PC building - where did I go wrong?

[sinij]

If you are socket 775 fan clip designer and reading this - please do humanity a favor and go off yourself in some very painful way. With that said...

I am severely underwhelmed how my system turned out, please help me figure out what went wrong and how to remedy this situation.

14088 3DMarks
CPU INTEL C2D E6850 3G 65N 4M
ASUS P5N-D
SLI 2x BFG 9800GTX
Corsair CM2x2048 Dual Channel

I was expecting bigger improvement than 40%ish from my 2+ years old system. Is computing revolution died down or did I mess up somewhere with my build?

[Lt.Dan]

I'm no expert (so you may already know this) but I suspect
1. benchmark tests are not very insightful in comparing relative PC performance, particularly with the latest hotness in graphics cards
2. CPU may be the bottleneck - according to Vista my 6750 is bottleneck relative to 8800GT graphics card (yes it's Windows, yes it's Vista, and no I have no idea what that means)
3. twiddle with the nvidia panel to push all the AA/AF functions to max for each app - don't let the app choose
4. no idea how SLI drivers work so that might be an issue too

[Engels]

Your machine is not lame at all, sinij. The 6850 cpu is a good one, your video cards are the best currently available, your ram's a decent type...I wouldn't know what to tell you about your score. Do you have an anti-virus program that's piggy-backing your running programs and degrading performance? Are you running this on an old hard drive that's slowing down the rest of the system because it can't feed data fast enough?

[Trippy]

3DMarks is a stupid benchmark, seriously. The composite score number is absolutely meaningless as a guide to how well your machine will run certain games. Benchmark against real games.

If you really want to figure out if there's something wrong with your (meaningless) 3DMarks score you'll have to Google and see how other people's scores compare. You can start here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/248827-33-geforce-9800-card-appears-9800gtx-spec-3dmark06#t1791194

From what I can tell just briefly looking and some of those posts and this one it looks like your SLI isn't working properly. I.e. your score is roughly what you would expect from your CPU and a single 9800 GTX.

Edit: another problem might be the resolution you are running at. If you aren't running at a really high resolution like 1920x1200 you might not even seen any benefit from the second card even if SLI is working properly. I.e. on your benchmark your CPU may be the bottleneck and it never managed to stress both GPUs. This is from the first link above:

VR-Zone has gotten some preliminary 3DMark06 scores on the upcoming GeForce 9800 GX2 and 9800 GTX cards. The setup : Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz processor on a P965 board with Forceware 173.67 drivers and Catalyst driver version 8.451. GeForce 9800 GX2 scored 14225, 9800 GTX scored 13167 while Radeon HD 3870 X2 scored 14301.

Notice how the 9800 GX2 scored only slightly higher than the 9800 GTX despite having significantly more GPU power. If you look at the 9800 GTX SLI benchmarks you can see that the improvement over a single 9800 GTX depends greatly on the game and resolution you are running at.

[Engels]

Ya, one of the things that seems to be a pattern with Nvidia cards is that the very very top end cards are not that much greater than the ones just below, except when running at very high resolutions on big monitors. That's when you want an uber card. Otherwise, its just not going to make that big a difference. I found this with my 7950gtx, which bugged me a bit to find out, since at the time all I had was a 19 inch regular screen :/

[rattran]

I'll simply echo Trippy with "3DMarks is a stupid benchmark, seriously."
And the vista performance rating is fucking meaningless. Play some games, and see if the machine seems faster.

Also, why did you go with a 750i? Seems if you're going to drop that much money on video cards for sli, why go with the budget sli solution? Why not go with a more current board and a 9800gx2?

[SnakeCharmer]

HOLY FREAKING GPU OVERLOAD BATMAN

Yank one of the GPUs and run the test.  Then swap it out.  Run it again.  See what happens.

I used to obsess about 3DMarks, but not anymore.  I did run one on my machine a week or so ago.  I couldn't help it.  FWIW, Q6600, P5N-D, 2x8800GTS (G92), 4GB = 18K 3DMarks.

[Morfiend]

You could try running the Sandra Benchmark tests, I find those MUCH better than 3DMark.

[schild]

The computer at the top of this thread is utterly ridiculous. What's up with that processor with those top of the line GPUs? Dump a 9800 and get a new mobo/proc. Pronto. Yeesh. Overkill. And for nothing.

[fuser]

I am severely underwhelmed how my system turned out, please help me figure out what went wrong and how to remedy this situation.

I was expecting bigger improvement than 40%ish from my 2+ years old system. Is computing revolution died down or did I mess up somewhere with my build?

What OS/what video card drivers/what game are you using as a benchmark?

[sinij]

Ya, one of the things that seems to be a pattern with Nvidia cards is that the very very top end cards are not that much greater than the ones just below, except when running at very high resolutions on big monitors.

Interesting. I run at 1920 by 1200. SLI is enabled as far as I can tell - Nvidia drivers tell me so.

[schild]

Once again, get rid of one of the cards and get another processor. Odds are the heat alone coming off those fuckers is crippling the box. The entire setup just borders stupid.

[sinij]

The computer at the top of this thread is utterly ridiculous. What's up with that processor with those top of the line GPUs? Dump a 9800 and get a new mobo/proc. Pronto. Yeesh. Overkill. And for nothing.

Hmn, like what?

[schild]

I just noticed 9800GTXs dropped to $200.

Disregard me. I have no clue what you should do, but the resale value on your cards just totally tanked. As did the value on my card and previous card. Lulz.

[sinij]

Seeing how I don't get much benefit from SLI and recent price drop it seems best course is to return one of the cards. I also don't understand why do you think Q4 CPU will do any better? I don't video edit or compile lots of code on my gaming rig, what do I need 4 slower cores for?

[Trippy]

You don't.

[sinij]

Seeing how only E8500 is an upgrade for meager +0.16Mhz and 2Mb of L2 cash gain... what is wrong with my processor?

Processor and MB are here to stay... my options are now:


1. Return both cards back and replace them with 1xGTX280 <-- too early in a product life, I am paying early-adopter's tax
2. Return both cards back and replace them with 2x9600GT <-- not convinced it is better
3. Return 1 card and forget SLI <-- no improvement in performance

What do you think I should do if I want to get a bit more out of my gaming rig. Nvidia cards only, since it seems AoC does not work with well with anything else.

Also if I want to match FSB (1333Mhz) what are my options for memory upgrade? I moved over my 800Mhz corsair from my old system, is it holding it back?

[Engels]

Dude, have you actually played any games with this rig? I ask because I don't fathom how the rig is gimped. Oh, and disregard what schild is saying about your processor. Its fine, more than fine. Yes, he just got a 45 nanometer yorkfield quadcore and he's in awe of it. Great for him. But your processors just ain't that far behind.

Also,

I run at 1920 by 1200

That's a high resolution. You're not really MEANT to get 100 FPS on any rig at that high a resolution playing Crysis or some such. Your cards are designed to give you decent to good FPS at that high a resolution. Really, you are getting what you payed for.  Modern graphics have advance quite a bit lately. If you want to see how freakin wicked your box is, put in a game from the past that chunked along on your old rig, and watch it scream with your new rig. A good example would be Midieval Total War or another full 3d RTS from the past few years.

[Trippy]

Also if I want to match FSB (1333Mhz) what are my options for memory upgrade? I moved over my 800Mhz corsair from my old system, is it holding it back?

No. Like I said originally you need to run against some real games. Load up FRAPS and check your FPS with and without SLI turned on. Turn on as much eye candy as you can including 4XAA 16XAF and see how it does.

[fuser]

1. Return both cards back and replace them with 1xGTX280 <-- too early in a product life, I am paying early-adopter's tax
2. Return both cards back and replace them with 2x9600GT <-- not convinced it is better
3. Return 1 card and forget SLI <-- no improvement in performance

What do you think I should do if I want to get a bit more out of my gaming rig. Nvidia cards only, since it seems AoC does not work with well with anything else.

1. Going to GTX280 is a waste of money vrs the new ATI card (but well AoC issues)
2. 2x9600GT isn't going to be a performance increase over the two 9800gtx's
3. possibly maby a GX2 ?

Ok finally AoC is your benchmark? What detail are you trying to run at, what OS, what drivers?

[sinij]

It runs fine in my screen's native resolution (1920x1200) with maximum detail and 2x AA... and with extra fans cards don't get hotter than 65C at full load, despite being very close together.... even my old 7900X2 and AMD64 did fine with AoC, so upgrading wasn't that necessary.

I always metered system's performance on 3D mark, and if it says my score is shitty... it must be true? Otherwise why upgrade if not get better score, especially if old rig did just fine?

[Lantyssa]

Because 3D Mark can't handle how awesome your new system is to realize it should be scoring better?

[Engels]

Otherwise why upgrade if not get better score, especially if old rig did just fine?

You purchased hundreds of dollars worth of equipment to get a better score? Are you being graded somewhere?

[Sky]

Otherwise why upgrade if not get better score, especially if old rig did just fine?

If your old rig was just fine, it seems stupid to upgrade. Donate the money to charity if you don't need it.

[Lantyssa]

Then he couldn't polish his video card with their tears of hunger.

[sinij]

Then he couldn't polish his video card with their tears of hunger.

Exactly.

Joking aside, I upgrade so I can play games without having to worry about performance. I don't think I need to explain why I game here, but gaming being one of my main hobbies obsessions naturally draws portion of my disposable income. By definition hobbies obsessions are not reasonable things to do, but we are not doing them to be reasonable.

[sinij]

So back to PC questions - would I hit 17000-18000 3D mark with x280?

[Trippy]

[Tale]

lol @ thread

If your aim is to play games and you're at the point where a Core 2 Duo is regarded as a bottleneck, you're doing it wrong. There's nothing that won't run acceptably at 1920x1200 with an E6300 and an 8800-something. Just go play.

[sinij]

3DMarks is a stupid benchmark, seriously. 

I am settling on this.

Another question - my monitor can accept HDMI and DVI. I am currently using DVI, should I switch to HDMI for watching HD movies?

[Viin]

If your card supports native HDMI, then yes. If not, I'd stick with whatever native output your vid card has (probably DVI), which is good enough. Leave your HDMI port for your xbox or something.

[Trippy]

Another question - my monitor can accept HDMI and DVI. I am currently using DVI, should I switch to HDMI for watching HD movies?

It depends on which ports on your monitor support HDCP (I'm assuming your DVI output on your video card does).

[sinij]

Finished building my system...

CPU: It took me 3 different CPU heatsinks before I found one that fit well. MB had some unfortunately placed capacitors that got in the way and created issues with uneven surface contact that resulted CPU eventually hitting 80C after 30 mins or so under full load. Now CPU is stable 61-63C at a full load after an hour of running, testing with Prime95 on both cores. Unfortunately I couldn't use 'super-quiet' solutions I normally do.

GPU: I ended up with a single card, SLI pumped too much heat that I couldn't vent out of the case fast enough - I don't think 2x 9800GTX is feasible without water cooling solely because of that. Instead I exchanged my 2 cards at a purchase price (pre price drop) for GTX280 BFG OC for only 100$ extra with free shipping thrown on top of that. Normally card would be too expensive and too new for me to consider purchasing but Tigerdirect absorbing depreciation on 9800GTXs made huge difference. I am really amazed how X280 turned out, it handles AoC at my native resolution1920x1200 and 40-60fps with *everything* turned to max... Probably 10-15 FPS higher than SLI setup. Now I actually play with everything maxed but shadows.

RAID: Makes huge difference in all load times. I was really satisfied when I got high-speed WD Raptor for my last rig, this time I decided to go with a different approach of two cheaper SG Barracuda hard drives in Raid 0. This ended up working even better, faster access time than VelociRaptor I was considering. Considering how often you get to stare at a zoning screen in AoC this makes all the difference.

Anyone knows if there is any way to turn off "Detecting RAID array, press F10 to configure" during initial bootup?



Few oddities I encountered... RAID array triggers SMART hard disk failure warnings. HDs are fine, I run them through diagnostics individually and in raid without detecting any issues. They also don't trigger warning unless put into RAID.

DVD drive randomly ejects when not in use. It happens about once or twice a day... I have no idea what it could be. Any ideas?

[nurtsi]

Few oddities I encountered... RAID array triggers SMART hard disk failure warnings. HDs are fine, I run them through diagnostics individually and in raid without detecting any issues. They also don't trigger warning unless put into RAID.

DVD drive randomly ejects when not in use. It happens about once or twice a day... I have no idea what it could be. Any ideas?

I have Asus P5<something>-deluxe motherboard, the RAID controller (JMicron thingy) is not supported properly under Linux and I get the 'hard disk failing' error messages from SMART-daemon (this is without actually using any RAID setup, just standard SATA & IDE disks). When I bought the thing (two years ago or so), I couldn't even use the DVD drive in Linux because all the IDE-peripherals are emulated and go through the RAID-controller). I haven't had any problems in 32-bit WinXP Pro with it (or I don't know where to look for the error logs).

[Engels]

I would check the Asus website under your motherboard to see if there's a bios update that might address it.