i need help with my video card :( - 3DMARK scores posted. I need suggestions

[jEnkinsX]

ok my friend just built a new system (soulhavoc - he was selling an x800pro for $100!!!) anyways, he bought a 3700+ SD and a BFG 7900GTX. now, of course his system is hella faster than mine. i wanted to do the volt-mod but right now.. im running whatever speeds it came with.. and it freezes in 3Dmark03 :( i dont really want to try 05 and 06 since they are more intense than 03 right? Any suggestions? i reinstalled drivers nothing still. faulty card? RMA? should i RMA it or try buyng a VF900CU and see if that helps? or RMA first? suggestions? anyone have the same problem?


weird thing, i ran 06 then 05 and 03 RAN fine.. no crashing :) weird

i got :
[ AMD 64 3200+ 2.0Ghz | 7900GT 520/1500 | 2x1G OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 ]
06 - 4107
05 - 8334
03 - 17570

he got:
[ AMD 64 3700+ 2.2Ghz | 7900GTX 670/1640 | 2x512MB Corsair ]
06 - 5025
05 - 9947
03 - 21240

u guys have any ideas how i can try to get close to his score?
besides VOLT-MODDING i know if he doesnt OC.. i might make him cry when i volt mod it + OC it :D and a new CPU perhaps? any suggestions? im running stock coolers right now

[goofball]

What power supply do they have?

Strange as this sounds but you shouldn't downclock the card, as that actually voids the warranty on the card.

Does it freeze only in 3DMark? Or does it freeze in real games as well?

[Silver Bullet]

Does it just freeze in 3Dmark 03 .. or in everything (games). Because if it's just 3Dmark i won't worry about it that much, maybe also try something newer like '06 ..

[duckdown]

Monitor Temperatures, try swapping ram modules and using only one at a time.. thats a start

[Silver Bullet]

There's really no way to catch him .. unless you go buy a 7900GTX. The speed difference is just to big. Even if you OC, he can just OC a little bit and still beat you. Wait it out for C2D and DX10 cards .. then you can show him :)

[champ91]

what version of the card do you have?
first of all, the first batch of 7900gt's have problems with them. there was a massive recall by evga, dunno about bfg or xfx though.

my 7900gt is at 650/1600 and scores 5016 on 3Dmark06. so you can catch up to your friend

but before you consider that. check what version card you have. the new version cards for evga have some extra widgets on the back near the vmod area and also, they changed the voltage to the gpu vcore. it's 1.2v in 2D and 1.45v in 3D mode. that is why I was able to oc so much without doing any vmods.

now you can also vmod it easily with a conductive pen to 1.55v. and if you know how to solder you can do it up to 1.7v

650/1600 for 7900gt is the same as the evga 7900gtx egs speeds, the difference is that the 7900gtx egs has 512mb.

but if your card has problems, get that fixed first before you consider overclocking it. but it is possible to catch up to gtx speeds because I think they use the same chip

[champ91]

even with a volt-mod? C2D? whats that? if i want to upgrade to DX10.. do i need to change my whole system? or just my gfx card?

i think C2D means Core 2 Duo.

You can wait for DX10 cards but I think it may be too expensive initally.

[champ91]

it's actually on the back of the card.

overclocking your card depends on what card you have. Your card is actually already factory overclocked. actual stock is 450/1320 i think.

see what batch you have first then you can see how to overclock. but first thing first you should buy a vf-900. vf-700 won't do.

[champ91]

OLD BATCH:

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/8447/7900gtunmodified9hk.jpg


NEW BATCH:



http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/1182/7900gtmodified5nx.jpg

[champ91]

I think before you do the vmod, is your card problem free? if you think it is then do the vmod.

there are several voltages you can do with a vmod. you have probably seen the pictures for different voltage mods. so just use a conductive pen to do it. but make sure you have proper cooling. stock hsf will not do b/c when you up the voltage there will be more heat.

once you up the voltage you can significantly up your clock speed for the core (how high it goes depends on how much voltage you put in it and whether your card is capable of it).

from. 1.45v, i got 650 stable on the clock. so if you do 1.55v you could probably hit about 700.

Always use a multimeter to measure the voltage though.

and if you want to do a memory mod you can do that by using a pencil and shading a resistor, but I have heard it has a high significant level of risk so I backed out of that.

if you have other questions, just post it there, and i'll try to answer you.

[gostinger]

If your games are running smooth which I believe they are with that setup...plenty of ram and mid range card.....I wouldn't worry....trying to keep up with technology can be a costly venture.


My Rig
P4 3.0 Ghz
2 Gig Ram
XP64
Sapphire X800 GTO2

All stock no OC
BF2 and All HL2 games smooth as silk

[kawaii gocchin]

Make SURE you have your driver settings on HIGH PERFORMANCE as they default to Quality. If score is what you want you can easily use LOD tweaks to gain hundreds of points. It would help a bit if you OCed your gpu more but your cpu is bottlenecked at that speed. What kind of ram speed are you getting, the faster and tighter the ram the more points you'll get. Other things you can do is run your benches in Realtime mode, and disable all unecessary services. Lots of tweaks add up to little gains but little gains add up to bigger final scores...

Edit: one other thing you could do is go CONROE... ;)

My conroe scores below:

http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/42284.png
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/22086.png
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/12531.png
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/71934.png
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/217.jpg

[jEnkinsX]

kawaii u got PM :D

[champ91]

how'd u get a conroe already? I thought it wans't out yet....