Hi i own the following PC with the following specs:

Pentium 4 3.06Ghz with Hyper-Threading Technology
1024Mb PC3200 DDR RAM 400Mhz
120gb HardDrive with 8mb Cache
Leadtek Winfast A350 Ultra MyTivo TDH Geforce FX5900 256Mb RAM with Leadteks 53.03 Detonator FX Drivers

This is on a p4s800 ASUS motherboard which has 800mhz FSB and AGP 8x. For exact specifications see:

http://uk.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4s800/overview.htm

Now i'm a keen gamer and i've always benchmarked my PC regularly to see the performance of the drivers. Its now come to my attention that with one bench mark program that my PC isn't scoring as higher as other PCs with simililar spec's and the same graphics card.

I have checked absolutely everything with my BIOS and system set-up including my graphic settings.

Everything is set to performance, my graphics card is running in AGP 8x showing 256mb RAM. In my BIOS i have hyper-threading enabled, it shows my graphic cards memory as 256mb and the BIOS is set to AGP 8x. FastWrite for my graphics card is ENABLED and all my motherboard drivers are up to date including my SiS AGP driver. (version 117)

When i run the SiS AGP Utility that comes with the downloaded SiS AGP driver updates i am shown this:



Now this shows that my graphics card is running in all the right modes (AGP 8x and FastWrite enabled) but under the section "AGP Bus Capability" it says that FastWrite is NOT supported.

When i orgionally looked at this PC i thought that the graphics card would be most suited to this motherboard with it having AGP version 3.0 and AGP 8x. I also assumed that FastWrite was available and when i see it in my BIOS i figured it was available and enabled. But according to this utility my "AGP Bus Capability" doesn't support fastwrite!

What i would like to know is, does the p4s800 SiS 648FX motherboard support fastwrite and if it does (which i presumed it does) why is this utility showing me that i don't have the capability. If it is supported how do i go about enabling as i believe having fastwrite disabled is the reason behind my low bench mark scores because i have looked at every possible option.

I hope someone on this forum will have the knowledge i'm looking for about the p4s800 motherboard.

Thanks for any replys.

Not sure if FastWrite will do anything significant. You compared to PCs running same gfx and mobo?

Try disabling HyperThreading. Sometimes HT can slow you down. You have a good computer (...*cough*5900*cough*) so you should be getting high scores.

Also, why go with the SiS chipset? Did you buy this pre-built?

My comparision is through a benchmarking program for UT2003. I've compared my scores to PCs with 2.8ghz-3.2ghz with Geforece FX 5900 cards. I score 40 points lower.

I figured Hyper-Threading should never be turned off since it makes things go faster

Whats with the coughing 5900 a bad card?

Yea the PC was pre-built so i got what i was given. I'd still like to know how to enable FastWrite.

Ah well, as long as you didn't build it you're OK

Hmmm, can you visit Asus' site, http://www.asus.com/ and find the manual to your board? That will tell you how (if possible)

And no, the 5900 is a "decent" card that will run most games but it's just not the "greatest". Just if you want to play Half-Life 2 for example you won't get the true experience since it'll be downgraded for nVidia cards.

But no worries, when you get more money you can upgrade it and sell that.

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20010725/bios_tuning-18.html

Only 10% increase.

Yea you see i've enabled that option in my BIOS and i've looked through my manual but the utility if its correct is telling me i'm not running FastWrite.

Ok so if FastWrite ain't making much of a difference what would? For 3D mark 2001 SE i score around 14,000 marks. Now is that a card score a PC of my specifications or would you expect a higher mark?

Thx for the help so far!

Just ran a 3DMark 2001 SE benchmark noticed online something:

System Configuration
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP

DirectX Version 9.0



Mobo Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.

Mobo Model P4S800

AGP Rates (Current/Available) 8x / 4x 8x



CPU Intel Pentium 4 3067 MHz

FSB 133 MHz <<<

Memory 1024 MB



Graphics Chipset NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra

Driver Name WinFast A350 Ultra

Driver Version 6.14.10.5303

Video Memory 256 MB



Program Version 3DMark2001 SE

Resolution 1024x768 32bit

Texture Format Compressed

FSAA Disabled

Z-Buffer Depth 24bit

Frame Buffer Double

Rendering Pipeline D3D Pure Hardware T&L



Detailed Test Results
3DMark Score 14193 3D marks



Game 1 Car Chase - Low Detail 206.8 FPS

Game 1 Car Chase - High Detail 66.3 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - Low Detail 267.4 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - High Detail 148.1 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - Low Detail 176.3 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - High Detail 76.9 FPS

Game 4 Nature 93.1 FPS



Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 1655.9 MTexels/s

Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 3266.5 MTexels/s



High Polygon Count (1 light) 99.9 MTriangels/s

High Polygon Count (8 lights) 27.4 MTriangels/s



Environment Bump Mapping 199.9 FPS

DOT3 Bump Mapping 231.8 FPS



Vertex Shader 174.3 FPS

Pixel Shader 169.1 FPS

Advanced Pixel Shader 142.4 FPS



Point Sprite 40.9 MSprites/s

Thats showing my FSB as 133 Mhz, should that be 800 Mhz cos of my p4s00?

It should be 400Mhz (FSB is double, so 800 = 400 x 2).

Yes. That is wierd. Can you check your BIOS?

I'm familiar with my BIOS but i'm no expert i'll have a look around right now but where abouts should i be looking at?

I have Flash BIOS.

Ok what i found was "Memory Frequency Mhz" was set to 400Mhz in the BIOS. Is that the right thing or is that the Mhz of my RAM perhaps?

I'm saving my changes each time before i exit. Why do i get the feeling that my BIOS isn't saving what i'm changing

You have a 3.06 HT P4 that runs on a 133FSB ( 533 ). If you had a 200FSB ( 800 ) CPU, it would be 3.0GHZ not 3.06GHZ.

Your RAM is running at 400 I'm guessing. You have a P4 3.06 which runs at 533 FSB. That's why its showing 133 (133 x 4 = 533).

EDIT:

LOL, you beat me to it, Noisy

14k does seem a bit low - my system (see below) is scoring 12.5k+ and i would expect your machine to beet mine hands down in a drag race.
It might be worth formating your machine (if u have somewhere to back ur stuff up to) and reinstalling windows - that is always gd for performance.
Hope that helps

Steg

Ok looking at SiSoft Sandra its telling me i have a Pentium 4 3.06Ghz Processort so that means it runs at 533 FSB which would mean its kinda pointless on a 800Mhz FSB motherboard since it can't run at 800Mhz?

Oh wait reading on i see that:

My FSB speed is 4x 133mhz = 532Mhz data rate

My memory bus speed is 2x 133Mhz = 266Mhz data rate, now i'm sure that should be 400Mhz total.

You have a 533Mhz processor. People are getting higher scores because they have a normal 800Mhz FSB processor.

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4s800/overview.htm

Your board supports 800Mhz FSB but you have to buy a new processor. You can buy a 2.4C for $163 and overclock it to 3.1Ghz.

& according to the Asus specs of that board, it only supports a Single channel memory controller. That could also explain the low performance ( allthough not all of it ).

Oh well guess that solves it.

Thought i wasn't getting too screwed over when i bought my PC. Guess its good but thats all it is. It won't be what i thought it was capable of.

It's still good enough to run games Better than me PIII 700 (arrr, but my new one... )

Still don't see how a Pentium 4 processor thats 67Mhz faster than a P4 3.0 Ghz can't run in 800Mhz FSB! Thats stupid. I thought a P4 3.0Ghz runs at 3067Mhz! So you telling me you can pay more to have a 67Mhz faster processor that runs crapper on a motherboard. :dead:

It's quite simple. If you had taken the time to get more information before purchasing your system, you wouldn't be in this situation.

Intel released the 3.06GHZ P4 with a 133FSB ( 533 ) & HT. Later on, the 200FSB ( 800 ) was announced & new P4s were released with the FSB ( 3.0GHZ & 3.2GHZ ) & even lower speed ones were re-released with the new FSB & HT support such as the 2.4, 2.6, 2.8GHZ CPUs.

You've bought the 3.06GHZ P4 running on a 133FSB & there's no way you will get it to run with a 200FSB without overclocking : 23x133 -> 3066mhz, so 23x200 -> 4600mhz ( not very likely without some heavy duty watercooling or even some LN2 ).

The multiplier is locked so you cannot lower it to use a faster FSB while keeping the same overall speed ( 15x200 will be impossible ).

What you need to do now, is settle two things.

1. Getting your Ram to run at PC3200 speeds ( you will have a ncie performance gain ).

2. Finding out why you have such a low score in 3DMark, as I don't believe the Single channel memory controller nor the disabled SBA would give you such a performance hit.

Ok thx for telling me what i've got. Now i can work with this. How do i go about making my RAM function at the right speed? The "Memory Frequency Mhz" is set to 400Mhz in my BIOS, isn't that the setting for the speed of my RAM?

I have the Award BIOS. Any other settings i should enable?