Its one of the last GPUs XP supported and much like the 980ti and Titan X it suffers the same issues in that XP really wasn't designed to drive such powerful GPUs and the drivers never had time to mature before support was dropped. In this case yes the CPU is part of the bottleneck along with the motherboard, that GPU in reality is considerably more powerful than the CPU feeding it data.

Guess I'll put the nvidia gpus back in btw I forgot to mention I was getting worse performance than original gpus. I just want more frames in crysis and a higher 3dmark 06 score. Maybe I'll try 3 way sli I found another 9800 gtx at the thift store and bought to keep as a backup.

Soulreaper wrote on 2022-05-13, 01:56:

Guess I'll put the nvidia gpus back in btw I forgot to mention I was getting worse performance than original gpus. I just want more frames in crysis and a higher 3dmark 06 score. Maybe I'll try 3 way sli I found another 9800 gtx at the thift store and bought to keep as a backup.

That sounds like a great Idea !

I have a QX9770 rig that I have run Tri Sli GTX285 on before, I lucked out and got three 2gb 285s so it was a monster at games like Crysis, right now tho its running Quad SLI with two GTX 295s but I had to move to Windows Vista to get that working as XP doesnt support Quad SLI.

Socket 775 and Core 2 era is my jam, also love the 200 series of GPUs so I collected a lot of stuff from that period, Still hunting for two 8800 Ultras and a pair of 9800 GX2's .. tho both models are prone to bad solder and GPUs that die from heat/cold working.

Hmm now that I look at my GPUs .. I think I have a thing for dual GPU cards 🤣 the noisier the better ! you ever hear a pair of 4870x2s roar into life ? ... I have and its a glorious sound.

Yes, you should try an earlier driver. I tested several Radeons from the hd5000, hd6000, hd7000 series, and they all perform slower with the latest XP drivers. Try some of the earliest XP drivers that support the hd7000 series, like 12.4.

pixel_workbench wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:38:

Yes, you should try an earlier driver. I tested several Radeons from the hd5000, hd6000, hd7000 series, and they all perform slower with the latest drivers. Try some of the earliest XP drivers that support the hd7000 series, like 12.4.

The whole driver thing with XP is why I run two XP OS drives, one has only ever had nVidia drivers installed the other only ever ATI drivers .. XP gets so trashed with multiple driver installs even with a driver cleaner.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:40:

pixel_workbench wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:38:

Yes, you should try an earlier driver. I tested several Radeons from the hd5000, hd6000, hd7000 series, and they all perform slower with the latest drivers. Try some of the earliest XP drivers that support the hd7000 series, like 12.4.

The whole driver thing with XP is why I run two XP OS drives, one has only ever had nVidia drivers installed the other only ever ATI drivers .. XP gets so trashed with multiple driver installs even with a driver cleaner.

It's not the problem, I literally saw lowered performance with later XP drivers across multiple generations of graphics cards, across multiple games. And it's not just the latest drivers that are bad. With hd4000 and hd5000 series, you want to stick with drivers 11.xx or earlier. I'll do a more detailed post on this soon.

pixel_workbench wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:47:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:40:

pixel_workbench wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:38:

Yes, you should try an earlier driver. I tested several Radeons from the hd5000, hd6000, hd7000 series, and they all perform slower with the latest drivers. Try some of the earliest XP drivers that support the hd7000 series, like 12.4.

The whole driver thing with XP is why I run two XP OS drives, one has only ever had nVidia drivers installed the other only ever ATI drivers .. XP gets so trashed with multiple driver installs even with a driver cleaner.

It's not the problem, I literally saw lowered performance with later XP drivers across multiple generations of graphics cards, across multiple games. And it's not just the latest drivers that are bad. With hd4000 and hd5000 series, you want to stick with drivers 11.xx or earlier. I'll do a more detailed post on this soon.

Ill be sure to read it, its interesting to see how each driver affects performance.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:15:

That sounds like a great Idea ! […]
Show full quote

Soulreaper wrote on 2022-05-13, 01:56:

Guess I'll put the nvidia gpus back in btw I forgot to mention I was getting worse performance than original gpus. I just want more frames in crysis and a higher 3dmark 06 score. Maybe I'll try 3 way sli I found another 9800 gtx at the thift store and bought to keep as a backup.

That sounds like a great Idea !

I have a QX9770 rig that I have run Tri Sli GTX285 on before, I lucked out and got three 2gb 285s so it was a monster at games like Crysis, right now tho its running Quad SLI with two GTX 295s but I had to move to Windows Vista to get that working as XP doesnt support Quad SLI.

Socket 775 and Core 2 era is my jam, also love the 200 series of GPUs so I collected a lot of stuff from that period, Still hunting for two 8800 Ultras and a pair of 9800 GX2's .. tho both models are prone to bad solder and GPUs that die from heat/cold working.

Hmm now that I look at my GPUs .. I think I have a thing for dual GPU cards 🤣 the noisier the better ! you ever hear a pair of 4870x2s roar into life ? ... I have and its a glorious sound.

Thanks for the encouragement on the tri sli I may try it out though ill have to loose my SB card. I will try some other driver revisions and do clean installs and give the 7970 a few more tries. I am not even sure ddu worked cause I kept getting crashes. Panda do you overclock? I never did back in the day I got my hands dirty with a 3770k which is very easy, so I never had any experience working with the socket lga775. Good references you can guide me to? I run 3.66 right now can get to 4.0 but it seems a bit hot and stability is not good. I don't fully understand which frequencies need to be bumped up in which order and what numbers are safe.

I love playing with these old computers nowadays to think I have an intel extreme cpu that was I think over 1k when it launched on my desk. That I got from picking up random parts that were going to be trash its great. I have ran 7970's in crossfire the are blower style so they scream when they get hot. I only have the one now I sold the other one about 5 years ago.

Soulreaper wrote on 2022-05-13, 03:44:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:15:

That sounds like a great Idea ! […]
Show full quote

Soulreaper wrote on 2022-05-13, 01:56:

Guess I'll put the nvidia gpus back in btw I forgot to mention I was getting worse performance than original gpus. I just want more frames in crysis and a higher 3dmark 06 score. Maybe I'll try 3 way sli I found another 9800 gtx at the thift store and bought to keep as a backup.

That sounds like a great Idea !

I have a QX9770 rig that I have run Tri Sli GTX285 on before, I lucked out and got three 2gb 285s so it was a monster at games like Crysis, right now tho its running Quad SLI with two GTX 295s but I had to move to Windows Vista to get that working as XP doesnt support Quad SLI.

Socket 775 and Core 2 era is my jam, also love the 200 series of GPUs so I collected a lot of stuff from that period, Still hunting for two 8800 Ultras and a pair of 9800 GX2's .. tho both models are prone to bad solder and GPUs that die from heat/cold working.

Hmm now that I look at my GPUs .. I think I have a thing for dual GPU cards 🤣 the noisier the better ! you ever hear a pair of 4870x2s roar into life ? ... I have and its a glorious sound.

Thanks for the encouragement on the tri sli I may try it out though ill have to loose my SB card. I will try some other driver revisions and do clean installs and give the 7970 a few more tries. I am not even sure ddu worked cause I kept getting crashes. Panda do you overclock? I never did back in the day I got my hands dirty with a 3770k which is very easy, so I never had any experience working with the socket lga775. Good references you can guide me to? I run 3.66 right now can get to 4.0 but it seems a bit hot and stability is not good. I don't fully understand which frequencies need to be bumped up in which order and what numbers are safe.

I love playing with these old computers nowadays to think I have an intel extreme cpu that was I think over 1k when it launched on my desk. That I got from picking up random parts that were going to be trash its great. I have ran 7970's in crossfire the are blower style so they scream when they get hot. I only have the one now I sold the other one about 5 years ago.

I dont know if you have ever seen the BIOS on the Striker II Extreme but there is no easy guide to overclocking on that bios .. it has some options I have never seen before. The guy I watched to get a idea of what to tinker with was Luumi on Youtube, I dont know for certain but I think he is a professional overclocker and likely works for EVGA or has connections since he does a ton of OC stuff on EVGA gear but he is also into overclocking the 775 platform and has a few records with it. (his E8600 overclocking was amazing to watch)

https://www.youtube.com/c/LuumiJuhani

That's his channel and his stuff on the 775 platform is a lot of fun to watch, his other overclocking is also enjoyable while I dont recommend trying to tinker as deep as he does you can get a good idea of what things you need to change on the 775 platform to overclock, my QX9770 will run at 4.5GHZ but its not 24/7 stable so I run it at 4.3 for daily use using a AIO cooler, under air I can run it at 4.0/4.1 depending on ambient temps. I have a x5470 that will run at 4.5 on air 24/7 but it doesnt like X48 and I dont have a modded bios for the Striker II so I can only run it on P45 which limits GPU choices.

My advice is to check out Luumis channel and to use some Google Fuu on 775 overclocking for the motherboard you have, it'll take a ton of reading to find out what each option in the bios does and if its useful or not, also a ton of tinkering and messing about ....and a metric ton of bios resets 🤣.

Your QX9650 is a good chip but to get to 4ghz will require some excellent airflow or an AIO to keep temps under control.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-13, 04:07:

I dont know if you have ever seen the BIOS on the Striker II Extreme but there is no easy guide to overclocking on that bios .. […]
Show full quote

Soulreaper wrote on 2022-05-13, 03:44:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:15:

That sounds like a great Idea ! […]
Show full quote

That sounds like a great Idea !

I have a QX9770 rig that I have run Tri Sli GTX285 on before, I lucked out and got three 2gb 285s so it was a monster at games like Crysis, right now tho its running Quad SLI with two GTX 295s but I had to move to Windows Vista to get that working as XP doesnt support Quad SLI.

Socket 775 and Core 2 era is my jam, also love the 200 series of GPUs so I collected a lot of stuff from that period, Still hunting for two 8800 Ultras and a pair of 9800 GX2's .. tho both models are prone to bad solder and GPUs that die from heat/cold working.

Hmm now that I look at my GPUs .. I think I have a thing for dual GPU cards 🤣 the noisier the better ! you ever hear a pair of 4870x2s roar into life ? ... I have and its a glorious sound.

Thanks for the encouragement on the tri sli I may try it out though ill have to loose my SB card. I will try some other driver revisions and do clean installs and give the 7970 a few more tries. I am not even sure ddu worked cause I kept getting crashes. Panda do you overclock? I never did back in the day I got my hands dirty with a 3770k which is very easy, so I never had any experience working with the socket lga775. Good references you can guide me to? I run 3.66 right now can get to 4.0 but it seems a bit hot and stability is not good. I don't fully understand which frequencies need to be bumped up in which order and what numbers are safe.

I love playing with these old computers nowadays to think I have an intel extreme cpu that was I think over 1k when it launched on my desk. That I got from picking up random parts that were going to be trash its great. I have ran 7970's in crossfire the are blower style so they scream when they get hot. I only have the one now I sold the other one about 5 years ago.

I dont know if you have ever seen the BIOS on the Striker II Extreme but there is no easy guide to overclocking on that bios .. it has some options I have never seen before. The guy I watched to get a idea of what to tinker with was Luumi on Youtube, I dont know for certain but I think he is a professional overclocker and likely works for EVGA or has connections since he does a ton of OC stuff on EVGA gear but he is also into overclocking the 775 platform and has a few records with it.

https://www.youtube.com/c/LuumiJuhani

That's his channel and his stuff on the 775 platform is a lot of fun to watch, his other overclocking is also enjoyable while I dont recommend trying to tinker as deep as he does you can get a good idea of what things you need to change on the 775 platform to overclock, my QX9770 will run at 4.5GHZ but its not 24/7 stable so I run it at 4.3 for daily use using a AIO cooler, under air I can run it at 4.0/4.1 depending on ambient temps. I have a x5470 that will run at 4.5 on air 24/7 but it doesnt like X48 and I dont have a modded bios for the Striker II so I can only run it on P45 which limits GPU choices.

Your QX9650 is a good chip but to get to 4ghz will require some excellent airflow or an AIO to keep temps under control.

I have it housed in a "period accurate" antec twelve hundred full tower case and that things has 7 fans in it. Flow is good but I only have a 212 hyper evo plus on the die maybe I'll get an nhd15 for it. I will check out that channel.

CPU and RAM throughput are you main limiting factors.

But the LGA775 platform does get a lot nicer once you get the fsb up around 450Mhz or higher.

Still, you are going to be severely limited for the 7970.

For the video settings, did Crysis change from what you had it set at with the 9800 GTX+ cards? The 7970 should be quite a bit faster if the settings are the same unless the CPU was already struggling with the other cards.

As far as performance goes, even overclocked CFX 7970 Ghz edition cards are not really fast enough for Crysis IMO. But I do really like max settings minus shadows and dumb stuff like bloom and lense flare.

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-05-13, 04:24:

CPU and RAM throughput are you main limiting factors. […]
Show full quote

CPU and RAM throughput are you main limiting factors.

But the LGA775 platform does get a lot nicer once you get the fsb up around 450Mhz or higher.

Still, you are going to be severely limited for the 7970.

For the video settings, did Crysis change from what you had it set at with the 9800 GTX+ cards? The 7970 should be quite a bit faster if the settings are the same unless the CPU was already struggling with the other cards.

As far as performance goes, even overclocked CFX 7970 Ghz edition cards are not really fast enough for Crysis IMO. But I do really like max settings minus shadows and dumb stuff like bloom and lense flare.

I never even tested crysis when I got worse test scores in 3dmark 06 I went to bed. I am going to try it now.

Soulreaper wrote on 2022-05-13, 04:20:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-13, 04:07:

I dont know if you have ever seen the BIOS on the Striker II Extreme but there is no easy guide to overclocking on that bios .. […]
Show full quote

Soulreaper wrote on 2022-05-13, 03:44:

Thanks for the encouragement on the tri sli I may try it out though ill have to loose my SB card. I will try some other driver revisions and do clean installs and give the 7970 a few more tries. I am not even sure ddu worked cause I kept getting crashes. Panda do you overclock? I never did back in the day I got my hands dirty with a 3770k which is very easy, so I never had any experience working with the socket lga775. Good references you can guide me to? I run 3.66 right now can get to 4.0 but it seems a bit hot and stability is not good. I don't fully understand which frequencies need to be bumped up in which order and what numbers are safe.

I love playing with these old computers nowadays to think I have an intel extreme cpu that was I think over 1k when it launched on my desk. That I got from picking up random parts that were going to be trash its great. I have ran 7970's in crossfire the are blower style so they scream when they get hot. I only have the one now I sold the other one about 5 years ago.

I dont know if you have ever seen the BIOS on the Striker II Extreme but there is no easy guide to overclocking on that bios .. it has some options I have never seen before. The guy I watched to get a idea of what to tinker with was Luumi on Youtube, I dont know for certain but I think he is a professional overclocker and likely works for EVGA or has connections since he does a ton of OC stuff on EVGA gear but he is also into overclocking the 775 platform and has a few records with it.

https://www.youtube.com/c/LuumiJuhani

That's his channel and his stuff on the 775 platform is a lot of fun to watch, his other overclocking is also enjoyable while I dont recommend trying to tinker as deep as he does you can get a good idea of what things you need to change on the 775 platform to overclock, my QX9770 will run at 4.5GHZ but its not 24/7 stable so I run it at 4.3 for daily use using a AIO cooler, under air I can run it at 4.0/4.1 depending on ambient temps. I have a x5470 that will run at 4.5 on air 24/7 but it doesnt like X48 and I dont have a modded bios for the Striker II so I can only run it on P45 which limits GPU choices.

Your QX9650 is a good chip but to get to 4ghz will require some excellent airflow or an AIO to keep temps under control.

I have it housed in a "period accurate" antec twelve hundred full tower case and that things has 7 fans in it. Flow is good but I only have a 212 hyper evo plus on the die maybe I'll get an nhd15 for it. I will check out that channel.

Mine is in a HAF 932 Advanced which was a stupidly huge case back in the day, its not period accurate but from a couple of years later but for air flow it was amazing, with 3 200mm fans it could shift some serious air.

So i tested it and it is on par numbers wise with the sli setup and the hitching is way worse multiple millisecond pauses. I guess I need to hook up my main rig to my crt and play crysis that way. I suppose for that era pc with xp on it i've got it maxed out.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:15:

Right now tho its running Quad SLI with two GTX 295s but I had to move to Windows Vista to get that working as XP doesnt support Quad SLI.

Oh that's my next project ! (see my signature)
Can't build it right now because i'm still using the motherboard for my main computer. But Quad SLI was a dream.
I already have all the parts waiting in a box : Sabertooth X58 // Core i7 Extreme 965 (was hesitating with 975) // 2x GTX 295 (first version dual PCB) // Corsair dominator DDR3 1600 triple channel kit with the fan // SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty // Bigfoot Killer 1Gbps // 1000W Supply

Is Dual 295 really better than triple 285 ? i read that the difference is quite thin some times.
I also got a pair of 4870X2, just to test the competition wit Quad Crossfire.

acl wrote on 2022-05-16, 09:00:

Oh that's my next project ! (see my signature) Can't build it right now because i'm still using the motherboard for my main comp […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-13, 02:15:

Right now tho its running Quad SLI with two GTX 295s but I had to move to Windows Vista to get that working as XP doesnt support Quad SLI.

Oh that's my next project ! (see my signature)
Can't build it right now because i'm still using the motherboard for my main computer. But Quad SLI was a dream.
I already have all the parts waiting in a box : Sabertooth X58 // Core i7 Extreme 965 (was hesitating with 975) // 2x GTX 295 (first version dual PCB) // Corsair dominator DDR3 1600 triple channel kit with the fan // SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty // Bigfoot Killer 1Gbps // 1000W Supply

Is Dual 295 really better than triple 285 ? i read that the difference is quite thin some times.
I also got a pair of 4870X2, just to test the competition wit Quad Crossfire.

Better is subjective 🤣

If I had a third 295 I wonder if it would work as 6 way SLI ..but at some point you have to draw a line and work out if you even have a PSU that can power these beasts. Performance wise it depends on the drivers and game being benched, 3 2gb 285s will 100% shit all over 2x295s at high resolutions or ultra textures simply due to the 2gb of vram per card at lower resolutions and details its a bit of a toss up really and either setup is as good as the other.

Them 4870x2s are monsters and you will 100% need a 800watt PSU to feed them, they wont even post if they cannot get enough AMPs at power on.

Now if you will excuse me .. I need to find a third 295 ..turns out its only got the one SLI connector so only two cards is possible ..sigh back tot he drawing board.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-16, 10:31:

Now if you will excuse me .. I need to find a third 295 ..

In fact, well.. i'm using two for this project, but... 😇

(from my retro directory : https://retro.user-unfriendly.net/Pictures/GTX295%20x3/)

Cards are really dirty on the picture. I took it before cleaning them. Complete disassembly + cleaning + replacing paste and pads takes more than an hour for each card.
The black paint coating tends to become "sticky" and you must scrub the surface to get rid of the bad plastic.
The third one (the one on the bottom) is not in perfect condition. The power connector has been repaired and sometimes the card don't want to boot.
I know it works because i tested it in games. But its not perfect. So i keep it on display.

I don't know if SLI is supporting more than 4 GPU by design. At least, i never heard of 6 GPU SLI. Maybe a software limitation ?
Even if it was supported, my 1000W supply don't have enough GPU connectors : 3x 4pin + 3x 3 pins would be required. And i only have 2. (and i don't have a 3way sli cable)

acl wrote on 2022-05-16, 12:31:

I don't know if SLI is supporting more than 4 GPU by design. At least, i never heard of 6 GPU SLI. Maybe a software limitation ?
Even if it was supported, my 1000W supply don't have enough GPU connectors : 3x 4pin + 3x 3 pins would be required. And i only have 2. (and i don't have a 3way sli cable)

Oh all of that is secondary issue for HexSLI.
Not sure if you noticed, but all GTX 295 cards only have one SLI finger on it's PCB 😉
(as it was already pointed out earlier)

At most, you will be able to use third card in PhysX role (well, half of it).

Imagine if you could hook 4x 295s together.

The thing about CFX and SLI is diminishing returns.

4-way generally helped almost none. More than that would be utterly pointless.