Benchmark says PC slower after CPU upgrade?!?!?

[p.braham@blueyonder.co.uk]

I downloaded Passmark and ran it. I had an Athlon 64 3200+. I immediately replaced the CPU with a 4600+ X2 and eagerly ran Passmark again to see how much better my new CPU is, but these are the results:

CPU mark: 517 before, 620 after.
2D mark: 770 before, 459 after.
Memory mark: 366.2 before, 430.5 after.
3D mark: 293.7 before, 209.1 after. :o
Passmark: 348.6 before, 334.3 after.

As I use my PC mostly for games, I'm horrified. Please tell me that I haven't wasted a load of cash on a worse CPU.....

[passmark]

You didn't way what version of PerformanceTest you are using. But you should check the number of processed in the Edit / Preferences window. With a dual core machine this needs to be at least 2. This might improve the CPU tests.

But the 3D tests are not multi-threaded (the same as many older games, but this changing with newer games). So the 2nd core is not used by the 3D test (50% of your CPU is idle).

I can't really explain the large drop in the 2D performance. You might want to re-run this a few times to see if it is consistent.

[p.braham@blueyonder.co.uk]

I'm using version 6.1 64 bit. I'm running XP Pro 64 bit, with a 6600GT gfx card, 3 gig of ram and an Abit AV8 motherboard.

Since I posted, I went to the AMD website and downloaded 2 things: latest CPU drivers, and an "optimiser".

Now, the 3D test crashes. My 2D score is about the same.

[p.braham@blueyonder.co.uk]

I ran DxDiag, and the direct3D test fails, with the error message "test failed at step 8(creating 3D device): HRESULT=0x887602eb (error code)

[p.braham@blueyonder.co.uk]

So then I reinstalled DirectX which didn't help. Finally I downloaded the latest Via chipset drivers and installed them, and now it's all working. My 3D passmark is 297 which is no better than before I put the new CPU in :mad:

But at least it's working now :-D

[passmark]

There are still a lot of problems with 64bit systems. For 64bit is was not possible to use 32bit device drivers. So every hardware manufacture in the world needed to release new 64bit Windows drivers in a hurry, without much of a budget because there were not many users to justify a lot of effort.

The result was a lot of device drivers were released without much quality control. And a lot of user frustration.

The situation should improve as Vista 64bit becomes more popular.