3DMARK 2003

[stickywhite]

should be released on about tues lunch time
check out the countdown timer

anyone watched the trailer? i did, thought it was way too short, but  ispose thats why they called it a teaser    but if the graphics from that and the screnshots are anything to go by then imo it looks a peach.

[stickywhite]

[P-Dub]

Shame its a complete pile of crap, check out http://www.tomshardware.com for a review of it and Nvidias response to a benchmark which bears no resemblence to an actual gaming scenario.

Chris

[|fury|]

And i'm happy to maintain that if you're spending longer trying to tweak your system to get a higher score than you are playing, you're a silly billy

download it, run it, smoke it for all i care i get my kicks by using my games machine to play games  

[stickywhite]

nvidia would say that wouldnt they, theyre getting stuffed by ati on this benchmark. if nvidia thought it  a waste of time why'd they release a set of 3dmark enhanced drivers said to increase your score by a couple of hundred marks??? also nvidia are saying that itsa a synthetic benchmark and has no real relevance to games, that is true but 3dmark has always been synthetic and wasnt previously an issue when the geforce ruled the roost. dont get me wrong i'm not sniping nvidia, i have a gf4ti4200 and am very happy with its performance in real games
alot of people are bitching that there 300 quid gfx card is only getting about 3 frames per second on some of the more intensive tests when 3dmark 2001 came out and the first test i ran came in at a whopping 3700  i have spent/tweaked my way upto 14220, instead of saying that my pc looks way better that it did before certain upgrades i acn actualy put a figure to it, same way that i use sandra and atto to bench other parts of my system.
i have used 3dmark since 3dmark99 and have used it as an allround barometer of my pc health/stabilty and as an instant fix of eyecandy
some people like to tweak there internet conection i on the other hand like to overclock the shit out of any hardware that will let me, there is a way noticeable difference between an fsb of 266mhz default and  of 476mhz and  my 2gig cpu runs quite happily at 2.2 ghz a 10%+ free performance boost. my 110 qiuds worth of cpu out performing the quickest amd cpu that money can buy! i run 3dmark when experimenting with the overclocking  as if i can do a full run of it i know that my pc will work now with the most intense graphics goin on.
as for clocking my grapics card, my gf4 ti4200 cost me 140 notes and now outperforms a  300 quid ti4600 at stock speeds.
all in all i do see a point to this,i may have shortend the lifespan of some components(i stopped overclocking seriuosly when i "killed" 2 150 quid processors in a month) but given the length of time that components stay current then i dont see this as too much of a problem provided you stay within limits. i dont view it all as a pissing contest/bragging rights but as a free upgrade and ultimatley do all this so my games run sweeeeeet, i run single player battlefield 1942 instant battle ai at 400 % thats 63 cpu controlled players with not a hint of slowdown or lag of any sort:)

stuart

[P-Dub]

Out of curiosity Stickmeister, what RAM are you running?? Corsair??

[stickywhite]

no i bought some 'tempoary' cheap generic pc2700 ram when i bought my nf7-s motherboard my cruicial ram would not work at all  i bought two sticks of 256mb rated at 333mhz cas 3, as this cheap and crappy ram bums out at apx 424mhz @ 7-3-3-2.5 i'm pretty happy with it. although i could go further with a matched pair of twinx corsair low latency ram i'm gonna stick with what i've got for the mo.

i had a period of about two - three weeks when i was having major issues with sata raid and bios corruption and static. it was severly hampering my pc enjoyment as i was instaling windows at least four-five times a week and  now i'm just happy to have a stable happy pc. its still overclocked @ 200 x 11, 2200mhz but extremely stable although raid isnt working out and i've resorted to ide still cant have it all i spose

but  in answer to your question just cheap ram, but if/when i was to upgrade, top of my list would be a pair of 256 strips of corsair twinx 3200LL



   

[P-Dub]

Reading a few sites i am lead to believe that TwinMOS is the better brand.... I think i am gonna go for 2x 512mb TwinMOS and prolly stick my 2400XP at 200x12.5 but i would prolly need a Watercooled setup for that...

I dunno really i am in the middle of formulating my plan, but i will get a stable setup if its the last thing i do, it depends on my RAM i guess.... so the TwinMOS may be a very good idea....

Oh well back to the drawing board....

Chris

[stickywhite]

what motherboard do you have?  12.5 x would be pretty cool out of a 2400 mine goes to 11.5 x 200 on air at 2.v, not an ideal voltage so 11x it is. if i had decent ram i would prooly run at about 230 xwhatever i can get away with, lol i have run at 237 x 9 but my ram was running async at 380 ish mhz i hit a wall at 237 because of a bios limitation, i hasve a new bios that goes up to 250 but cant be arsed  i will try again when i upgrade my ram.
good luck with your project tho

[P-Dub]

I have a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP mainboard, lovely bit of kit and scores pretty well on the benchmarks at Toms, comes with all sorts of goodies and i have never had any issues at all with Via Chipsets no matter what others have had.....

I have decided to leave my 2400 alone however, i shall have a play with it when i have learned how to overclock and get a system stable.... I shall be playing with my 1800 XP to see how to get a stable overclock, its got good PNY chipped CAS 2 ram in it so should work fairly well.... We'll see anyways......

Lets hope i dont nuke it straight away!

Chris