M1730 8800M GTX SLI - Lowest 3DMark score ever?

Dell XPS M1730
8800M GTX SLI
T9300 @ 2.5GHz
Windows 7 Ultimate 64

Driver: 195.62

SLI enabled
Antivirus disabled

Services set to Black Vipers "tweaked" config ( link)

3DMark 05 (Default settings)
7484 3DMarks
5618 CPUMarks

3DMark 06 (Default settings)
5464 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 2407
SM 3.0 Score 3182
CPU Score 978

Frame rates suck when playing games even at low end settings. What the hell am i missing?!

 

What are your temperatures? It could be that your components are automatically downclocking due to heat. The 3D06 score looks pitiful all around - including the CPU. I get double that CPU score with the 2.2 GHz T7500. It seems plausible that heat is causing the CPU to downclock, resulting in a drastically lower CPU score and the GPU being bottlenecked by the CPU as well. Check both GPU and CPU temperatures - use a software that keeps track of the maximum temperatures and run it in the background while you run 3dmark06.

Also check your power settings - it might be on "Power Saver" or something of that sort, which can kill performance in Vista/7.

 

Thanks for the reply.

Power settings is set to High Performance.

I ran 3DMark 06 again to check temperatures and got the following from rivatuners hardware monitor:


Max GPU temp: 85°C
Max CPU temp: 51°C

GPU1 reaches ~500MHz
GPU2 reaches ~800MHz <-EDIT: My bad. Should also have been ~500MHz, i read the shader freq. Lack of sleep...
Both CPUs are running at full speed (~2.5GHz)

This time the score was even lower, a shameful 4614 (2041 + 2655 + 834).

From what i gathered googling Nvidia GPU temps its a bit high but not over the rainbow.

What do you reckon?

 

Try disabling SLi. This is just a guess, but perhaps something is wrong with one of the gpu's considering thay aren't at the same clocks. Even if the gpu's were the problem, I'm still a bit perplexed considering my T5750 gets higher cpu scores. Another thing to try would be using rmclock to lock the cpu clock speed at around 1.8-2 Ghz to make sure it doesn't throttle. Good luck!

 

Edited my last post. 800MHz should have been 500Mhz on GPU2, ie no difference between the cards.

Don't know how to use rmclock to lock the the cpu clock speed.

I did a couple of tests with rmclocks power management. I by no means claim to understand what i'm doing here, but maybe you guys can make sense of the results.

Test 1: Rmclock max performance profile on, PST set to 8.0x, 1.0625V
6918 (2984 + 3857 + 1329)
GPU: 90°C
CPU: 55°C

Test 2: Rmclock max performance profile off
5185 (2209 + 2969 + 975)
GPU: 87°C
CPU: 51°C

Test 3: Rmclock max performance profile on
5029 (2155 + 2838 + 958)
GPU: 86°C
CPU: 51°C

Test 4: Same as test 1.
6654 (2784 + 3738 + 1304)
GPU: 87°C
CPU: 54°C

Maybe you can make more sense of the rivatuner log ( download).

It seems the PST thing increases the score, but tweaking seems a bit defeatist at this time when something more fundamental is flawed.

Could it be a malfunction in the service module's oxygen tank?

 

Well, for Test 1 and Test 4, you are running at 1.6 GHz (200 MHz times 8), and hitting a maxium temperature of 90 Celsius. That's kind of toasty. What's odd is that in Test 2 and Test 3, where you should be able to get higher clock speeds (up to 2.5 GHz), you aren't getting higher temperatures, and your CPU performance is worse.

I'd suggest doing a test with RightMark set to No Management, and afterwards look at the Monitoring tab of RightMark. This stores graphs of the recent temperatures, frequencies, etc. In particular, look at the CPU Frequency ID graph. With the Test 1 and Test 4 configs, it should stay at 8.0 (the yellow line, that is) the whole time. Given the Test 2 and Test 3 results, it looks like it might be staying at a significantly lower setting. It isn't a problem if it is at a lower setting some of the time (some of the tests won't hammer the CPU the whole time), but if it is below 8.0 the whole time, you've got a problem. Alternately, the CPU Clock and Throttle graph should correspond with the Frequency ID graph, and it should reach speed close to 2500 MHz at times.

You could also try using RightMark with a higher P-State Transition selected under the Maximal Performance profile. However, that would likely increase temperatures, and 90 Celsius is already fairly hot.

Bottom line though, I think your CPU temperatures may be interfering with the performance. If you haven't done so recently, you probably ought to clean the vents with compressed air. Disassembly won't be necessary to get most of the benefit, and whether it's worth it to de-assemble the laptop to get maximal benefit is up to you. Find a good guide, and follow it - it is important that you have the compressed air at the correct angle and so forth, so don't jump into cleaning the vents (even without disassembly) without knowing what you're doing.

I have no idea what you're referring to with the service module's oxygen tank, though. Sounds like you're talking about a rocket rather than a computer to me .

 

Setting the pst to 8 was what I meant by locking the cpu frequency. Also, that was the problem. It's just down to whether it's cpu heat or throttling.

Don't worry about the gpu heat in terms of performance. I used to play for hours on end with my 8600m GT at 89 Celsius. I later tested and found nothing goes wrong until 110+ Celsius. I'm leaning towards throttling being the problem. Try out unclewebb's ThrottleStop program to check out whats happening to the multipliers during the 3dmark06 runs.

Edit: Without locking the multiplier at a low frequency (rmclock won't even have to be running for these tests).

 

The problem they had on Apollo 13 when returning from the moon


I gave the computer a thorough cleaning incl. a bit of disassembly to get the dust out of the fans and cooling fins. There was a serious chunk of funky stuff packed in between the CPU fan and it's cooling fins.

Here are the new results:

Test 1: No RM profile
5348 (2288 + 3080 + 995)
GPU: 75°C
CPU: 42°C
FID: 6 (VID 1.112) all the time!

Test 2: Maximum Performance profile, PST set to 8x
7260 (3116 + 4096 + 1381)
GPU: 80°C
CPU: 46°C
FID: 8 (VID: 1.112)

Test 3: Maximum Performance profile, PST set to 12x
10249 (4428 + 5493 + 2067)
GPU: 82°C
CPU: 61°C
FID: 12 (VID: 1.250)

Test 4: No RM Profile. Using ThrottleStop
5459 (2328 + 3140 + 1020)
GPU: 76°C
CPU: 43°C
FID: Stays at 6 all the time

Test 5: Maximum Performance profile, PST set to 12x. Using ThrottleStop
10069 (4334 + 5426 + 2024)
GPU: 82°C
CPU: 60°C
FID: 12 (VID: 1.250)

This is what i make out of this round of tests:

1. CPUs are running at a steady 6x when not setting PST in RM. Could it some BIOS setting?

2. Riva Tuner doesn't take the multiplier into account when reporting CPU freq. When running at 6x it reports up to 2.5GHz while RM reports 1.25GHz. This is why i got ~2.5GHz during the first couple of tests.

3. ThrottleStop didn't help.

What do you think? What is the next step?
Is ~10000 points acceptable for my setup?
Maybe overclock the GPUs?
From what i get i can't overclock the T9300...

Thanks again guys for helping me out.

 

Maybe you don't have Intel Speedstep enabled in the bios. I think that would keep it at that multiplier. Also, those 10k scores look good.

 

You're right!

I enabled SpeedStep in BIOS and got the "dynamic multiplier" back.

I guess i disabled it when going i ditched Vista going back to XP while waiting for 7.

Thanks!