# Kinc Pushes 2900 XT CrossFire to a New 3DMark 05 World Record



## malware (Jun 24, 2007)

Another achievement by Marcus 'Kinc' Hultin who has now set a new 3DMark 05 world record with pair of ASUS Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics cards. With the cards overclocked to 880/990MHz core/mem (air-cooled) and an Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 at 5341MHz, 2x1GB Corsair 6400C3 and an ASUS P5W64 WS Pro, Kinc managed to reach 34,126 points in 3DMark 05.


> We're still far from the peak of the cards' performance though. I would certainly bet a penny or two that we will see 35,000 soon.







*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


----------



## Dippyskoodlez (Jun 24, 2007)

Dang.

One fast CPU.

Two fast GPU's.

I wish I had some LN2.


----------



## dsdsdk (Jun 24, 2007)

those x2900 are kicking in 3dm05!


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Jun 24, 2007)

LMAO 5.3Ghz on that C2D. F**king crazy O/C


----------



## hat (Jun 24, 2007)

Where does this man get all his money? Is he a former president?


----------



## Agility (Jun 24, 2007)

He's a reviewer i think. The parts are sponsored from various companies to let him test and review?


----------



## Dippyskoodlez (Jun 24, 2007)

Agility said:


> He's a reviewer i think. The parts are sponsored from various companies to let him test and review?



If you keep it after review, you can't sell it..

so you push it.


----------



## Agility (Jun 24, 2007)

and break it


----------



## hat (Jun 24, 2007)

ATTENTION!! I am now a reviewer. I'll need crossfire 2900XT 1GB DDR4, 8GB DDR2-1250, 2 150GB RAPTOR in RAID0, and a Core 2 Extreme QX6800 cooled by liquid nitrogen and that new Ultra 1600W psu. Oh and also a kickass overclocking board. And the north bridge and south bridge cooler by liquid nitro too. Get some phase change on those 2900's!!

Or better yet, rip the reatsinks off everything and just dunk it in a tank of liquid nitrogen


----------



## Dippyskoodlez (Jun 24, 2007)

Agility said:


> and break it



Not always.

LN2 doesn't mean insta death.

Inexperience and stupid moves kill hardware.

I've run 2.3v through an AXP.

It still runs perfectly fine to this day.


----------



## Conti027 (Jun 24, 2007)

cool


----------



## Demos_sav (Jun 24, 2007)

He beat the previous world record by almost 400 points.
Great job with the stock cooler.
When aftermarket ones hit the market I beleive he will manage crazy scores


----------



## KennyT772 (Jun 25, 2007)

ive seen 2900xt's at 1.2ghz core and 2.2ghz memory...imagine 2 of those with that cpu...


----------



## Alcpone (Jun 25, 2007)

Why use DDR 800? unless it clocks like buggery?


----------



## yogurt_21 (Jun 25, 2007)

yeah thats pretty dang sweet considering the low clock of the cards. we'll see if 40k is possible with ln2


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 25, 2007)

Imagine a Quad Core at 5400mhz each core, 4gb Ram , 4 8800 Ultras in Quad SLI....Wouldnt that make about 50.000 points in 3dmark05 ?


----------



## HookeyStreet (Jun 25, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Imagine a Quad Core at 5400mhz each core, 4gb Ram , 4 8800 Ultras in Quad SLI....Wouldnt that make about 50.000 points in 3dmark05 ?



Sometimes, less is more


----------



## infrared (Jun 25, 2007)

Alcpone said:


> Why use DDR 800? unless it clocks like buggery?



Because the motherboard uses the i975 chipset, so he's limited to 445mhz, which most 6400 kits will happily reach. 

890mhz 1:1 with CL4 timings on a 975 chipset = awesome performance! I had my memory set up in a similar configuration, and i was hitting 10,500mb/s in Everest Read, and the latency was down to 44ns!


----------



## WarEagleAU (Jun 25, 2007)

Sweet. I cant wait for the XTX models to come out.


----------



## unsmart (Jun 25, 2007)

Way aren't they using the LN2[ or even water] on the 2900xt's do they not respond well to negative temps, I know some chips don't. Probably being that close to CPU keeps it chilled though.


----------



## OneCool (Jun 25, 2007)

Now let me OC my crossfire setup please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

STOP HOLDING THE LITTLE MAN DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :shadedshu


----------



## Steevo (Jun 25, 2007)

Crossfire is a bitch to make a custom LN setup for? 


But still, why show all your cards when only two will win the game?


----------



## tvdang7 (Jun 25, 2007)

i thought they couldnt overclock with the 2 cards in crossfire . i rememeber i read that some where. i wonder how is he overclocking his cards?


----------



## hat (Jun 25, 2007)

I would imagine if you flash the BIOS's of both cards one by one... overclock!


----------



## Kasparz (Jun 25, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Imagine a Quad Core at 5400mhz each core, 4gb Ram , 4 8800 Ultras in Quad SLI....Wouldnt that make about 50.000 points in 3dmark05 ?


Quad core doesn't benefit in 05. 4GB is useless. 4x8800Ultra's doesn't give you any improvement over 2xUltras.


----------



## Kasparz (Jun 25, 2007)

tvdang7 said:


> i thought they couldnt overclock with the 2 cards in crossfire . i rememeber i read that some where. i wonder how is he overclocking his cards?


He is flashing BIOS with overclocked speeds.



unsmart said:


> Way aren't they using the LN2[ or even water] on the 2900xt's do they not respond well to negative temps, I know some chips don't. Probably being that close to CPU keeps it chilled though.


Its pretty hard to flash BIOS when you're running on LN2 or DI, because you need to flash back BIOS after you're running out of LN2/DI. With one card you can overclock via AMD tool or Ati tool on fly, but crossfire needs bios flashing on both cards. They do not have coldbug, Kinc tested HD2900XT at -90c, and there was no signs of coldbug. Once again, that was single card, not crossfire.


----------



## tkpenalty (Jun 25, 2007)

hat said:


> Where does this man get all his money? Is he a former president?



PCs compared to cars are nothing... one proper turbo = this system's worth...

The guy is STILL complaining about the drivers after he smashed the record..


----------



## Kasparz (Jun 25, 2007)

tkpenalty said:


> PCs compared to cars are nothing... one proper turbo = this system's worth...
> 
> The guy is STILL complaining about the drivers after he smashed the record..


Cars are nothing compared to flat and house prices in Latvia. Afaik, its highest in all EU countries. I wish i was born in USA.


----------



## Casheti (Jun 25, 2007)

Once again, ATi pwns everyone.. 

And that's how it should be!


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Jun 25, 2007)

Oh man, I just drooled all over my new kb....  

That is wicked.


----------



## hat (Jun 25, 2007)

Too bad we ALL can't afford $10,000 setups cooled with liquid nitrogen.


----------



## Nitrogliserin (Jun 25, 2007)

its 1024x768
desnt even support my lcd that res anymore

would like to see 1680 and 1920 performance


----------



## Mussels (Jun 25, 2007)

Nitrogliserin said:


> its 1024x768
> desnt even support my lcd that res anymore
> 
> would like to see 1680 and 1920 performance



Because thats the default res of 3Dmark 05. O6 is at 1280x1024, and i assume 07/08 will use a higher res when it comes out.

Edit: no i dont think it will, according to the steam survey, its very obvious the majority of people have 1280x1024 as a max res (17/19" LCD) so thats where its going to stay for a while


----------



## regan1985 (Jun 25, 2007)

im thinking why 3d mark o5, i use it for benching coz i have a x850! they they are x2800, shouldnt they be breaking records in 3d mark  06 and some dx10 benchs?


----------



## demonbrawn (Jun 25, 2007)

I was just thinking the same thing


----------



## Kasparz (Jun 25, 2007)

regan1985 said:


> im thinking why 3d mark o5, i use it for benching coz i have a x850! they they are x2800, shouldnt they be breaking records in 3d mark  06 and some dx10 benchs?


Maybe you will be wondering, that 3dmark01 is more popular than 3dmark06, because 01 is really CPU independent, and you must tweak your system very hard to get good scores. 3dmark06 is boring.



Nitrogliserin said:


> its 1024x768
> desnt even support my lcd that res anymore
> 
> would like to see 1680 and 1920 performance


Seems that you wouldn't understand word "benchmarking" at all.


----------



## DBH (Jun 25, 2007)

How much would two 8800 Ultras etc in that spec probably score??


----------



## regan1985 (Jun 25, 2007)

demonbrawn

what kind of mark to you get in o5?


----------



## Alcpone (Jun 25, 2007)

demonbrawn said:


> I was just thinking the same thing



Do you want to add your '06 score to the thread in my sig?


----------



## Tatty_One (Jun 25, 2007)

I was wondering exactly the same, from what I have seen on other forums the 8800GTX let alone the Ultra single cards often beat the 2900XT's so would be really interested to see 2 Ultra's in that rig and how they would compare.


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 25, 2007)

Even the GTS beats the X2900XT  , the GTX beats it in 8 out of 10 tests and the Ultra beats it on every test by a large margin 
My guess is that its just another ATi trick to draw peoples attention......


----------



## infrared (Jun 25, 2007)

He's not going to have a problem getting parts now! AMD/ATI will probably send him anything he needs!


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 25, 2007)

Perhaps that was the deal all along


----------



## demonbrawn (Jun 25, 2007)

Would be nice indeed


----------



## Tatty_One (Jun 25, 2007)

I could even live with a 2900XT if it was free!


----------



## Kasparz (Jun 25, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Even the GTS beats the X2900XT


In your dreams - yes. In reality - no.


----------



## demonbrawn (Jun 25, 2007)

hahah but don't we all like our dreams.


----------



## Kasparz (Jun 25, 2007)

Tatty_One said:


> I was wondering exactly the same, from what I have seen on other forums the 8800GTX let alone the Ultra single cards often beat the 2900XT's so would be really interested to see 2 Ultra's in that rig and how they would compare.


And you think that Kinc doesn't have 8800Ultras? Let me laugh out load this time 
http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=144198
http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=2228475&postcount=144


----------



## Nitrogliserin (Jun 25, 2007)

Kasparz said:


> Seems that you wouldn't understand word "benchmarking" at all.



oh really?
I do understand this very well: "brain masturbation"
what would I do if I own 2005 3dmark world record?
whenever a new game out with 2005 graphics then people say it sux, its old gen.
now whats the point of still benchmarking it?

todays both high end cards are crawling in DX10 games such as call of juarez,lost planet
taking highest score in 3dmark 2005 isnt precious anymore (IMO (!)


----------



## Kasparz (Jun 25, 2007)

Racing cars can hit 250mph. Drag cars can hit 350mph. And you don't complain about that? Are you riding 350mph with your car on road? Overclocking is like car racing, just pick different tracks and try to reach finish as fast as you can. Nothing else matters. Serious benchmarkers never play any game, ever. Overclocking is kind of sport.


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 25, 2007)

Kasparz said:


> In your dreams - yes. In reality - no.



Look at the X2900XT threads , you will discover MANY benchmarks in which the GTS comes ontop


----------



## Nitrogliserin (Jun 25, 2007)

Kasparz said:


> Racing cars can hit 250mph. Drag cars can hit 350mph. And you don't complain about that? Are you riding 350mph with your car on road? Overclocking is like car racing, just pick different tracks and try to reach finish as fast as you can. Nothing else matters. Serious benchmarkers never play any game, ever. Overclocking is kind of sport.



I agree
overclocking is a obsession
but some people think if that card takes highest point from old benchmark program they think its a better card than other one. this cant be a proper result. thatswhy I give attention to latest benchmark programs. IMO ofcourse


----------



## infrared (Jun 25, 2007)

3dmark05 is more cpu/memory limited than 3dmark06. The same with 3dmark03 before that etc etc.

Think of them as separate benchmarks, and not as updates.


----------



## yogurt_21 (Jun 25, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Look at the X2900XT threads , you will discover MANY benchmarks in which the GTS comes ontop



not when oced and not on comperable rigs, just look at the 3dmark 06 compilation the hd2900xt is even beating the fastest single gtx rig.

seriously without having both you're simply speculating, others like me have seen both in action and no the gts doesn't beat it in most games, nor in many, rather a few that ati is having driver issues with atm.


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 25, 2007)

I had both yogurt and thats why you havent checked the other threads....
And i aint talking about 3dMARK but GAMES....Thats what im interested in not 3dMark...


----------



## yogurt_21 (Jun 25, 2007)

tried running the hd on a REAL psu? lol.

the things a total power hog meaning that when ocing, using a 620w isn't recomended for ideal performance.

and yeah some games just don't run that well on the hd right now, but come on it took a while for the 8800's to get to where they are now driver wise.


----------



## Tatty_One (Jun 25, 2007)

Kasparz said:


> Cars are nothing compared to flat and house prices in Latvia. Afaik, its highest in all EU countries. I wish i was born in USA.



Really?  I didnt realise that....higher than UK?


----------



## Tatty_One (Jun 26, 2007)

yogurt_21 said:


> not when oced and not on comperable rigs, just look at the 3dmark 06 compilation the hd2900xt is even beating the fastest single gtx rig.
> 
> seriously without having both you're simply speculating, others like me have seen both in action and no the gts doesn't beat it in most games, nor in many, rather a few that ati is having driver issues with atm.



Your right there but even the person who this thread is about could beat all of those scores, look at the top ten single card results and see what card is consistently there.  Again we keep having this discussion, these are DX10 cards, lets see how they compare with DX10 games, fact is in price terms the 2900XT sits closest to the 640MB 8800GTS, well certainly in the UK and from what I have seen the 2900XT wins it in around 65% of the benches I have seen and that is good enough for me.

But when you say look at the bench scores (2006) between the 2 cards in comparable systems then we should all look to the speed of the fastest 2900XT against the speeds of the 8800GTS's, the 2900 is in a rig doing 4.1Gig!

Thing is, I just got a 640MB 8800GTS for my Birthday last week and I paid less for it than the 320MB Version so I am happy, for me, £65 or $127 less than a 2900XT so I can live with the fact the 2900XT is faster than my card in some benches....bang 4 buck and all that.


----------



## yogurt_21 (Jun 26, 2007)

well in bang for you buck you're 1000% right the gts is the card as even though they're priced similarly the gts doesn't require an uber expensive psu to run it. so its not just that you found the gts on sale its that you found it on sale and didn't have to upgrade anything else.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 26, 2007)

Tatty_One said:


> these are DX10 cards, lets see how they compare with DX10 games



Can the 2900XT run any yet? They perform horribly in Company of heroes, artifact in Call of juarez and couldnt run lost planet (i think this ones fixed now tho)

So comparison wise, the GTX can do a lot more.

And no matter what you say, all those overclocking records are done with CPU's at massive clockspeeds - incredible cooling, either chilled water or LN2 is needed to reach those clocks - you CANT use those systems for gaming.


And to those who rant on about 3dmark 05 - i'm sorry, but its graphics couldnt be ran at 30FPS when it was released. 05 still brings most systems to its knees now, and its a good representation of modern games running at max graphics - 3dmark06 is more or less the same, only one resolution up and with HDR tests as well.


----------



## trt740 (Jun 26, 2007)

yogurt_21 said:


> not when oced and not on comperable rigs, just look at the 3dmark 06 compilation the hd2900xt is even beating the fastest single gtx rig.
> 
> seriously without having both you're simply speculating, others like me have seen both in action and no the gts doesn't beat it in most games, nor in many, rather a few that ati is having driver issues with atm.



I just beat that 2900xt with my 8800 gts 640 in the 3dmark06 bench and my cpu is running about 200 mghz slower than the cpu doing the 2900xts bench. There is also a 8800gtx with a cpu running around 300 mghz slower than the cpu testing the 2900xt in that bench and the 8800 gtx is beating it .

taken from Techpower up Alcapone's 3dmark06 list
ATI list
 1, lane - Sapphire HD2900XT @ 880/999 - 13335 - E6700 @ 4120Mhz - 412FSB

Nvidia list
2, ADV4NCED - BFG 8800GTXOC @ 641/980 - 12912 - E6600 @ 3775.1Mhz - 419.4FSB
3, cowie - eVGA 8800GTS @ 726/998 - 12428 - E6600 @ 3746Mhz - 416.2FSB


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 26, 2007)

Nevermind guys , some people still think that the X2900XT is what we all Had Expected it to be.......


----------



## Kasparz (Jun 26, 2007)

Tatty_One said:


> Really?  I didnt realise that....higher than UK?


MUCH higher. I really mean MUCH. For equal price you can buy 3room flat in new house, i can buy 1room flat in old one.




HellasVagabond said:


> Nevermind guys , some people still think that the X2900XT is what we all Had Expected it to be.......


http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1122/2/page_2_asus_hd_2900_xt_package/index.html
Check this review that was done with 7.5 catalyst.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1123/8
And now check this, and see that 7.6 catalyst improves performance even more.


----------



## trt740 (Jun 26, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Nevermind guys , some people still think that the X2900XT is what we all Had Expected it to be.......



Oh it's a good card and once the drivers get fixed it will be a great card . I should have said if or I hope since I truely like AMD.


----------



## Tatty_One (Jun 26, 2007)

Mussels said:


> Can the 2900XT run any yet? They perform horribly in Company of heroes, artifact in Call of juarez and couldnt run lost planet (i think this ones fixed now tho)
> 
> So comparison wise, the GTX can do a lot more.
> 
> ...




I think you will probably find that was mainly a driver issue, the drivers used if you read the same review I did were almost virgin, let's not have too short a memory regarding the driver issues NVidia had on release of the 8800 series and generally still now performance is improving with each new driver set, although I do seem to recall mant ATi supporters saying that ATi would never release a card with crap driver/software support?


----------



## Mussels (Jun 26, 2007)

Oh lets NOT forget the 8800 issues, they sucked. The X2900's arent all there yet, we dont have the full story - it seems they're a fast card, but need incredible amounts of power (electrical and CPU) to get their full potential out of them.


----------



## Nitrogliserin (Jun 26, 2007)

trt740 said:


> Oh it's a good card and once the drivers get fixed it will be a great card . I should have said if or I hope since I truely like AMD.



cats 7.6 is out and even a dx10 call of juarez patch is avaliable now
now lets see if we can truly see what r600 capable of.

I hoped too much from r600
it dissappointed me
I'm waiting r650-70 or g90
I dont want to play dx10 games with 20fps


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 26, 2007)

Its not what everyone expected and i think ALL of us agree on that.
Now as for the drivers, ATI delayed the card to correct driver errors for a month or two. The Drivers SHOULD had been optimised in that time. 
The 8800 GTX had Driver issues thus it wasnt that faster than the GTS series..The GTS series didnt have any significant driver issues.
The 8800 GTS wins over the X2900XT in some VERY POPULAR games, while the X2900XT wins over in FEAR , Oblivion , Prey and Half Life 2....2 out of 4 games where proved to be ATI optimised since the 1st day they launched.
The 8800GTX obliterates the X2900 in 8-9 out of 10 benchmarks...No word about the ULTRA which hasnt got a problem to score 10 out of 10 in the benchmarks.
These are facts gentlemen...Now we can wait for ATI to reach Version 8.0 of the Catalysts and see improvement but by then Nvidia will have rolled out their next GPU.

I too wish that the X2900XT was an 8800 killer, if so prices would drop and Nvidia would have already launched their new GPU....But because of ATIs failure Nvidia has the GTX / Ultra price SkyHigh and is waiting till late this year to launch their next card.


----------



## Tatty_One (Jun 26, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Its not what everyone expected and i think ALL of us agree on that.
> Now as for the drivers, ATI delayed the card to correct driver errors for a month or two. The Drivers SHOULD had been optimised in that time.
> The 8800 GTX had Driver issues thus it wasnt that faster than the GTS series..The GTS series didnt have any significant driver issues.
> The 8800 GTS wins over the X2900XT in some VERY POPULAR games, while the X2900XT wins over in FEAR , Oblivion , Prey and Half Life 2....2 out of 4 games where proved to be ATI optimised since the 1st day they launched.
> ...



Agreed but you have omitted one thing...the 8800GTS and the lot had immense driver/compatibility issues with Vista, and that after all is the DX10 platform so fairly significant i would say.


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 26, 2007)

I know about the vista incompatibilities but when the 8800 was first launched so did Vista so you cant really say it was incompatibilties on an rather Untested System.
On the other hand ATI launched the X2900XT 7 months after the Debut of Vista so it shouldnt have any problems, yet it does...


----------



## Wile E (Jun 26, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Now as for the drivers, ATI delayed the card to correct driver errors for a month or two. The Drivers SHOULD had been optimised in that time.


Again I step in to tell you that's it's absolutely impossible to fully optimize drivers without customer feedback. Neither ATI or nVidia have the ability to test on every possible hardware and software combination.


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 26, 2007)

Agreed but what kind of optimisation do you really think ATI can do in order to improve performance ? We aint talking about incompatibilities nor graphic glitches but performance.
Its a matter of time before ATI starts to drop the IQ in order to get some boost in FPS and already the X2900XT has problems regarding its IQ.


----------



## Wile E (Jun 26, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Agreed but what kind of optimisation do you really think ATI can do in order to improve performance ? We aint talking about incompatibilities nor graphic glitches but performance.


I dunno, what kind of improvements did 8800's see since release?


HellasVagabond said:


> Its a matter of time before ATI starts to drop the IQ in order to get some boost in FPS


I fully disagree there. I see nothing that would support that theory.


HellasVagabond said:


> and already the X2900XT has problems regarding its IQ.


I won't disagree there, as far as AA is concerned. 7.6 seems better to me tho. Could just be the placebo effect tho. I'll wait to see confirmation from others.


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 26, 2007)

Nvidia DIDNT delay the cards release....And we didnt see any great performance improvements in the GTS series...Like i said that was a GTX problem.
Well when a company releases a new product that cant compete with an older product of another company its bound to happen....Besides why do you think the IQ in the X2900XT has problems ? When they fix it entirely i think you will loose FPS rather than getting more...IF they fix it that is.....


----------



## Wile E (Jun 26, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Nvidia DIDNT delay the cards release....And we didnt see any great performance improvements in the GTS series...Like i said that was a GTX problem.
> Well when a company releases a new product that cant compete with an older product of another company its bound to happen....Besides why do you think the IQ in the X2900XT has problems ? When they fix it entirely i think you will loose FPS rather than getting more...IF they fix it that is.....


What does the delayed 2900 launch have anything to do with this? And the GTS did see improvements since launch. And the 2900 competes very well with it's intended target, even more with every driver revision (what, 2 total now? How many has nVidia had for the 8800s?).

I can't say why the 2900 has AA IQ problems, I don't know enough about the technical aspects of driver coding or hardware design to know for sure. Do you code drivers for, or design GPUs? What exactly qualifies you to say that it's hardware related, or improvements to it will lead to a loss in fps?


----------



## Xaser04 (Jun 26, 2007)

Nice benchmark scores there 

however I notice that Kingpin isn't on the 3Dmark05 leaderboard with his 8800Ultras (he in is third with SLI 8800GTX)

Should be an interesting time ahead.


----------



## yogurt_21 (Jun 26, 2007)

trt740 said:


> I just beat that 2900xt with my 8800 gts 640 in the 3dmark06 bench and my cpu is running about 200 mghz slower than the cpu doing the 2900xts bench. There is also a 8800gtx with a cpu running around 300 mghz slower than the cpu testing the 2900xt in that bench and the 8800 gtx is beating it .
> 
> taken from Techpower up Alcapone's 3dmark06 list
> ATI list
> ...



check it again your fastest run on amd with a gts was 11111 mine is 11025 and your cpu had a 250MHZ clock advantage which would easily make up the difference. and if you took your latest bench on your connie vs my latest you'll see that in the 2.0 tests the gts shines, but not in the 3.0 (or more recently releashed shader model) which shows a more future proof piece of hardware.


----------



## trt740 (Jun 26, 2007)

my old card was a 320 mb card did you factor that in. New ones  was a 640 mb god rest it's soul.


----------



## Wile E (Jun 27, 2007)

trt740 said:


> my old card was a 320 mb card did you factor that in.


Doesn't make a difference in 3dMark's default settings. It's optimized for 256MB VRam.


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 27, 2007)

Depends on the resolution , the optimisation is for most usual setting....


----------



## Wile E (Jun 27, 2007)

HellasVagabond said:


> Depends on the resolution , the optimisation is for most usual setting....


I know, that's why I said default.


----------



## Tatty_One (Jun 27, 2007)

Pointless really with synthetic benchmarks, if you want to get a more accurate synthetic reading both/all of you run Aquamark 3, ignore the CPU score and just quote the GPU score, that is just about the most GPU biased bench at the moment (of course the CPU plays a part in all benches but AM3 is probably the leaset CPU biased one out there at the moment), there is in fact an Aquamark 3thread here somwhere in any case.


----------



## trt740 (Jun 28, 2007)

Wile E said:


> Doesn't make a difference in 3dMark's default settings. It's optimized for 256MB VRam.



Well it does make a difference I've owned both a 8800gts 320 mb from Foxconn and a white box oem 8800gts 640mb and it made atleast 300 points difference in that bench mark. When both were clocked the same. Don't get me wrong the 2900xt is starting to shape up. Even if it was the fastest thing going there is the loud fan and heat. Still I'm impressed how hard AMD/ ATI are working out it's driver troubles. I saw a 2900xt on sale for 374.00 down from over 400.00 and almost bought it but it's out of my price range. If they could some how get that bad boy down near 339.00 with a rebate they might hook me, but then again it would be a toss up between a 8800 gts 640 mb because they are priced in that range now. Plus the 8800gts needs less power and the fan is better. However, you gotta love the shader potential of the 2900xt. The 2900xt 512 won't beat a gtx unless it is the ddr4 version and has a gig of ram. I wish It would because I really like ATI but I wouldn't bet on it. Who know maybe ATI will prove me wrong and then revise that fan too. They never could make a quiet fan LOL!!!! I have a x800 pro overclocked to a x800xt Wow! Wee! in my system now and that fans loud too. It is in there due to my 8800gt's sudden and un timely death.


----------



## Wile E (Jun 28, 2007)

trt740 said:


> Well it does make a difference I've owned both a 8800gts 320 mb from Foxconn and a white box oem 8800gts 640mb and it made atleast 300 points difference in that bench mark. When both were clocked the same. Don't get me wrong the 2900xt is starting to shape up. Even if it was the fastest thing going there is the loud fan and heat. Still I'm impressed how hard AMD/ ATI are working out it's driver troubles. I saw a 2900xt on sale for 374.00 down from over 400.00 and almost bought it but it's out of my price range. If they could some how get that bad boy down near 339.00 with a rebate they might hook me, but then again it would be a toss up between a 8800 gts 640 mb because they are priced in that range now. Plus the 8800gts needs less power and the fan is better. However, you gotta love the shader potential of the 2900xt. The 2900xt 512 won't beat a gtx unless it is the ddr4 version and has a gig of ram. I wish It would because I really like ATI but I wouldn't bet on it. Who know maybe ATI will prove me wrong and then revise that fan too. They never could make a quiet fan LOL!!!! I have a x800 pro overclocked to a x800xt Wow! Wee! in my system now and that fans loud too. It is in there due to my 8800gt's sudden and un timely death.


I agree about the fans, when you crank them, they are noisy. ATI has been bad about that for a while now, but mine never really reaches high speeds, so it remains fairly quiet. Still, watercooling is in my plans for this beast anyway. Eliminates the issue altogether. lol

For the 06 benchmarks, are you sure there wasn't other factors involved? Even futuremark themselves said 320 vs 640mb won't make a difference in 06 at default settings, with all else being equal, as it doesn't even use the full 320MB of the lower model.


----------



## HellasVagabond (Jun 28, 2007)

Well a bit of difference will always exist between 320 and 640 ram but not much...


----------



## Mussels (Jun 28, 2007)

its never more than 500 points, usually 1-200. I think its just due to the different ram, like how adding more ram into a desktop PC (assuming timings. the 1T/2T thing etc are all the same) yields a small performance boost.

They could have faster timings, quicker access cause the program fits in less ram modules, things like that.


----------



## Tatty_One (Jun 28, 2007)

The bottom line is that 2006 is not so much "otimised" for 256MB GDDR but it requires a "minimum" of 256MB to run.  Some of the graphics tests are quite GPU intensive and therefore will demand the full memory bandwidth and will want immediate access, I am willing to bet that at times during the GPU tests it will demand more than 256MB of on board memory even at 1280 x 1024 and that of course requires system RAM "swopping" which slows the process a little making slightly lower real time performance.

Now I couldnt find examples of what impact that could make on 3D Mark 2006 so here is a linkie to some tests run between a 256MB and 512MB card to determine the effect, if you look at Quake4 at 1280 x 1024.....no AA/AF (default 3D Mark 2006 settings) you will see a difference in FPS, what I dont know is the difference in shading/pixel processes between Quake4 and 2006 but as i said, in some of the 2006 tests there is some serious shader/physics going down.  In contrast though, in fear that has a completely different architecture there is no difference in speed at these resolutions but as far as fear is concerned it has pretty much a unique architecture.

I suppose what I am saying is that I would expect a little difference, probably as some have indicated, upto a max of 500 points, maybe less, what is clear in my mind though, even with current generation DX9 games that are extremely shader intensive, at resolutions of 16XX x 10XX and higher with everything maxed you could easily see a 25%+ increase in performance between 256 and 512MB.

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=33&page=4


----------

