1.03.15527 system performance reports

[NedLynch]

Originally Posted by TonyD

This latest update cost me about 10% in terms of performance, which seems to be in line with what many have reported. Out of interest, I increased my base clock rate by the same amount, and gained the loss straight back again. This is somewhat unusual, as rarely does an overclock produce an equivalent gain in performance – it’s usually less. I tested this a couple of times using the Black Death track as a benchmark, with the same result.

I tried raising the multiplier to 20 on my previous mobo with a much lower increase in frame rates (my previous DDR-II 1066 RAM didn’t have much headroom), but my current DDR-III 1333 RAM runs happily at 1500MHz with a base clock of 224MHz (cpu at 3.80GHz) with no voltage adjustments on either the cpu or memory. For cooling I am using a CoolerMaster Hyper 212, which keeps the cpu temp down to around 52˚C under load (ambient around 26 ˚C when I tested).

It seems that this latest update has placed more load on the system rather than the graphics card, as increasing my card’s clocks produces a negligible increase in frame rates. Roll on Bulldozer and DDR-III 1866 memory

Very interesting, it seemed to me as well that raising the FSB has the best effect, then raising the mutiplier. Nice clockincrease without raising the voltage. Going to order a cooler tomorrow and then it's overclocking time .
If you don't mind, are you raising (if at all) the multiplier in bios or with a program in windows. I was planning on FSB overclock in bios and then maybe a little multiplier increase in windows.
Ughhh, and I need a new mobo .

[TonyD]

Originally Posted by NedLynch

...
If you don't mind, are you raising (if at all) the multiplier in bios or with a program in windows. ...

I use the AOD utility in Windows as my clever mobo resets the RAM timings if I raise the bclk in the BIOS. For eg, I can set the RAM to run at DDR 1600, but then the mobo resets the timings to 11, which results in a big drop in performance. Using the same settings mentioned above in the BIOS causes the RAM to run at cas 10, instead of the default 9. I can set the individual timings in the BIOS, but experimenting to find the limits is very time consuming. If I use AOD, the timings remain unchanged, although they can also be set using this utility.

I don’t like changing the multiplier as this disables the PowerNow feature and leaves the cpu screaming along at maximum all the time, irrespective of whether it’s doing anything or not. This is probably not really something to be concerned about, but being a pedantic Virgo, it annoys me. And previous testing has shown that there is little to be gained in terms of gaming performance by running the cpu faster on its own.

I am also not much of an overclocker, preferring to spend time playing games on my rig rather than trying to extract the last drop of performance out of it. But it is nice when you can achieve a worthwhile gain without too much hassle.