Am I cheating?

Flamin-roids

Is it normal to get these scores at these specs and speeds?
2600+ 333fsb tbred@ 2.45ghz (11x225)
Abit NF-7 S
Corsair PC3200 2-2-2-7@225 fsb
BFG FX5900 ultra 535/965mhz
Scores:
Aquamark 52,820
3Dmark03 6810
Using 56.72 drivers because the IQ is the best and things run smoother than any other driver. The most unbelievable thing is my GFX score is consistantly 7500+ on aquamark. I've tried those starstorm benchmarking drivers that have terrible quality and are supposed to give you high scores but I get worse scores with worse quality drivers. I've tried forcing everything off and I get even worse scores. I get the best scores with the highest quality drivers at default settings. I think I've just found my sweet spot because if I overclock higher I lose alot of points. For example if I run my vid card at 545/975mhz I score only like 44,000 on aquamark. I'm not intentionally trying to sacrifice quality to get higher scores I just want to know if these scores sound to good to be true. I get 40,000 on aquamark running high quality and 4xAA and 8xAF and 4000 on 3Dmark using the same settings.

Bluedog · 05-09-2004, 05:51 | posts: 2,678 | Location: Near New Orleans, La.

I've messed around with Aquamark a good bit and have noticed that any GFX that can score close to 7000 on the GFX should produce results of 50000 or better. Your score looks very good with those drivers, they just aren't Futuremark approved but who cares. The nVIDIA driver they have certified is outdated.

When one sees Aquamark results that indicate [0] for the GFX memory or CPU also, makes it look like a cheat. There are drivers and software that will do this so that's why I asked before.

Emanon75 · 05-09-2004, 19:45 | posts: 3,796 | Location: Where I am.

Very nice AM score..
IMO, that bench has little validity however, as there are so many ways to cheat .. Forcing Af off.. Speederxp, etc..

The 3DMark03 score also looks to me to be far higher than it should be, but since those drivers contain application specific optimizations, to cheat... errm.. Optimize.. Certain parts of the bench.. I guess it's about right.

Good scores anyway, even if they do look to be a bit "optimized"