[Mehdi]

Hey all,

I am fairly confused as to what is going on with my rig. Maybe I am simply overestimating the effects of SLI. First thing is first, I am running Vista 64 on 158.45 drivers, which are the ones that support the 8 series in SLI. Since buying my rig two weeks ago, I have run benchmarks after benchmarks in order to make it perform to its optimal stable levels.

At stock (CPU/GPU/RAM) my rig was able to push out roughly 9500 points in 3dMark06 in SLI mode. In non-SLI mode it would drop down to about 8500. This to me indicated that my CPU/RAM was bottlenecking the cards.

My next step was to overclock the CPU/RAM. I am now sitting on a 3.15ghz cpu and RAM running at 933mhz ([email protected]) - 3:4 frequency ratio. This made a huge improvement in benchmark scores. In SLI mode I am now getting 12000 points, however in non-SLI mode I am getting 11000 points. From the looks of it now I am thinking something is wrong with my SLI setup.

Should I only be seeing 1000 points difference? Whether in XP or Vista. Or should I be seeing higher gains then this? Please, if you have any benchmarks of your own, please share, ie: your non-SLI vs SLI benchmarks. Please indicate your OS as well =).

Note that both my PCIe buses are x16, I have the SLI Bridge securely attached to the two cards. Also, I have run the "SLI Visual Indicators" and they appear to be synched -- ie I see both bars growing in similar ratio under 3dMark06/Counter Strike Source.

My guesses based on this information, I think my problem may be:
1. I might be losing sleep over nothing
2. Vista/Nvidia's SLI drivers just aren't there yet
3. 3DMark06 doesn't bench the 8 series SLI setup very accurately
4. My CPU is still bottlenecking my setup

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[JoeUbi]

I'm 90% sure it's Vista causing your lack of sleep. If you can, I'd dual boot XP and run 3DMark in it. I guarantee that after seeing your score in XP you'll be very happy.

 

[Anth0789]

Yep tottaly agree with Joeubi...try it with Xp and you will see a difference for sure

 

[allanmonaghan]

yeah, my score is 9100 in 3d mark06 and im running a singl card and an x2...im running xp though...definatly vista. your machine should kick mine up and down points wise

 

[selfinfliction]

i'm running 9900 with a single 8800gts 640mb oc'd at 600/900 and vista. 3dmark06 wasn't made for vista lol

 

[Mehdi]

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/pr...jectId=2331651

Wow, I didn't realize that XP would give me that huge of a leap in 3dMark scores. I got 13453 with XP vs 12000 on Vista! I guess everything is working properly

I wonder how much higher I can go if I OC the video cards... and maybe open up the CPU a little more

 

[t4ct1c47]

I'b be interested in seeing you beat my score of 14387 in 3Dmark06 which was run in Vista x64. With regards to your low Vista score, I think your CPU and graphics cards simply weren't overclocked enough. You should've also disabled all background services that you don't use.

 

[Mehdi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by t4ct1c47 I'b be interested in seeing you beat my score of 14387 in 3Dmark06 which was run in Vista x64. With regards to your low Vista score, I think your CPU and graphics cards simply weren't overclocked enough. You should've also disabled all background services that you don't use.

I'll give that a go once I get proper cooling for my CPU. At the moment I am able to run my e6600 at 3.15ghz stable on the stock fan. The 8800s I haven't even overclocked yet, I wanted to make sure they were running fine at stock before I dove into overclocking them. BTW, are you reaching those that 14387 on a stable 24/7 settings?

Just to put things into perspective a little more, on Vista I was able to get roughly 12500 with the [email protected], and only 11600 when I had the [email protected] This is with the RAM at stock. Once I realized 3.15 was stable, I upped the RAM to 933MHZ which bumped me up to 12000 points.

I hope these numbers are interesting =) Oh, and overclocking is a drug... too much fun

!!! Good thing is, I don't start work until Monday

 

[Out2kill]

Quote:

Originally Posted by t4ct1c47 I'b be interested in seeing you beat my score of 14387 in 3Dmark06 which was run in Vista x64. With regards to your low Vista score, I think your CPU and graphics cards simply weren't overclocked enough. You should've also disabled all background services that you don't use.

What cpu core volt did you run to get it stable at 3.7. i tried 1.525 but no luck.

 

[t4ct1c47]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mehdi BTW, are you reaching those that 14387 on a stable 24/7 settings?

Of course, see the attached screenie or the ORB link in my sig.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Out2kill What cpu core volt did you run to get it stable at 3.7. i tried 1.525 but no luck.

1.55v to the CPU.