6800 Underperforming in 3DMark

[Franz316]

Hey guys, I just got a 6800 and unlocked it to 16 pipelines and 6 shaders. I went to run 3dmark03 and 05 expecting to see a pretty big improvement over my old 9800 Pro. To my surprise this new card trudged through every test. I ended up getting only a 1418 in 3dmark 05 and a 7874 in 3mark03. From what I've seen these are quite a bit below what I should be getting. Here are my system specs:

P4 2.8c @ 3.2
Abit IC7
1gb Corsair 3200
Apollo 6800 unlocked
2 100gb Western digital HDs
SB Audigy 2
Antec Truepower 430w

Aside from 3D mark most games seem to be running better than with the 9800Pro. I know thats what matters more but I really would like to know why my card is underperforming so much in these tests. All drivers are up to date and have been reinstalled many times with Drivercleaner used.

I'm strongly considering sending it back for a 6800GS right now.

Thanks
-Franz

 

[sisq0kidd]

What resolution and settings are you running for 3dmark?

 

[Franz316]

The base test with the free version, I haven't changed any of them.

 

[CKXP]

what about your settings in the NV control panel? aa/af off, high performance, Vsync off...etc

 

[Franz316]

Yeah I made sure all that stuff was off, I've also tried with the pipelines locked and with them unlocked and there is no noticable improvement.

 

[smthmlk]

1418 in 3dmark05? Something is seriously awry. I used to get in the 3000's in 05 with a 6800NU. With 16/6, you should be hitting in the upper 4000 range, possibly breaking the 5000 mark.

Have you completely uninstalled the old ATI drivers? Something is very, very wrong with your 3dmark05 score.

 

[CKXP]

i'm taking a guess, is the 6800nu that you purchased. a friend bought the same card, but it came unlocked, but OC'd like crap, i think his memory was underclocked too.

your scores are definetly low, i was able to score 5000 on 3Dmark05 with my 6800nu that was unlocked. you used driver cleaner, and your NV settings are set for high performance, so i see no reason why you shouldn't be scoring higher.....i'm baffled at this point the only other thing i can think of is defragging your HD

btw; forgive me if i'm wrong, but did you plug in the molex connector into the back of your card

edit: forget anything i said about the molex connector

 

[Slitherythesnake]

Could your card be throttling down due to high temps? Do you have adequate cooling in your case? What are your temps?

 

[Franz316]

I'm as baffled as you guys are, trust me.

My temps are:
GPU- around 41c no load, then after a 3dmark run around 55c
The ambient is around 30c-40c

So temperatures look ok to me, I'm so confused.

A side note though, the 3dmark profiles say that my gpu core clock is 10mhz, yes you read that right. But when I go to compare with other 6800 users they also have core clocks really low like that. So I assume that its a just a bug in the program and the cards are actually running at normal speeds. Only thing is their scores are much higher than mine.

Edit: Yeah the molex connected

 

[CKXP]

you might have a bad card, what are you clocks set at right now?

 

[Franz316]

Just the stock speeds right now, 325/700.

I'm gonna head to bed, probably going to send this thing back and get a GS.

 

[rmed64]

What did you get in the bench before you unlocked the pipes? Maybe it couldnt handle the unlocked pipes very well and its messing up your performance?

Anyway, send it back and get a 6800 "Golden Sample"
You wont be dissapointed

 

[RossCorp]

Franz316, i highly recommend sending that card back and getting a 6800 GS. I just got the BFG 6800gs oc and it unlocked and overclocked like mad. With unlocked core @ 440/1220 i got 5874 in 3dmark05 and @ 430/1202 i got 13,545 in 3dmark03.

Even at default settings with 12 pipes/5 vertex shaders i got 4511 in 3dmark05 and 10720 in 3dmark03.

Definetly go for the GS if you can still exchange or refund NU.

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

What are your agp settings at? Did you turn off Fastwrites?

 

[PrinterPaper]

I have the same problem as the original poster but with the BFG 6800GS OC. I was running Q4 before in 640X480 on low quality, and now I can do the same with a bit more frames. Very frustrating, I can't figure out what to do.

 

[DidlySquat]

why get a 6800 ?!?!? this card has been a bad choice from the start (DDR1, 128M what a joke) - even the 6600GT outperforms it in real world situations (medium settings) because of its much higher clock.

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
why get a 6800 ?!?!? this card has been a bad choice from the start (DDR1, 128M what a joke) - even the 6600GT outperforms it in real world situations (medium settings) because of its much higher clock.

You obviously haven't done your homework. 6800 is a great card especially if you're able to open the pipes and shader. 6800 hands down is better than the 6600gt.

 

[Wall7486]

On my northwood intel 2.8 my 6800ultra gets about 9000-9500 in 3dmark03. I think his scores are pretty reasonable. I would think the CPU could be bottlenecking it. Then again back then I made a mistake for not realizing my mobo was AGP 4x, and I went with an ultra since i got a good deal 2 years ago. I would think that the performance gap between 4x and 8x is negligible, after taking a look at tomshardware.

 

[CKXP]

Originally posted by: Wall7486
On my northwood intel 2.8 my 6800ultra gets about 9000-9500 in 3dmark03. I think his scores are pretty reasonable. I would think the CPU could be bottlenecking it.

his cpu is not bottlenecking his performance by that much, considering i got 5000 on 05, and 11500 on 03 with a unlocked 6800nu will an athlon xp-m 2600@2.5ghz....besides this thread is old and i think the OP already replaced the 6800nu with a 6800gs

 

[NuKe9]

I've had this happen before. Uninstall your drivers, reboot and then use driver cleaner to clean up any driver fragments. Reboot again and reinstall the latest drivers. Worked for me on my 6600gt. Was getting worse scores than my Ti440.

Good Luck!

 

[Astonm]

MY 6800GS PCIe just got 5990 in 05(OC)

 

[apoppin]

the OP is gone

no doubt enjoying his GS


anyway, whenever something really weird happens - perhaps some MB drivers get uninstalled or OS files get corrupted - and you don't want to reinstall your entire OS

set up a separate partition with nothing extra [no apps/antivirus] - just the updated OS, the videocard and other necessary latest drivers including DX9c and the MB's . . . . then test 3DMarks to see if it HW or not.

 

[foghorn67]

good idea there. I keep a spare HD for this, just a small 20-30gb in healthy condition...I use to quickly load an os on there, and like what you said, the essentials, drivers, directx, etc.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: CKXP
i'm taking a guess, is the 6800nu that you purchased. a friend bought the same card, but it came unlocked, but OC'd like crap, i think his memory was underclocked too.

your scores are definetly low, i was able to score 5000 on 3Dmark05 with my 6800nu that was unlocked. you used driver cleaner, and your NV settings are set for high performance, so i see no reason why you shouldn't be scoring higher.....i'm baffled at this point the only other thing i can think of is defragging your HD

btw; forgive me if i'm wrong, but did you plug in the molex connector into the back of your card

edit: forget anything i said about the molex connector

Interestingly enough, My leadtek AGP 6800nu came to me from newegg already unlocked, and it also clocks like crap, no more than about 350Mhz on the core w/o artifacts. It also show up as an 11.3Mhz clock speed in 3dmark 05, though rivatuner reads it correctly. The box appeared sealed so I don't think it was a return. Do you have any other info about these pre-unlocked cards?