Another X1950Pro and Power consumption question

[VeDz]

Ya, I looked through it, and I honestly don't find anything wrong with it. I even loaded the default settings.

But, one thing. I completely uninstalled the catalyst omega drivers and installed the drivers which where came with the card and I note some improvement. That stability test? I get 830 now. Also, my 3dmark03 score went up to 12000. And my 3dmark 05 went to 3100 and 06 went to 2500.

strange...

I am really hoping the problem is not due to a defective card...I have only a few days to return it then.

 

[Widjaja]

Have you installed CCC as well as the catalyst display drivers as I have found using the control center as well cause poorer performance in my system.

Right now I'm using Catalyst 7.5 display drivers and ATi tray tools which has given me the best results.

I might do some tweaking in tray tools.
See if changing the shader does any difference and lowering the texture LOD since I think thats what is choking my CPU but it's only a theory at the moment.

I'm not going to OC the GPU as it's already fast enough, I'll study up on the standard tweaks.

With freight cost the P4 I have would probably be the same price as a P4 3.0

Have you checked to see if you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard?

 

[VeDz]

I have tried it with the CCC installed and uninstalled. I think that made little difference to which I didn't note if the difference was good or bad. Also, my BIOS is up to date with default settings. Where can I change the shader and texture LOD from? All the games/applications that I use currently suggest that if unit # = high then performance = low.

Nevertheless, i will be getting a P4 in a week or two. However, if that doesn't make a difference I am completely clued out then to what will.

One last thing. I overclocked my CPU about 400mhz to 3.1ghz and my fps in the Video Card stability test went up about 200 fps. I guess this is good proof that the CPU is the cause?

 

[Widjaja]

Yeah I think it has to do with the typr of CPU and not just the speed.
Maybe something to do with the cache size of the CPU.

My P4 cache sizes are:-
L1 data cache is 16kb
L1 trace is 12 kuops
L2 cache is 1mb

I found texture LOD adjustment in ATi tray tools/direct 3d/settings but I still have to find what it really is.
It sounds like level of detail but I'll find tonight or later.

Well looks like I'm the guinea pig here for the P4's since all the other prople I've come across with a X1950pro has an AMD and don't say they have any performance issues.

 

[Kursah]

I have an intel core 2 with an x1950pro...you DIDN'T LOOK HARD ENOUGH! Granted it's not an older P4, it's still INTEL!

But any P4 you get will bottleneck that card, but the faster you can get your P4 and memory bandwidth, the better your results will be! My system runs great, I crank most all the goodies up in many games without issue, of course I generally play in 1280x1024 or 1600x1200...so that works for my x1950.

 

[Widjaja]

I'm talking about people with P4's not PentuimD's or C2D's
Of course there won't be any bottlenecks involved with PentiumD and C2D in conjunction with this card.

I'm thinking of going to AMD since I have already bought this card and it's not entirely expensive for me to just buy a new motherboard and CPU.

As I've said in a previous post in this thread :-
AMD/AGP motherboards have access to more powerful CPU's than P4/AGP motherboards.

But this thread is not about me it's about the poor bugger who didn't know that this card gets CPU bottlenecks.

VeDz
So far it appears to me that I have to reduce the texture performance of the GPU for the CPU to cope.

 

[DuggyUK]

I have an intel core 2 with an x1950pro...you DIDN'T LOOK HARD ENOUGH! Granted it's not an older P4, it's still INTEL!

Same here C2D (E4300@2.7Ghz)

 

[Widjaja]

Good news for VeDz

I have some good news for you VeDz
I have OC'd my P4 over 3.3Ghz and have noticed an improvemt in performance.

I'll be OCing it to it's stable limit to see how much better the performance gets.

Sad to see someone is trying to make you feel bad about the system you have.

I'll tell you now, you can't impress a chick with how big and powerful your PC is. e.g DuggyUK

Like to see you say "hey babe I've gotta C2D too feel like coming home for the night to have a bit of a LAN?"

 

[rodneyhchef]

Surely mine isn't much (if any) better? Yet I get deecent(ish) results.

 

[Widjaja]

This where I noticed the performance issue and it's CPU related.

FPS goes up and down too dramatically with the P4 so the CPU bottleneck is noticeable in that way.
OCing the P4 from 3.2Ghz to 3.3Ghz has shown more improvement in FPS stability not more FPS.

 

[PuMA]

I just got this 1950pro 256mb PCI-e yesterday. Installed it ran 3dmark 06 and got 4000. Launched up my favorite game Armed Assault, and the performance was horrible. geo fps ranging from 11 to 30. reformatted PC made 10 gig partition for pagefile, 50 gig partition for games. Launched arma again and everything was smooths as hell. I cranked up shadows a,AA and AF, and the game looks beautiful with FPS 20-44(Arma runs on low FPS on all the systems)

this is how it looks now:

 

[Widjaja]

Hmm heard about partitioning HDD's doing someting which makies gaming better.
I'll give it a go tomorow and see what happens.

Anyway my CPU hit a wall when attempting to OC to 3.5Ghz so the P4 3.0E HT is staying at over 3.4Ghz.
Not bad on a Intel stock cooler and arctic5 thermal paste.

Odd thing was one benchmark went up and the other went down.
Video Card Stability test I scored 2382fps instead of 2180
ATi tray tools Benchmark I scored 6786fps 6791fps.

Anyway see what happens after a re-format and partition.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

So 218W can be the maximum consumption of the 12V rail right? I took that 218W / 12 = 18A? I am pretty sure 18A for just a video card is a bit too much? I mean, my vacuum cleaner is 18A. .

This correct.

However, your vaccum uses 110(or 220v).

110*18a=1980w

12v*18a=218w

Theres a drasticly different amount of raw power being used. (Although 200w does seem a bit much for a GPU alone)

For instance a CPU could use upwards of 40-70a.

However, its a very very low 1.35v, so you really end up with somewhere around 67w used.

 

[PuMA]

Hmm heard about partitioning HDD's doing someting which makies gaming better.
I'll give it a go tomorow and see what happens.

Anyway my CPU hit a wall when attempting to OC to 3.5Ghz so the P4 3.0E HT is staying at over 3.4Ghz.
Not bad on a Intel stock cooler and arctic5 thermal paste.

Odd thing was one benchmark went up and the other went down.
Video Card Stability test I scored 2382fps instead of 2180
ATi tray tools Benchmark I scored 6786fps 6791fps.

Anyway see what happens after a re-format and partition.

reformat always helps with weaker CPU's like mine. vidjaja if ur mainly gaming on ur rig disabling pagefile helps alot. No need to load stuff from HD , everything is on RAM, wich makes the gameplay smoother. Ofcourse u can OC the hell out of ur CPU, but neet and well serviced system runs games better, than a minor overclock. Allso i'm not into the whole benchmark thing, I run 3dmark06 now and then, but the real results are shown while gaming.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Hmm heard about partitioning HDD's doing someting which makies gaming better.
I'll give it a go tomorow and see what happens.

Anyway my CPU hit a wall when attempting to OC to 3.5Ghz so the P4 3.0E HT is staying at over 3.4Ghz.
Not bad on a Intel stock cooler and arctic5 thermal paste.

Odd thing was one benchmark went up and the other went down.
Video Card Stability test I scored 2382fps instead of 2180
ATi tray tools Benchmark I scored 6786fps 6791fps.

Anyway see what happens after a re-format and partition.

Pretty sure theres nothing useful configuration wise for partitioning a hdd for gaming performance...

Theres been some things about isolating the pagefile etc, but its a lot of hassle.

 

[PuMA]

Pretty sure theres nothing useful configuration wise for partitioning a hdd for gaming performance...

Theres been some things about isolating the pagefile etc, but its a lot of hassle.

And have u tried it urself???? Don't talk about things u really dont know about, and havent seen for ur self lol

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

And have u tried it urself???? Don't talk about things u really dont know about, and havent seen for ur self lol

Got benchmarks to back any claims up?

I've yet to actually ever find any.

Anything I've ever seen are just benchmarks saying its a waste of time.

If it had benefits, don't you think everyone would do it already?

What you said is..

reformatted PC made 10 gig partition for pagefile, 50 gig partition for games.

Was it a fresh format before? If not, its not comparable.

A format will very often give you a significant performance boost, because 90% of people's windows setups get cluttered up after a few weeks of use. Stray processes and such.

In order to do a legit comparison you have to use the same hardware with a fresh format, or else you introduce variables into the equation that will most definatly skew results.

http://discuss.extremetech.com/forums/4/648402001/ShowThread.aspx

Posted by melloe on ET.

Definatly a waste of time, unless you put the pagefile on a seperate hard drive(such as maybe a 40gb raptor), and are making excessive use of the page file.

neither of which are good for performance. If you rely that heavily on a page file, you need more ram.

Since the page file will still be on the SAME hard drive, a partition would probably only slow it down, simply because its seperated from everything else. It has to go through extra accessing information to locate, read and write the same data. It would only probably help fragmentation....

A seperate physical drive for a swap file would definatly give an improvement. Assuming its a bottleneck.

 

[Kasparz]

Oh my god guys, 3Ghz sandiego AMD singlecore is bottlenecking my x1900gt, and theres guy using x1950pro on 2.7Ghz northwood celeron on uber crap system. Gosh, that x1950pro costs more than entire system.

 

[rodneyhchef]

I can imagine having the pagefile on a separate physical drive having it's advantages, so long as it's nice and fast, but having it on a separate partition on the same drive surely can't help as the drive read/write heads are shared across partitions.

 

[VeDz]

Haha, Kasparz, I know its unfortunate isn't it? Thanks for the replies guys.

I had heard the disabling the page file improved gaming performance since it stores info on ram rather than HD. So I did that some time back, before I had the X1950 Pro. I guess there was a bit of differencce for the better.

The thing is, I know for sure my OS is fine, as I just recently reformated after I got the video card. The paritition and page file on the partition thing is a bit confusing. Can you elaborate a bit more PuMA?
Anyway, the best I can do with my CPU is upgrade it to a 3.0GHz P4 with HT. That should hopefully be sufficient, heck I will OC it later as Widjaja said that overclocking the P4 stabilizies the FPS.

Only concern to me, is hoping the card won't be defective. I can stay care free, as I will one day (sooner than later) upgrade to the P4, making use of my card a bit more Then probably better/faster ram. My CPU also, is 100% usage when I am in an application/game. While my video card temperature barely goes up. This could probably suggest that CPU is working as hard as it can, while the video card isn't breaking a sweat because it is limited by the CPU thus not having to give better performance, hence the temperatures not going up. Just a thought.

Also, just to clarify, I was getting the same performance with my 250W that I am now getting with my 500W. Same stability too. Only difference is, now I am not worried about burning my motherboard/ram/(insert component).

So far it appears to me that I have to reduce the texture performance of the GPU for the CPU to cope.

What do you mean by the texture performance Widjaja? I will try to lower that if you tell me how.

 

[rodneyhchef]

which version of the HIS card did you get? The Ice Q version? I imagine they run pretty cool anyway.

 

[Kursah]

Haha, Kasparz, I know its unfortunate isn't it? Thanks for the replies guys.

I had heard the disabling the page file improved gaming performance since it stores info on ram rather than HD. So I did that some time back, before I had the X1950 Pro. I guess there was a bit of differencce for the better.

It's not recommended you remove the page file, you will most likely run into issues as Windows and many programs are designed to use the page file. Even if you have 4gb or more of RAM, the page file will still be used.

The thing is, I know for sure my OS is fine, as I just recently reformated after I got the video card. The paritition and page file on the partition thing is a bit confusing. Can you elaborate a bit more PuMA?
Anyway, the best I can do with my CPU is upgrade it to a 3.0GHz P4 with HT. That should hopefully be sufficient, heck I will OC it later as Widjaja said that overclocking the P4 stabilizies the FPS.

Read up on creating partitions and assigning page files to them. I found it best if I had a secondary HDD (about 10 gb in size, or partition) to assign the page file to. You still should have a page file set for windows, but you can make it smaller in size. Usually the performance gained from messing with all this is minimal, and not worth the hassle for most.

Only concern to me, is hoping the card won't be defective. I can stay care free, as I will one day (sooner than later) upgrade to the P4, making use of my card a bit more Then probably better/faster ram. My CPU also, is 100% usage when I am in an application/game. While my video card temperature barely goes up. This could probably suggest that CPU is working as hard as it can, while the video card isn't breaking a sweat because it is limited by the CPU thus not having to give better performance, hence the temperatures not going up. Just a thought.

You should consider saving up and upgrading your system. Parts are getting cheaper, and even something a few years old and dirt cheap (AMD if deciding to stick with P4, Intel if going for newer more recent tech, at least for the moment, C2D is on top). You will never be content if you keep updating your dated hardware, and it doesn't matter if you go P4, Pentium D or whatnot, there will be a bottleneck. Even on new technology, like my C2D for instance is a bottleneck for my x1950pro at stock speeds, and OC-ing to my current levels allows more bandwidth for the card, relieving the bottleneck, do I believe the bottleneck is gone. No, I don't, but my performance suits my needs for now.

Also, just to clarify, I was getting the same performance with my 250W that I am now getting with my 500W. Same stability too. Only difference is, now I am not worried about burning my motherboard/ram/(insert component).

Yeah performance shouldn't change, but stability will be more consistant as you have overhead wattage to keep your system more stable. I try to keep an overhead of wattage by around 100-200, so that way even when my system is fully loaded down, it's not stressing the PSU to it's max, keeping the PSU closer to it's efficiency zone and alive longer.

What do you mean by the texture performance Widjaja? I will try to lower that if you tell me how.

I'm willing to bet he means filtering/LOD settings, turning texture detail and filtering settings down would increase performance but also cause muddier and less detailed textures.

 

[PuMA]

Got benchmarks to back any claims up?

I've yet to actually ever find any.

Anything I've ever seen are just benchmarks saying its a waste of time.

If it had benefits, don't you think everyone would do it already?

What you said is..


Was it a fresh format before? If not, its not comparable.

A format will very often give you a significant performance boost, because 90% of people's windows setups get cluttered up after a few weeks of use. Stray processes and such.

In order to do a legit comparison you have to use the same hardware with a fresh format, or else you introduce variables into the equation that will most definatly skew results.

http://discuss.extremetech.com/forums/4/648402001/ShowThread.aspx

Posted by melloe on ET.

Definatly a waste of time, unless you put the pagefile on a seperate hard drive(such as maybe a 40gb raptor), and are making excessive use of the page file.

neither of which are good for performance. If you rely that heavily on a page file, you need more ram.

Since the page file will still be on the SAME hard drive, a partition would probably only slow it down, simply because its seperated from everything else. It has to go through extra accessing information to locate, read and write the same data. It would only probably help fragmentation....

A seperate physical drive for a swap file would definatly give an improvement. Assuming its a bottleneck.

was fresh formatt, and yes the format did all the wonders. I dont use any benchmarks, I like to see the differences with my own eyes. Any benchmark can tell u got x score on CPU but z score on GPU, but I think its all bullshit and would just give a wet dream to u as a internet/tech nerd.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

was fresh formatt, and yes the format did all the wonders. I dont use any benchmarks, I like to see the differences with my own eyes. Any benchmark can tell u got x score on CPU but z score on GPU, but I think its all bullshit and would just give a wet dream to u as a internet/tech nerd.

Yeah, placebo effect > physics.

I forgot, sorry.

 

[Kursah]

reformat always helps with weaker CPU's like mine. vidjaja if ur mainly gaming on ur rig disabling pagefile helps alot. No need to load stuff from HD , everything is on RAM, wich makes the gameplay smoother. Ofcourse u can OC the hell out of ur CPU, but neet and well serviced system runs games better, than a minor overclock. Allso i'm not into the whole benchmark thing, I run 3dmark06 now and then, but the real results are shown while gaming.

I had opossite results, I tried this on my old Athlon 1.4 Socket A system, made it even more unstable (it was a cheap POS to start with, but the GF 2 Mx440 was decent at the time), on my P4 Williamete 1.4 Sck 423/Rambus/ATI 9600 setup, caused worse performance and "skipping", I had a gig of Rambus in it (fortunately I had 2 sticks donated to me...that junk is overpriced). I've even tried it on my P4 630 setup, none of them gained anything from removing the page file. Keeping your disk clean, defragged and virus/adware free helps a lot. Removing unneeded resources from boot/running helps more than removing the page file ever could because that will free up RAM and CPU resources.

But glad it worked in your case, one of the few I've seen, most who do disable pagefile end up with more problems, even if not immediate as Windows and many programs look for it and are designed to use it along with RAM. Remove your exhuast off of your car, exhaust manifolds/headers and all, sure it will run somewhat better, but eventually your valve seals will burn up and it's all down hill from there.