Poor 6800GS performance?

[Unfocused]

Intel D845PESV mobo
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
768MB RAM
previously: RADEON 9550 (250/400 OCed to: 425/552) now: Geforce 6800GS (non-OC)
40GB Maxtor HDD (60E40L0)
160GB Seagate HDD (ST3160023A)
FORTRON FSP400-60PFN 400W PSU

I got my 6800GS yesterday and proceeded to test it. I was hoping for some good results, even though I'm rather short on RAM. I've read this article in which some guy got a really nice boost out of this upgrade (and scores more 3DMarks than me with a worse setup, but I'll get to this later)

First game: Oblivion. Not the highest FPS of course, but definitely playable and it looked gorgeous with HDR enabled and stuff set near High (Oblivion set graphics to High Quality anyway via autodetect).


Second game: CS:S. FPS a bit higher. HDR was playable and without stuttering until the scene was full of models, that's when FPS dropped to 14. Still no HDR for me, then.


Third game: BF2 (that's what I mostly play and that's where I wanted to see the difference most). I played it on my old card at 1024x768, medium settings, except for low lightning, low dynamic lightning and dynamic shadows turned off, 90% draw distance.

I thought that High wouldn't work too well with 768MB RAM, so I decided to put everything on medium (I've played on these settings before but there was a slight performance hit and maps loaded longer, so I set lightning stuff to low). I was expecting that loading lag and some stutter won't disappear, but at least I would get higher FPS while there is no stuttering. Wrong. Fps were a bit higher in some places, but the same as on my previous card (or even lower!) in others. One time I was looking one way and FPS were ok, I turned around to look at 3 humvees and a few people behind me and they dramatically dropped. Didn't experience that on my old GPU.


3DMark05 score:

Radeon 9550 (let's count it as 9600Pro since it was OCed) - 1745
GeForce 6800GS - 2229

I think it's way too low, looking at the article I linked to and considering the fact that my friend having the exact same card an Athlon 2500+ and 1GB RAM scored over 4000. I browsed the net and people were getting over 4k points with this card.


I'm using Forceware 91.31.


What's wrong?

 

[3ssence]

Woah, that's a long way off, about half of what you should be expecting (in fact slightly less than half). That is very weird.

Usual suggestion (i know, you prob have, but anyways): uninstall and clean drivers using driver cleaner, and re-install, or try a different driver. Also check you haven't got aa and af, vsync, etc enabled in the driver control panel. Also, when people benchmark in 3dmark they tend to use the performance setting for image quality.

Even if the cpu was bottlenecking the card, that would still seem like too low a score. However, to give you an idea, i had a 6800GT in my old pc, in which i had a 3.0 Ghz P4, which i ran at 3.5, and i was getting just over 5000 in 3Dmark05, and the 6800GS is of a similiar performance level. Have you tried oc'ing the cpu, just to see the performance gains in 3D applications, to give an idea of how much of a bottleneck it is creating ? Also, i am assuming you have got 1 512mb stick and 1 256mb stick in the machine, try taking out the 256 and just running the 512 on its own.

Just some suggestions, nothing special, but worth a try.

 

[Unfocused]

All those aa/af/vsync are set to default - application choice.

I've tried 84.56 drivers and ran 3DMark05 - didn't see any difference, but then I tried the ones that came with my card on a CD (84.12) and completed the whole test and got 2836

Old intel mobo = no CPU OC.

Haven't tried the RAM thing yet. It worked fine with the previous card, can there really be a GPU/RAM conflict?

BTW: I noticed that in Display Settings->Card->Properties it says: Location: PCI Bus 1, device 0, function 0 (I'm translating, might be slightly different), though in the NVidia settings it's set to AGPx4. Is this normal? Shouldn't the location be AGP?

 

[3ssence]

I'm fairly sure that's meant to be that way, so don't worry about that.

No possibility of overclocking at all ? Not even 200 mhz ?

 

[Unfocused]

No possibility of overclocking at all ? Not even 200 mhz ?

Yes. I googled and OC is impossible with my mobo.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Is your mobo an AGP 4X board?

If that's the case, and the board is throttling your card down - there's your problem.

 

[Unfocused]

Is your mobo an AGP 4X board?

If that's the case, and the board is throttling your card down - there's your problem.

Yes it is, but as far as I know, there's no big difference between AGPx4 and AGPx8.

For most systems the performance difference between AGP 4x and AGP 8x is at most around 5-10%.

Not around 50% like in my case.

 

[3ssence]

Yeah, 4x shouldn't carry that great a performance hit over 8x.

 

[Unfocused]

Remember my 2836 score? Scores on the same drivers:

One after another (PC has been working for some time, I was browsing the net etc.)
1979
2171
2210

Right after booting:
2064

What's with the randomness... :? Could it be the PSU? Power shortage means a crash or freeze from what I know.

 

[3ssence]

That really is quite random....

Does the AGP 6800GS require a molex (can't remember, easier to ask ) ?

If so, have you tried plugging the card into another rail, or a different molex on the same rail, or tried unplugging other components on the same rail to see if it has any effect ?

I'd be surprised if it was though, as that PSU is from a quality company and should be able to supply plenty of power for that card....

 

[Unfocused]

It requires two molex connectors. I'll try playing with them later, though I've already tried a few combinations.

and BTW:
2194 points on a fresh Windows XP after formating, so it doesn't look like it's a software problem if anyone still wondered.

 

[3ssence]

Very curious indeed.....

Have you tried putting your card in a friends system to see whether it performs normally in another system ? i.e. to rule out the possibility of the card being defective.

 

[Unfocused]

My friend lives in another city, not far, but still it takes some time to get there. Maybe I will see him tomorrow though as I'm planning a meetup with a few friends in his area

Anyway I did an experiment and the results are surprising.

The GPU has a 6-pin port for additional power. I don't have a 6-pin connector in my PSU so i use the 6pin-2 molex adaptor that came with the card. I unplugged one molex connector. You would think the performance would go downhill but no - I scored one of my best scores - 2858. Then I plugged in ONLY the other molex - result - 3077. I thought that maybe the whole adaptor or the port in the GPU don't work. I checked how it would act with both connectors unplugged and that's when I got a notification that the card switched itself into some low performance mode due to lack of power. I checked in 3dmark and the first scene didn't go above 5 fps (I didn't finish the test, didn't want to risk any damage). Both molexes back in - slightly above 2000.

I hope that will shed some light on what the cause might be.

 

[3ssence]

Does sound like some sort of power issue, but i may be wrong. Are the 2 molexes that you have been using on the same rail ? Have you tried using 2 molexes, but 1 from each rail ?

 

[Unfocused]

Does sound like some sort of power issue, but i may be wrong. Are the 2 molexes that you have been using on the same rail ? Have you tried using 2 molexes, but 1 from each rail ?

Yep, tried 2 from one rail, 2 from the other rail and one from each rail.

I could try and see how it works with my previous 350W PSU, but as I said in another thread, I saw a bad review stating there's a high risk of damaging the PC with that PSU. Then again it worked fine for nearly 4 years, causing no problems when I added 1 HDD and 1 DVD drive to the 1 HDD and 1 DVD I already had. If I plugged in the GPU and one HDD only it should need even less power than for 2 HDD and 2 DVD I think.

 

[Asus]

If you think it is power related then try unplugging 1 of the HDD and dvd drives. Also, those cards may have 2 power plugs on them but they only need 1 plugged in. Try both of those things and try BF2 again. Maybe that will release some stress on the PSU.

I just threw in my old power supply (420watt) into my system with 4 harddrives and it blue screened on me. I disconnected 2 drives and it worked fine. Plugged the drives back in and BSOD again. So harddrives can make a difference.

 

[Unfocused]

I've got only 1 HDD and 1 DVD plugged in right now I've only got 4 molex connectors and all are full (1 HDD, 1 DVD, 6800 [2 molexes]), unless you really need only 1 molex plugged in (why are there two in the adaptor then)?

And I'm checking out changes on 3DMark05 BTW, I think it's the best way to see a difference. When I reach about 4k marks that would mean everythings right.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Hold up, you mean your PSU has only 4 molex connectors??

 

[Asus]

The 6800Ultra had 2 plugs but nvidia said that you did not need to use both plugs. Yours is a 6800GS (lot less power need). hehe

Try disconnecting something like your DVD drive and test it. If it doesn't change then you could check that off.

 

[Unfocused]

I plugged in my old PSU and still got the same low performance.

Can a motherboard have a serious impact on a GPU performance?

EDIT: Nvm, I've just found out that someone got a pretty sweet score with my mobo, so it doesn't look like it's pulling me back or anything http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/archive/index.php/t-168599.html.

 

[Unfocused]

UPDATE: It's definitely the GPU. My friend has got the same GPU model and I brought mine to compare on one his PC. He achieved 4455 points with his card, then we switched the card to mine and got slightly above 2600.

We think something might be wrong with the part(s) responsible for processing shaders. My card was mostly struggling with the 2nd test (Firefly Forest).

The only difference between our cards that we noticed, was an additional sticker on my card. While that shouldn't make a difference, my friend suggested that maybe the parts covered by it are overheating making the card underperform. Doesn't sound likely, though I'm no expert. It's marked here. I didn't want to take it off, as I don't want to void my warranty or anything, so I'll just e-mail the shop the additional info (they have yet to respond to my previous one).

 

[3ssence]

You're right not to remove anything mate. By the sounds of it your card is faulty. If it is a genuine 6800GS then it should most definitely be scoring around the level that your friend is getting with his card. Your rig is obviously fine, so you should be receiving a similiar level of performance. Personally, i would return the card and ask for a replacement.