Massman

Okay, pics later, I've just installed server03 and 3dmark01. Let's see what this card is capable of

Test setup:

Intel E6300 - 450*6
DFI P965
2*512 MB Corsair
480W Tagan PSU

jmke

Would have chosen Windows 2000 SP2 for 3D01

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Massman

Maybe ... the server2000 cd is about 5m away, so maybe i'll give it a go

Btw, currently 665/875

Massman

Closing in on the 180 fps

jmke

nice GPU clocks

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Massman

Yeah, this card really impresses me.

Currently reaching the end of the card at stock ~ 695/915 = 182.2 fps

Massman

698 will be the max GPU clock with stock cooling. I'm still trying to find the max MEM clock, but it seems that the mem clocks don't really add much fps

Massman

Friday, 22th of June

Finally, almost done with the exams, only one left (dutch oral exam) for monday, so I have the time to check out the 7300GT I recieved a few days ago (well ... actually one day, the examinations have screwed up my sense of time ).



This is how the package looks like when it arrived ... lucky n°3, just like I ordered.



AAARGH ... no card !!! O, wait, yes, it's safely wrapped up on the left site



The sweet smell and looks of a card that has not yet been overclocked. Notice how small this card is ... almost too small one would think. These cards come with 1.2ns memory chips, perfect for high speeds. If you want to see proof of the 1.2ns chips, go check out other worklogs!



Time to give this baby some powerrrrr. An E6300, DFI P965 and two sticks of corsair DDR2 ram are ready to get this contest started.



Of course, a fresh installation of windows. In this case, I'm using the server 2003 version, just to try it out. I don't think it'll win or lose to the xp pro as the Nature test is very GPU bound.

After some quick testing, I realised that the target for stock air cooling will be +/- 200FPS (probably at a speed of 715/950). Fully stock, I reached 94.x FPS and after some little tweaking and overclocking I could easily reach the 180 FPS barrier, breaking Gamer's record by 2 FPS.



At the end of the first bench session, which lasted about 2-3 hours, I even managed to break the 190 FPS, but that screenshot or verification link will be published if someone reaches my previous score. It's very clear to me that cpu, mem or os tweaks will help very little in the quest for the 3D Contest title. It's very likely that the one with the fastest card will give the highest score in the end, however ... with a well-balanced 3d tweaked system, you can easily gain up to 10 FPS.

Drivers: 94.24
Cooling: Stock
Voltages: Stock
Max speed: 698/945
Max temp: 62°C
Max fps in 01: 234

Attached Thumbnails

Massman

- OKay, I managed to do a 700+ core run today, but it's not stable at all. Voltmods will help for sure, as the card isn't really hot.
The memory overclock seems to be 940-945 max and I'm afraid voltmods won't help here.

- By the way, it seems like the overclocks jump every 6 Mhz. E.g: gpu from 702 to 708.75 (nothing in between) and mem from 936 to 945. Bios related, driver related?

- Another problem is the insane artifacting when I up the memory freq. over 950Mhz. The card throttles back to 50FPS lower. Driver related?

- It seems that 3DMark03 will be hard to tweak, as basic lod tweaks only gave me about 2FPS. I guess newer drivers will give a boost, but that's something we need to find out by trying.

jmke

I can clock the 73GT in 1Mhz steps here? Powerstrip/Rivatuner;
throttle back: I noticed too, think it's not driver related.

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