3DMark05 - I finally cracked 6k!

[dune2]

My 3dMark05 story:

I know that my feat is nothing special compared to other scores with comparable rig configurations, but I worked almost a year since I got my computer on gaining a 3DMark05 score over 6,000. I ran my first 3DMark 05 in Fall 2003 on an overclocked Athlon 2600+ and a supercharged 5900XT. Despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to get past 1650 3dMarks and the speed with which the benchmark progressed was saddening. Over the next couple of monts, my hardware gave up on me, whcih gave me an opportunity to assemble the rig seen below. My first glorious attempts with the new system came in at around a respectable number of 4,5k, especially considering the early stage of 6800-series drivers.
After new 70-series FW drivers and some heavy tweaking with the help of Rivatuner and the likes, I managed to pump my score to 5,800 points. However, that's where my progress stopped. My overclocks seemed to be maxed out around 425/1165 MHz for the vidcard and 2,5 GHz for CPU. Slowly and steadily, I worked on memory timings and other optimizations. Another couple of points were added by new FW releases, but I still couldn't get past 6k. A couple of months ago I managed to get 5991 points, but any increase in clockspeeds or other optimization only decreased the number. I was positively frustrated.
Today, I should have worked on a project but I just couldn't be motivated and so I went back to cracking the 6k barrier. With 30MHz more on my CPU clock, slightly tighter timings thanks to the A64 Tweaker I tried again.
First trial: 5997 3dMarks. I was getting close!
Second trial: 5998 Marks, I had a feeling success was only based on chance. Still, even chance seemed to be elusive.
Third trial: 5999 3dMarks! You gotta be kidding me!!! Aargh!
I decided to bring out the big guns, or small guns actually! I pumped an extra amazing 1 Mhz into my gpu and viedo memory and ran the program again.
I spent 5 minutes vividly staring onto my computer screen and - tadaa:
6, 011 3D Marks!!!


I supposed realisticly speaking, it was more a matter of luck that the number came out north of 6k. Nonetheless, I am very happy that I finally crossed that border! Yippie!

[EsTeeM]

I decided to bring out the big guns, or small guns actually! I pumped an extra amazing 1 Mhz into my gpu and viedo memory and ran the program again.

Lol, nice job

[Internal]

In the end what you're doing is madness but isn't it fun!

For me it was first 6500 and now it will be 6600.
Thankfully I've been very busy lately so my mind is saved from the insanity that is benchmark numbers.

[Raikku]

I have also gone over 6k-border, thanks my new X850Xt-vga.

Before, with 6600gt i was limited to under 4k-scores, but my first run with stock (520/1080) gave about 6200.

Now with 550/1120 oc i get little bit over 6500, and i have to say that it feels fine.

These scores helps me overcome that sadness about changing from Nvidia to Ati (if there had been upper-end Agp-Nvidias available, i had bought one of them).

[dune2]

Originally Posted by Internal

In the end what you're doing is madness but isn't it fun!

For me it was first 6500 and now it will be 6600.
Thankfully I've been very busy lately so my mind is saved from the insanity that is benchmark numbers.

I think you are right! It really is madness. But where would the world be without the pioneering efforts of people who wanted to gain just that tiny extra amount of speed, productivity or 3dMarks? - The Stoneage!

[phrozin]

Originally Posted by dune2

I think you are right! It really is madness. But where would the world be without the pioneering efforts of people who wanted to gain just that tiny extra amount of speed, productivity or 3dMarks? - The Stoneage!

how true