ATI Radeon 9800XT 256mb Performance question

Immortalanathem · Nov 10, 2003, 12:19 AM

Before Reading, System Specs
Asus P4S8X
1024 MB (x2 512) DDR 2700
P4 1.8Ghz, Watercooled to 2.68

Okay, I recently Purchachased Built by ATI Radeon 9800XT 256mb(my first ATI product)On install, windows died, due to a virus, so i reformmated all of my 5 harddrives, Installed a Fresh Copy of Windows XP Professional, Installed my motherboard Drivers, And then the catalyst 3.8's that came with the board.

After install i would get horrible preformance, and found some settings set differently then how i thought they should be, 4x AGP, and Not allowing me to use AGP Texture Acceleration on Dx9. Reinstalled Catalyst 3.8's, and A fresh Dx9 Install, fixed my AGP Texture Problems, but my 4x Would NOT go to 8x. Spent 2 hours on phone with ATI, and Asus, Asus tells me my Chipset (sis 648) Needs a new driver to run in 8x. I install Omega's Drivers, because 3.9's killed my preformance, Now set to 8xagp Fast writes on, and EVERYTHING
Works
But

500$ Card, my performance expectations were pretty great, but in 3dmark03 i score no more then 8k Stock in Aquamark i score a lousy 36,792, Now, are my expectations high? or is my card running subpar?

Thanks alot
Doug

Mazuko · Nov 10, 2003, 11:24 AM

If your running overdrive, I've found that it cuts my core clock rates in HALF. Not exactly sure why but it runs at 216 w/ overdrive on, and 411 w/ overdrive off. I would try disabling overdrive, checking your scores again, than making sure you have enough power to run the card.

I've found my 400W can't handle 2 HDD's, 2 CDROM's, 7 case fans, the videocard, 4 PC cards, a fan controller/temp LCD, floppy drive, typical mobo goodies, my front cathode, and my UV Cathode. I just ordered a 500W today, but I've found when I yank the 9800XT, and toss in my GF2 MX400 my box runs everything with no problems. Power = the culprit of my problems.

Also a question for you, do you find the copper heatsink on the back of your card to be extremely hot to the touch? Mine is...even when I only have the card running (fan is spinning full speed), my first 9800XT the cooling fan died, so I got a new one and now this...let me know

The cooling isn't working on my card, and I think my PS is not powerful enough (so I got hte 500w going to see if that fixes the problem when it gets here), good luck and keep me posted if you would

Gizmo[5h1t3] · Nov 10, 2003, 12:01 PM

im thinkin seriously of buyin one of these....but of late im hearing allsorts about the fans dying on them.

anyone else had this problem??

~~craig588~~ · Nov 10, 2003, 02:39 PM

Um, you go 8k in 3dmark 03? Thats VERY high! I push 7K with my system, and I'm overclocked like crazy.

Immortalanathem · Nov 10, 2003, 02:58 PM

Its More then likely the power supply and it was hot to the touch, I reccomend taking off the HSF and replacing ATI's "Thermal Pads" with Artic Silver's Ceramique its improved my overall stability and heat transfer with the card, so 8k on 3dmark03 is good? I was unsure because of the overall lameness of the framerate at some points. My fan has yet to die, and my friend has the same card, and his if fine if anything, its more then likely the PSU, i just replacd mine with a 430w Antec True Blue, and i never have any problems, but thats quite possible because i have watercooling, and my Mobo HSF and my chipset are both watercooled, reducing the draw?

Gizmo[5h1t3] · Nov 10, 2003, 07:58 PM

u gotta understand my concern....as 380 quid is a lot to shell out for a card....to die on you after a week...lol

Mazuko · Nov 10, 2003, 08:21 PM

My first 9800XT's cooling fan crapped out on me. I dropped a sensor on the BACK HEATSINK and it was running hotter than my CPU...funny huh?

I took that one back to Best Buy and exchanged it for another 9800XT. So far, it's warm so I stuck a personal fan on the side of the case w/ a clip and walla it works great. (New PS enroute btw).

DeviLduck · Nov 10, 2003, 09:34 PM

Immortalanathem,
An article appearing on HardOCP, describing this board's 4X/8X AGP apparent problems. They recommend you set to 4X to get full performance. By the way, the board's 8X spec is "unofficial" anyway, a very early attempt to support the 8X agp spec.

"8X AGP Issues:

We had big hopes of testing the new 8X AGP feature with the Radeon 9700 Pro. When setting up the system, the mainboard properly recognized the Radeon 9700 Pro as an 8X compatible part, which allowed for a choice of 4X and 8X in the BIOS. With the system set to 8X, everything seemed fine at first, problems weren’t apparent until benchmarks started and 3D performance was half of what it should have been.

Suspecting that the 8X AGP setting may have been the culprit, we used a variety of programs from SiSoft’s utility to PowerStrip and 3Dmark 2001SE to check the AGP setting, only to find the card was operating at 2X AGP. This would certainly explain the low 3D performance, so we went back into the BIOS and tried the only other setting, 4X. Immediately the performance jumped back up…way back up, and the system now seemed to identify the correct AGP 4X setting it was now at, but not the 8X setting. The shipping BIOS with the P4S8X was v1002, so we flashed the BIOS to the current 1003A which supposedly addressed another AGP issue as well as added support for 2.8GHz CPU’s and the Serial ATA was updated.

Using the PNY GeForce4 Ti4600, we were able to set the AGP to 1X, 2X, 4X and have the system identify it correctly and get the performance to correspond to the settings accordingly. Switching back to the Radeon 9700 Pro resulted in the exact same issues as before, 4X worked fine, 8X would result in 2X settings and performance (Most likely performing at 1X while identifying 2X.). Eventually the PNY GeForce4 Ti4600 had to be used for review with this mainboard because we were simply unable to get ATi 9700 Pro to work with the board at 8X AGP."

HardOCP Article: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzYzLDE=