvidia drivers install just fine and with 181.20 (I think) I was able to enable SLI and PhysX. I haven't been able to get the test to complete though, it hard locks at a different point each time. Considering that the CPU did just fine when using the original driver, I think there might just be a conflict with using the Vista driver (which happens to say Windows 7 in the installer when installed on there ).

Oh well, I'll try to get a clean Vista installation up this month and see what I can do from there. I had 19.5k marks with the 3Ghz E6600, so I would guess this would bring me to 23-24k.

 

[Pako]

Hm...Windows 7 wasn't too successful. The driver provided through Windows Update scored me a depressing 13k marks. I traced that down to it not supporting PhysX, I think. Turns out Vista Nvidia drivers install just fine and with 181.20 (I think) I was able to enable SLI and PhysX. I haven't been able to get the test to complete though, it hard locks at a different point each time. Considering that the CPU did just fine when using the original driver, I think there might just be a conflict with using the Vista driver (which happens to say Windows 7 in the installer when installed on there ).

Oh well, I'll try to get a clean Vista installation up this month and see what I can do from there. I had 19.5k marks with the 3Ghz E6600, so I would guess this would bring me to 23-24k.

Thanks for trying Windows 7.

23-24K will put you in a strong second. 👍

Can't wait to see it.

 

[Pako]

Updated my score from a stock run with the new system. That was with the old OS install also. Reloading VISTA now, should help clean things up.

 

[Pako]

Having some issues with the overclocking concepts on this board and chip, but for now I have broke 35,404 on 3DMark Vantage and am quite happy.

 

[Eric.]

And I'm quite not happy. I've got a clean Vista install (so clean that it only has SP1, Nvidia drivers, EVGA Precision, Speedfan, and both 3dMarks...) and it still fails to complete on Vantage.

4Ghz on the E8400, stock speeds on the GPUs. The CPU is fine, when it locks its at 40C and the GPUs are staying in the 60s. I did get a BSOD on the last run, with the nvdkml or whatever Nvidia related file being the cause. Currently running it with the CPU at stock speed and the RAM underclocked to 800Mhz, though I don't really expect a change...I am stepping up both GPUs anyway, one at a time. The first one goes out this week, so I'll probably pull it tonight and see if this issue goes away.

Are there any sort of BIOS settings that would increase the stability of SLI? It seems like that's what the problem is.

And this is with the newest Nvidia driver, 182.06, I think.

Edit: It ran a nice 19.1k in 3dMark06 though.

 

[Pako]

Keep at it bro! Not always, but I attribute BSOD to CPU/Ram while lockups I look at the GPU's. Voltage? Temps? Clean Power? Running Physx mode?

Start moving up slow, making sure you're stable each time before you jump the gun. Get your CPU/Ram stable first then move to the cards. I'm running Tri-SLI rock solid (until I push the limits). Latest drivers, Vista 64.

 

[Eric.]

Sent off my oldest GTX for a step up to the 55nm Core 216 this week and I'm completely stable with just one GPU, as before. I'm pretty sure there is a PhysX+SLI bug.

 

[Eric.]

Eric. - P22180 - EVGA GTX 260 SSC + GTX 260 Core 216 SC SLI @ 700/1509/1167 - E8400@4Ghz - 8GB G.Skill DDR2-1066 (4x2GB)

Finally got a stable setup it seems, the two original GTX260 SSCs would crash in 3dMark Vantage. Below are my notes from every configuration I've ran in the last day.

4Ghz, 700/1167 classic GTX260 - My OC
3dMark Vantage - P13184
3dMark06 - 17441

4Ghz, 626/1053 Classic GTX260 SSC
3dMark Vantage - P11869
3dMark06 - 16538

4Ghz, 576/960 Classic GTX260 Reference Speed
3dMark Vantage - P10923
3dMark06 - 15642

4Ghz, 626/1053 Classic+C216 SLI SSC speeds
3dMark Vantage - P20246
3dMark06 - 18766

4Ghz, 700/1167 Classic+C216 SLI -My OC
3dMark Vantage -22180
3dmark06 - 19108

As you can see, the overclocks are pretty effective...

 

[opendriver]

Nice run Eric, now see if you can push that E8400 past 4Ghz

 

[Eric.]

Nice run Eric, now see if you can push that E8400 past 4Ghz

I'm actually very happy with my 4Ghz@1.35v right now. Idles at 33C and peaks somewhere in the high 50s. So I don't think I'm going to be touching that for a while now that I've got a very stable system going. That was a nightmare with the other Vista install and SLI setup.