battle of the computers

[Brian Frank 0]

Just to clarify what Im benchmarking with: 3dMark 2000 NOT 2001.

 

And the answer--overclocking and some tweaks.

There's some good ones in X-teq X-Setup.

A lot of it has to do with things being cached. And that helps big time, some more than others. Also, there's probably a ton of crap that goes on startup, and X-Setup can clear those buggers away. I might be able to get higher, but I refuse to disable my firewall and completely shutdown my antivirus, though I do disable that for the time being.

I benchmark right after a restart when resources havent been used hardly.

 

There a little registry tweak with Max Cached Icons.

 

In the registry go to HKey_Local_Machine--Software--Microsoft--Windows--Current Version--Explorer. Only in the Explorer folder, though, not one below it. And add the registry string Max Cached Icons just like I put it with the spaces. Then modify it by right clicking and hit Modify, and set the value to 8000. I, in my quest for more power have 95000, but Im not sure how much thats really doing stuff for me.

 

I dont really know the reason having stuff cached speeds things up, but I just know regardless the reason, it works very well.

 

Also, memory bandwith plays a BIG part in the grand scheme of things. With my ram at 100MHz in bios I could overclock the FSB up to 113MHz, only limited by the KT133 chipset, and have no stability issues. I have my ram now running at the 133MHz and my FSB at 107MHz. When I had my ram at 100MHz, no problems going to 113MHz FSB, but when I went to 133MHz ram, the ram wouldnt overclock too much so I guess its running at 140MHz, and 256MBs of it are some generic ram too. Anyway, my 3dmark scores jumped considerably due to bandwith. Thats why the 1.2GHz T-birds with the 12x100 mulitplier are beaten out by the 1.2 GHz T-Birds at the 9x133 multiplier. Its all because of bandwith. And that is the best thing Ive found to work.

[INFERNO2000 0]

I don't have it yet...but...here's my new stuff:

 

Adaptec 29160 SCSI 3 adapter

2(+?) Ultra 160 SCSI Drives...18 GB, 10k or 15k RPM...

 

? Ultra 2 scsi drives ?????rpm gb

 

Plextor 12x10x32s SCSI CDRW.

 

Of course, I'm selling my rig to pay for it, but oh well

[EddiE314 0]

that Plextor is a damned good cdrw, i got the EIDE version and i have never had a problem with it.

[EddiE314 0]

Updated System Specs and 3DMarks. Due to the hard drive being my system's bottleneck, 3DMark 2000 and 2001 scores are low.

---

MotherBoard - Abit VH6 Socket 370 (1 AMR, 1 AGP, 5 PCI, 1 ISA)

Fan/Cooling - (CPU) Alpha PEP66T Heatsink with 38cfm Fan (12vDC)

Processor(s) - Intel Pentium III 667@750MHz (150MHz*5)

Hard Drive - Seagate U Series 30.6GB 5400rpm IDE (Primary Master)

Memory - 256MB Total. Two Sticks 128MB, SDRAM PC133 CAS2 168pin DIMM

Video Card - Hercules 3D Prophet II MX 32MB AGP o/c'ed (Core-210mhz, ram-220mhz)

Modem - Phoebe Micro 56K V.90 PCI

Sound Card - VIA Audio (OnBoard)

MPEG Decoder - Sigma Designs REALMagic Hollywood Plus! PCI

Ethernet Adapter - RealTek 8029(AS) 10BaseT Ethernet Adapter

Removeable Storage - Mitsumi 3.5" Floppy Drive

DVD-ROM - Pioneer DVD-115 16x DVD ROM Drive IDE (Secondary Master)

CD-RW - Plextor Plexwriter 12x/10x/32x CD-RW Drive IDE (Secondary Slave)

Extra Fan - Intake Fan (22cfm) Modded into side of case.

Operating System - Windows 2000 Professional 5.00.2195.1;SP1

---

Standard Benchmarks!

3dMark2000 - 4291

3dMark2001 - 3026

[Brian Frank 0]

Had to drop my ram from 211 to 210, unfortunately. You sure its your hard drive there, eddie, cuz ive got a 5400 rpm drive too and I score in the 5500~5600's with my oc and tweaks. Maxtor drives are pretty fast in the 5400rpm range, according to this one pcworld article I saw. Of course that is one article, but it did put the Seagate drives as some of the slowest.

Wow, I mustve done some serious tweaking to get this good of a score with what Ive got.

 

I'd love to OC my P3 667 on my Tyan Trinity, but I dont think that board was ever intended for OCing.

 

So, pimpin, hows your scores doin there?

[Brian Frank 0]

Ahh, my 3dmark2001 score: 2970.

[three 0]

Went and bought a Leadtek Geforce 2 MX card and thought I'd post my 3D Mark Scores as well:

 

Athlon TBird 800@800

AOpen AK73 Pro

256MB (128 pc100 + 128 pc133)

Maxtor 7200 UDMA ATA100 15Gig

Leadtek Winfast Geforce 2 MX SH Pro 32MB 5ns Memory (220 core / 210 memory)

Detonator 6.66

 

3DMark 2000

===========

1024*768 16Bit 5334

1024*768 32Bit 3955

 

3DMark 2001

===========

1024*768 16Bit 2439

1024*768 32Bit 2204

 

eddie: strange how your are getting low scores in 2000 while getting pretty good score in 2001

[Brian Frank 0]

Damn! I must have really tweaked my system out! 8)

[pimpin_228 0]

Well am i glad that everyone isgettin their systems tweaked and runnin good now how could i tweak my system for i higher 3d mark score and i mean anytweaks at all will help

[Brian Frank 0]

Well, I assume you're gonna overclock, and here's the best advice I can give you. Do it by both the mulitplier and the FSB.

It helps a lot if you have PC133 SDRAM for this to work.

 

You should be able to get a 200 MHz jump with a Duron or Athlon.

 

Here's the way I have my Duron 800 set up to 1016MHz.

The mulitplier is 9.5 and the FSB is 107, but Im willing to bet its because of the memory not being able to be pushed that high.

Also, this plays a major part in my overclocking, I have the ram set to 133MHz in BIOS. Keep in mind that you may not be able to do everything I am with the Abit board youve got. I know this worked for me.

Bandwith is everything if you want a hell of a machine, pimpin, thats the biggest part of my speed right there.

 

Also, there's this little program called Reg Compact, and its basically a compresser/defragger for the registry. It makes it smaller, and if the registry is all together, your system will run better.

I believe I got it from www.pcworld.com under the dowloads section.

 

Of course, overclocking your video card does help. Just pay attention to artifacts, which may look like snow, if the memory starts getting clocked too high. Most GeForce 2 MX cards should be able to hit 220MHz on the core and 210 MHz on the ram w/o a problem. I suggest the Hercules Prophet 2 MX, dont go with the GF2MX 400 card though, as it only gives an insignificant boost over the regular MX and is at $150 while the plain old MX is about $100.

 

Keep your hard drive defragged.

 

Your virtual memory should be set between 1.5x RAM to 2x RAM. However, this is debatable, so some people might not agree with it. Its one of those things that you should go with what works for you.

 

I have my hard drive partitioned and have a separate 1GB partition set off for my virtual memory.

 

Also, grap Xteq Xsetup, as there's a ton of tweaks to be had in there.

[Brian Frank 0]

Heres the link to RegCompact.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/resource/redir/redirtoken.asp?tk=HS-041301X7718

 

Enjoy.

[pimpin_228 0]

Brian thanks for the info you helped alot man

[Brian Frank 0]

No problem. I do have some bios tweaks, but I dont know if they would be there for you.

 

Try some bios settings and see what they do for you as something that might work for me may not be the best for you.

 

Oh, yeah, the 12.00 Dets are out, and they're a tad faster.

[pimpin_228 0]

where can i get them drivers at

[Brian Frank 0]

http://www.the-ctrl-alt-del.com/

 

They seem to have the latest drivers for video cards. Be aware, these are in beta form, but I havent had problems.

[kwei 0]

Usually when i see "post your systems" threads I just look through them to see what everyones got going, I think they are a little silly: ) But I was about to do this today anyways in an excell spreadsheet so ill just do it in here too since the hard part is remembering what is in each system. Let the fun begin:

 

Maximus (main system used for quake 3 only)

MOBO: MSI K7T Turbo-R

PROC: AMD Thunderbird 1.33 Ghz

HEATSINK: Swiftech MC462-A

RAM: Generic PC133 (768 MEGS)

VIDEO CARD: MSI Starforce 815 (geforce GTS)

SOUND CARD: Soundblaster Live Platinum

HD: Quantum Atlas 10k II 18.2 GB SCSI (two)

CD/CDR/DVD: Creative 12X DVD

NIC(S): SMC EZ10/100

CASE: 3DCOOL Tornado 1000

MOUSE: Logitech Wingman Gaming Mouse

KB: Microsoft Internet KB

MONITOR: Cybervision 19"

OTHER

SCSI CONTROLLER: Adaptec 29160N

SPEAKERS: Cambridege Soundworks DTT3500

 

Cleopatra (secondary system for messin round)

MOBO: MSI K7T Pro2A

PROC: AMD Duron 700 Mhz (RMAing a 1.2 tbird)

HEATSINK: Kaine Hedgehog

RAM: Kingmax TinyBGA PC133 (256 MEGS)

VIDEO CARD: ASUS v6800 Pure (geforce DDR)

SOUND CARD: Soundblaster Live Value

HD: Maxtor 10 GB

CD/CDR/DVD: Kenwood TrueX 72X

Generic 4X burner

NIC(S): SMC EZ10/100

CASE: INWIN (watever cant remeber name: )

MOUSE: Intellimouse Explorer

KB: Generic KB

MONITOR: 17" Generic (Cant remember name)

OTHER

WEBCAM: Logitech Webcam Pro

 

Sparticus (server)

MOBO: MSI 6309

PROC: Intel PIII 600E

HEATSINK: Golden ORB

RAM: Generic PC100 (128 MEGS)

VIDEO CARD: Matrox G200

SOUND CARD: NONE

HD: Maxtor 7.2 GB

CD/CDR/DVD: Generic 36X

NIC(S): SMC EZ10/100 (two)

CASE: Antec (cant rember model)

MOUSE: Intellimouse Pro

KB: Gateway2000 KB

MONITOR: NONE

 

these things are all very loud, the room they are in sounds like someone is vaccuming constantly. hope you are entertained: )

[Brian Frank 0]

Yeah, with all the fans I got in my Duron system, its loud. Im glad I dont leave that sucker open.

 

Im also painting my case, for the fact that I can make it look cool.

[EddiE314 0]

yea, 2001 gets ok scores, while 2000 get sh1ttier ones, i dunno what the prob is man

[pimpin_228 0]

But does anyone know where i can get 3dmark 2001 cause i want to see if it gives me better scores, but eddie do you think we can tweak my computer a little i got that register compact but do you all think is there any tweaks in the winnt folder and any other folders?

[Brian Frank 0]

For 3dmark2000/2001 go to http://www.madonion.com they created it.

As for the WINNT folder, I'd shy away from that one, mainly because that contains most of Win2k, and theres the major possiblility that you could screw something up if you're not careful.

 

Ahh, finally got some good heatsink compound--AMD approved too. Something by MicroSi, I really dont care what it is, but it works really good. Definitely good stuff.

 

Got X-Setup yet, pimpin, very good tweaks in there to optimize and suck out the most from your system.

[pimpin_228 0]

i am in the process of download 3d mark 2001

right now but i figured there was something in the winnt folder thai could that would be like the startup and stuuf like that but thank you for the info

[Brian Frank 0]

Your thinkin of the Registry, pimpin. I dont go there too much, just because like the WINNT file, you can screw your pc up. There are somethings as far as autorun features for startup that can be safely removed, however, using a tweaking utility, you can do that w/o risk and having to remember which registry key its under and then all the subkeys.

See what you get with both 3dmark 2000 and 2001. If you can hit pretty close to 3000 on 2001, you're doing very good.

On 2000, you should get close to 4600 w/o a problem, just get DX8 though, because 2001 needs it and 2000 will run better with it.

[harlock 0]

heres my ssystem specs not the biggest or baddest but runs unreal @ 54 fps @1024x780 with 32 bit color. good enough for now until i get money to buld a new one.

 

msi 6195 mainboard

amd athlon 600@663 stock heatsink and fan

352megs of pc 133

gainward tnt2 m64 32 meg @135 core 130 memory

26gig quantum fireball ict 08

52x cdrom and 8x dvd

holywood + decoder card

soundblaster live x-gamer

linksys 10/100 ethernet

3 extra sunon cooling fans

altec lansing ac54 4.1

gemstar 1770df 17inch monitor

toshiba pcx1100 cable modem

canon canoscan fb620u scanner

epson 480sxu printer

and way too many usb devices lol

im wating for amd to release their dual proc chipset to build again so i can try my hand at that since i've never built a dual proc system.hopefully serial ata will also be out by then also.

et in arcadia ego.

[Brian Frank 0]

Thats not too bad considering what you've got. It amazing how "older" video cards like that and the Voodoo 3 series are still capable of running many games and a decent pace. I love my Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, that was my first real video card. That was when it was the card to have.

Yeah, Ive tweaked out and overclocked my system, and its just with a $100 Duron 800 and a $100 GeForce 2 MX. Never underestimate the cheap hardware, as its the biggest bang for the buck.

Its the knowledge that makes a 1GHz pc knock your socks off. Sure you can get the latest and greatest, but if you dont know how to unleash the power, you just blew some cash.

[Brian Frank 0]

Oh, yeah, baby!! Got my case all painted.

I'll post some pics once I take them.