Did some overclocking and some benches...

[XJnine]

I got my 8800gtx back from XFX and I think I've finally begun to figure out this 680i motherboard. It's a great motherboard but if you don't know/understand its limitations it can get pretty frustrating when trying to tweak it. I'm fairly certain I can do better than these scores but I'm down to where it's very minor tweaks that can be done from here. Also keep in mind that these scores are from Vista which will make them a bit slower than the XP scores and I'm using beta video drivers which may not necesarily be the best ones out there.

First off, here's my CPU and memory.

http://www.x-j-nine.com/cpusettings.jpg

All the voltages on my system are set to "AUTO" except for the memory which has to manually be set to 2.2v. Corsair recommends 2.2v for this RAM but my mobo will only set the voltage to 1.9v when set to auto. It's pretty nice to get a 1.2ghz overclock on your CPU without even having to adjust the voltage yourself (the auto setting bumped the voltage to 1.4v just so you know). It also runs pretty cool considering I'm air cooling and overclocking quite a bit. It's sitting at 41c right now. I plan on switching to this TIM soon http://www.crazypc.com/products/50120.html which has been shown to help get temps several degrees cooler than AS5. I'm also considering switching to a Thermalright IFX-14 HSF when it comes out or maybe a Coolermaster GeminII cooler. Both of those should run cooler and quieter than my Zalman 9700LED. It's a very good cooler but it gets a bit noisy when running full speed.

As for my video card I finally got around to trying to overclock it. The default speeds on the 8800GTX are 575 core, 1375 shader, and 900(1800) mem. With just some quick adjustments I am now running it at 635 core, 1550 shader, and 1050(2100) mem. The last bump I tried was a rather large one, going to 650, 1600, 1100(2200). My card ended up locking up in 3DMark06. I'll probably try to tweak the settings a bit more and see where it gets me. I can tell this card has a ton of performance left in it, I just need to figure how to get it out.

For the benchmarks, all I did for now was run defaults runs of 3DMark 06, 05, and 03. If there are any games that anyone would like to see run please let me know the game and the settings and I'll do it if I can.

3DMark06: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=1559497 12366

3DMark05: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2850587 19250

3DMark03: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=5283130 34651

3DMark01SE: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=9174925 43696

I actually laughed out loud a little bit when 3DMark03 was running. During the first test, the flight sim one, my FPS actually got up to 1790fps. That's kinda fast... :wink:

In addition to all this overclocking goodness I'm also eager for nvidia to come out with their drivers that will allow you to use another video card as a physics processor. I bought a 512mb 7600GS to use while my 8800GTX was in the shop. Right now it's plugged in to the 3rd PCIe slot on my motherboard just waiting for the drivers to enable it. I've overclocked that card too but all it does is sit there. Since I have this 7600GS card sitting in my system I could possibly be persuaded to run the same benches on it with all the other system settings the same if anyone was interested in the performance difference. I'm guessing that anyone who built a system with a $250 mobo, and 2 gb's of ram would probably have spent the money on a better video card but if you really want to see it let me know and I'll see if I can get it done.

Questions, comments? Fire away!

[Kougar]

You did note the warning: "Do not use with aluminum heatsinks." for that TIM, right? It would appear to only be safe for AMD CPUs, unless Intel also coats theirs in zinc. ;) It's also very conductive, something AS5 was engineered to not be, so if a drop or powder of that stuff got onto the board circuits then you're going to be in trouble.

That's a pretty impressive score, you blew away the ~10,500 3Dmark06 score I got with the settings in my sig. ;)

Have you done a 24 hour run of Orthos in a Blend to verify the system is beyond any doubt stable? Best time is to run it maybe a couple hours before you turn in, after 3-4 hours without errors I'd consider it safe to walk away from and get some sleep. If your overclock survives that without a single error then I'll be really impressed at just 1.4v on the CPU :)

The best air cooler to date that I know of is the Thermalright Ultra 120 "Extreme" version, it makes the Turniq Tower almost look like a stock HSF :tongue: Link (http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2943)

[sushrukh]

Great score.As i'm still using 3D Marks 2001,i'm just wondering how much u can get from ur rig in 3D Marks 2001.could u please post the result of the same ?

Two games i wanna see how well they run on ur system.Ist is Fear & the 2nd one is Oblivion.

[XJnine]

The Coolaboratory Pro TIM is safe for Intel CPU's and right now my HSF is a huge hunk of copper so I'd be safe with it too.

Here's a review:

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?type=3&id=87&page=5&desc=battle_of_the_goop_-_thermal_paste_comparison

I ran orthos for 10 hours straight the other day when I was at 1575 FSB but I haven't yet stress tested it at 1600. No problems with any games or in windows yet but I know I haven't done anything as stressful as Orthos yet either. I'll fire it up tonight and let you know how it goes. With earlier BIOS revisions on this motherboard I needed a bit more juice to be stable at this speed. So far it seems to be running good with a bit less voltage than I used to have to run. It still might not hold up under orthos so I might have to give it an extra bump.

Also, as far as the voltage goes I've noticed some weirdness in addition to the usual weirdness that this mobo has with CPU voltages. The 680i mobo's are known to undervolt the cpu compared to what the BIOS setting is. If I were to set my BIOS at 1.45v the cpu would actually be getting 1.4v. If I set it for 1.4v it would be getting 1.35v. The BIOS has a place where you can set the CPU voltage (obviously) and a system monitoring page where you can see the actual voltage. When I go to set my voltage in my BIOS right now I have my user setting set to "AUTO" and it shows the value as 1.4v. If I go check the actual voltage it will show up as roughly 1.35v. What I've noticed now (as a result of Kougar wondering how I could get my OC with a relatively low voltage) is that the windows utilities are reporting the CPU voltage as being set for 1.45v with the actual at 1.4v. Hmm... Does anyone know if the AUTO setting in the BIOS adjusts itself after POST if it needs to or if it will constantly adjust itself as needed? I'm going to do some messing around and see what I can come up with. I guess some weirdness is to be expected when you set something to "AUTO" and you expect the BIOS to know how much to adjust it to.

[XJnine]

Great score.As i'm still using 3D Marks 2001,i'm just wondering how much u can get from ur rig in 3D Marks 2001.could u please post the result of the same ?

I just edited my original post with the 3DMark01SE score.

[werty316]

Two games i wanna see how well they run on ur system.Ist is Fear & the 2nd one is Oblivion.
If XJnine doesn't post them you could just google for those.

[sushrukh]

Ya, I know how they run on a GTX but i just wanna see that how much his G80 can achieve in those games.

[XJnine]

I know Oblivion doesn't have a good repeatable benchmark built in, any suggestions as to how I should do it?

[Kougar]

It shouldn't be adjusting itself once it picks the voltage. Did you ensure Speedstep and C1E Halt State are both disabled??

That differential you are seeing sounds like basic vdroop to me, most boards have this issue? I've noticed the same with my Gigabyte DS3, but it's only a difference of about .3v between actual and BIOS values.

Only way I know of to bench Oblivion is to use FRAPS, and pick the same map/road/level to run through repeatedly from a save point.

[XJnine]

I didn't think it should keep adjusting itself either. I went into the BIOS and checked again. Sure enough it was set to 1.4v in the BIOS but when in windows it shows it's set to 1.45v. I knew there was vdroop to factor in but the "AUTO" setting in the BIOS is just acting too weird for me.

I went ahead and manually set it to 1.475v which is giving me 1.425v and I've been running Orthos for over 2 hours without a hiccup.

[sushrukh]

I was about to say about using FRAPS in Oblivion.You'll get relatively high FPS when u r indoor but when u r in outdoor location of Oblivion,the FPS will decrease like hell.

[XJnine]

I just did a quick outdoors run to see how things run in Oblivion. For my visual quality settings I selected Ultra High and then I manually turned off v-sync and I upped the resolution to 1920x1200. My video card control panel is set to 8xAF, 8xQ AA with gamma correction and transparency turned on, and High Quality texture filtering. I don't think Oblivion allows you to use AA if HDR is enabled (which it is) but I wanted to give you the settings anyways in case it somehow makes a difference in the benchmarks. Supposedly it's been fixed with the 8800 series cards but I don't know.

I did a 60 second run outdoors starting with my back to the city wall door near the Chestnut Handy Stables, I then ran West from there across the long bridge and then I started to head north when the road began to split.

Here's my FRAPS results:

Frames 5432
Time(ms) 60000
Min 49
Max 146
Avg 90.533

I don't know if this is a good area to run through to get a reliable score but if you do the same run you should be able to see what you get.

[sushrukh]

Thanks for the score XJ.That's a pretty good score in Oblivion considering that u r in outdoor.

As u have a very powerful machine,so why don't u join the www.hwbot.org to see where ur PC & ur stuffz actually stand ? It's very cool place to be.You will be able to post ur benchmarks & you will be able to see where ur machine actually stands.


Currently the best score in 3D Marks 2006 for a single 8800GTX is 18487 achieved by an OC'er named kingpin.

Link :- http://www.overclockingpin.com/18487%20single%2006%20screenie%20mark.jpg

[XJnine]

Here are some initial SLI results. Unfortunately I have changed from Vista to XP and have also changed driver versions (obviously) since I ran the earlier benchmarks. I also lowered my OC on the video cards since I switched to SLI since I haven't taken the time to figure out the stable settings on the new 8800GTX. My old OC was at 635 core, 1550 shader, and 1050(2100) mem. My cards are at 600 core, 1450 shader, and 1000(2000) mem right now. Eventually I'll get around to testing the new card so I can try to go a bit faster.

3DMark06: 15710 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=1660034

3DMark05: 22802 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2900515

3DMark03: 59835 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=5303769

3DMark01SE: 67703 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=9181456

I redid my Oblivion run also. Again this is with different drivers and on a different OS. On top of that I upped my visual quality settings. The settings are the same as before except I switched to 16x AF and 16xQ AA, they were set to 8x AF and 8xQ AA last time.

I ran single card and SLI benchmarks with the same settings since this new run isn't really comparable to the old one.

Single card: 74.4 avg FPS

SLI: 82.4 avg FPS

Not a huge speed difference but as I'm sure you all know some games take better advantage of SLI than others. Still nice to see I can get great FPS with even higher image quality settings.