Another 3dmark mystery

Hi all,

Ok, so I see these types of questions on the boards from time to time, and now I find myself in a similar quandary.

A little background, have had my m17x-r2 now for about a year, no real issues so far. The other day I upgraded my driver to the preview 11.4 mobility driver. Ran my standard 3dmark test to compare it to the 11.2 driver (as I do every time a driver is updated). I typically score between 12200 - 13200 or so, this time I ran and I hit 9700

So, figured that it was related to the preview driver, and didn't worry to much about it. Today I decided I'd go ahead and backout to the 11.2 driver to wait for the official release. Performed a clean removal of the driver and installed 11.2 again. Just to be sure I ran my 3dmark benchmark again and I still am hitting around 9600 or so.

So trying to determine if this is a "problem" or could potentially be something else. There were only two other changes that were made between 11.2 originally and 11.4. The first is I updated to service pack 1 of Windows 7...so has anyone noticed that their 3dmark scores have lowered because of this? I wouldn't expect it, but I can't recall if I ran them after the upgrade or not. The second was I installed virtual box (to be safe I have since removed it, not expecting it to be the problem, but attempting to narrow it down).

I've done other things, verified my settings are "high performance" and verified that Stealth Mode was not enabled. My WEI score hasn't changed at all (same as before). I never ran vantage so don't have a baseline to compare that to. I also ran the test with crossfire disabled vs enabled, and disable I get about 8700 or so, so I think crossfire is working ok.

Is there anything that I might be missing or is there a better benchmark to compare against then 3dmark (as I know this number can be impacted by services that are running, etc)? Is there a range that I "should" be in based on my configuration? I'm just trying to eliminate any potential hardware problem. I've got an extra laptop HDD lying around and am considering reloading windows 7 on it, along with the drivers and 3dmark to run a test to confirm whether the numbers are closer to what I expect or not.

Is there anything else that I might be missing? or any "good" benchmarks that I can run that will give me a better idea of whether things are running correctly or not?

I realize this is a pretty typical question, and I apologize in advance for asking the same question. Any help, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Did you check stealth mode? Even if its disabled, try enabling it and disabling it. Sometimes it will fix things. Also, If you are running 3DMark 06, that is a very CPU intense application, and does not give an accurate reading to your actual GPU performance. The more powerful your CPU is, the better the score is in 3DMark 06.

Try running Vantage as well, and compare your score with others running a similar setup to yours. Try installing the Catalyst Application Profiles as well to see if that helps.

 

Thanks M3TH0D1C4L for the input. I decided to go ahead and start with a fresh hard drive, the absolute minimum installed (drivers,3dmark,etc) and ran...and to no suprise I got over 13K on my 3dmark. So something with my installation is definitely messed up.

So, that got me thinking. I'm going to go ahead and just do a fresh install on my drive, and since I'm going to that trouble I was wondering if it's worth raiding my 2 500GB drives in a raid 0 configuration. Is the performance worth the risk? I've seen lots of comparisons and I've struggled with it for quite some time (honestly the only reason I hadn't done it was the fact that I'd have to re-install everything).

Any thoughts? Are there those who have raided who now regret it? or are those that hadn't who now wish they had? I understand that the risk is far greater then not doing it. But what are peoples experience with it?

 

RAID is great, dont get me wrong.....but there is a pretty big risk if one drive fails. You will lose everything on the drives.

I have RAID right now with 2 Samsung SSDs, and they are amazing. But honestly, I dont think there was that much improvement in what I use the machine for. Games load slightly faster, along with Windows. And my WEI score jumped up to 7.9 from 7.7. But that is not a big deal.

I would probably leave them as single setups. I wish I did the same. Sometimes I copy large files from my desktop machine by taking out my SSD from the notebook and installing it in the desktop. With RAID, I cant really do that anymore. I am going to revert it back to a single setup for both SSDs later on when I have time.

If I had RAID in my desktop, that would be different. I would love it. BUt in a notebook.......I dont think its the best way to go. I personally think the best notebook setup would be an SSD for the OS and a regular HDD (500GB +) for storage and stuff.

 

Hi M3TH0D1C4L! Thanks again for your response. I think I'm going to stick with the single drive setup...eventually I'll go to an SSD drive when the prices/size drop.

Well off to reload I go. Thanks again!

 

No problem bro. Glad to be of help.