GTS KO 320MB Underperforming

Here are my rig specs:
AMD X2 3800+
ASUS SE Motherboard
2GB Memory
EVGA GTS 320 KO
3dmark 06 score = 7,400
PSU 650W 52A
Is my rig underperforming???? I am thinking about returning my video card and get an ATI2900? Shall I? I know that my CPU may bottleneck the video card but is that right??? what shall I doooo??

 

I think for stock, thats a little under. I'd expect something around mid 8000s. The card isn't the problem and the GTS is faster than the X2900. Reinstall 3dmark06, I did that one time and it fixed the score and make sure previous drivers were uninstalled completely. Its just a driver issue.

 

Please make sure when testing, you do not have af enabled in the control panel as i've found with alot of cards, it affects 3dmark.

 

For Windows Vista that score might be O.K. And if you choose to change your Videocard, get a 8800 GTS or GTX, the X2900HD is slower, produces more heat and consumes more power than the aforementioned cards.

 

Shouldnt he be scoring higher than that? I mean I score 6,000 on 3dMark06 and I'm on a 7900GT with a similiar CPU.

....wait, does he have a 8800 or a 8600?

 

The 2900xt isn't slower in alot of games, and is faster in certain games then the gtx, the ultra is the fastest but also costs the most money.

It does run hotter and takes more power, so your correct there!

http://www.techspot.com/review/52-asus-radeon-hd-2900xt/page7.html

As said in some games its slower, but you gotta give ati credit, its alot cheaper, and as newer drivers are released, i think it'll only get better.

 

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM1MSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Every review seems different. These ones have the Radeon running at lower setting and resolution for the most part and on par with the GTS. I'd stick with the GTS and wait on the next Nvidia GPU, Ati released this much later then nvidia part, and its at best a few frames better. Pretty disappointing.

 

I see no reason why anyone would want to switch from an 8800 to a 2900. I mean you are talking about a very small marginal difference and it goes back and forth. Complete waste of money.

 

yeah there's no reason to get a hd2900xt...your score is low because of you cpu...trie runing 3dmark05, 06 is very cpu demanding...if you want 8000 pts you need a c2d

 

What you should consider is overclocking that X2 3800+. Most people have no trouble getting to 2.5ghz on those chips. However every chip is different so you will need to read up on CPU overclocking or ask questions on the forums and then take it very slow and make sure you have a stable overclock. If you try to run on an unstable overclock you could see problems for a very long time. There is a very nice guide in the overclocking section of the forums on overclocking CPUs. Check that out if you are interested.

 

I was running my GTX on with a X2 4400+ and I was getting around 8600 points. I'd say that unless you overclock your processor you won't see much improvement.

 

Holy ****, the HD2900XT ownzzz there. Even outperforms an Ultra by 41FPS!!!

I'm starting to question myself if that review is even real. But it's techspot, Not just some unknown site. Man, when I showed some benchmarks like these from 2 dutch websites a couple of nvidia people wouldn't believe me. Starting to look like theres more reviews like these, proving it's not a bad card at all, considering the very cheap launch price. aranoid:

 

Throughout the history of online review sites and new hardware there has always been random unexplainable instances where certain software is paired with certain hardware and they perform much higher than expected. However this does not hold near as much merit as a card that is performing excellent on all applications.

 

Hey guys, thanks so much for the feedback!!... I guess the score reflect in part the lack of power of my CPU (again AMD x2 3800+). I am thinking about updating my motherboard (currently socket 939) to an AM2 with a CPU AMD x2 6000+. Would I really see a big improvement in benchmarking and FPS in games? if I now get 7,400 in 3dmark 06 and 11,500 in 3dmark 05 I would be expecting something around 11K for 3dmark 06... is that reasonable?? do you guys think that is worth the investment? money is not a problem but do not want to buy the motherboard + CPU + DDR2 memory if it won't make much of a difference... my guess is that CPU would really unleash the power of the 8800 GTS KO 320 power....

 

they only reason why I was thinking about returning my GTS and paying the difference to an XT2900 was because I thought that maybe the 2900 was not so much of a CPU hungry video card.... before I bought my 8800 gts I had an ATI 1900GT and after the upgrade I am not seeing that much of a difference in performance ... when I switch from my ATI 1600 to my old ATI 1900GT I saw a huge performance increase!... please adviseeeeee

 

you aint going to get 11,000 just upgrading the cpu , i can push just over 10k with an overclocked cpu and gpu , but the main problem for the low score is the cpu as it will limit your 3dmark score but games should be fine

going to a 6000+ will only gain about 1000 points i reckon , maybe a little more

it seems you put alot of emphasis on 3dmarks when you should be testing games instead

 

nevertheless 3dmark is a good general test to see if youre computer is performing properly, i often run it for stability testing....

 

Games run good... I play Oblivion in high settings at 1280 x 1024 at around 50 FPS... I was just wondering what the difference could be with a good CPU... is the memory important in the overall performance of the system?? I got 4 x 512 ddr... running at 400mhz... 3dmark 06 ranks my rig 30 of 55 similar configurations... I may try to do some overclocking but I will definitely need to read some of the post in this forum before I attemp to do it!...

 

Well changing your ram for 2(1gig sticks) of ram would help some cause then you could run it in dual channel mode at 1t command. Other then that your gonna have to either buy a faster processor or overclock that x2 3800. Plus if you only playing at 1280x1024 your gonna see some bottlenecking with such a powerfull card. You should be gaming at 1600x1200 with such a powerful card.

 

yeah.... it's the CPU. hell, when i got my GTX, and when i was still on my X2 3800+ with 2GB of DDR2 800, i think i got like.... high 7k, low 8k in 06. don't remember what i'm up to now that i got an X2 6000+.