Low performance 2D Graphics, CPU, Memory. Possible Causes?

[deepfry]

Hi.

First I would like to say that I love your software, I have been looking for something like this for a while, something simple and easy to understand to get a rough idea of how your system is performing. I love the baselines. I was impressed enough that I bought a copy about 15 minutes into using it.

Here's my problem, I have felt that my machine has been substantially under-performing since I built it but since it's not my main work machine, I never really put in the time to figure out why. The slowness is finally starting to be really annoying to the point that it feels like a 5 year old machine, so I'm finally taking the time to look into it.

Anecdotally, Web pages with animations run slowly, the info bar that pops up in Firefox to remember passwords moves about 2 fps, windows resize and redraw slowly, photo programs like Picassa and Lightroom scale photos slowly etc. Running the perf tests, I get the following results.

PassMark(TM) PerformanceTest 6.1 (http://www.passmark.com)
Results generated on: Saturday, November 29, 2008


Benchmark Results

Test Name: This Computer
CPU - Integer Math: 491.6
CPU - Floating Point Math: 674.5
CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 330.4
CPU - SSE: 4035.8
CPU - Compression: 5805.4
CPU - Encryption: 30.7
CPU - Image Rotation: 2085.5
CPU - String Sorting: 2626.9
Graphics 2D - Lines: 40.0
Graphics 2D - Rectangles: 22.6
Graphics 2D - Shapes: 16.2
Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text: 88.1
Graphics 2D - GUI: 70.8
Graphics 3D - Simple: 866.8
Graphics 3D - Medium: 232.5
Graphics 3D - Complex: 28.6
Memory - Allocate Small Block: 1019.6
Memory - Read Cached: 938.9
Memory - Read Uncached: 849.7
Memory - Write: 669.3
Memory - Large RAM: 498.1
Disk - Sequential Read: 65.8
Disk - Sequential Write: 67.2
Disk - Random Seek + RW: 3.8
CPU Mark: 1407.8
2D Graphics Mark: 163.3
Memory Mark: 293.9
Disk Mark: 494.3
3D Graphics Mark: 360.9
PassMark Rating: 598.0

System information: This Computer
CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
Number of CPU: 1
(4 Core(s)/CPU, 1 Logical(s)/Core)
CPU Type: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz
CPU Speed: 1106.4 MHz
Cache size: 4096KB
O/S: Windows Vista (WIN64)
Total RAM: 4094.2 MB.
Available RAM: 2916.4 MB.
Video settings: 2560x1600x32
Video driver:
DESCRIPTION: GeForce 8600 GT
MANUFACTURER: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
BIOS:
DATE: 06/11/07
Drive Letter: C
Total Disk Space: 139.7 GBytes
Cluster Size: 4.0 KBytes
File system: NTFS


The CPU and memory both underperform a similar PC by about 50% and the 2D Graphics by 3x or more in some cases. The only bright spot is disk access, which has seemed fine in normal use. Any idea what might cause these problems? I am thinking motherboard because as they say, all roads lead to rome, or through the motherboard, so I could see it being the cause of this sort of global slowness. Any tips on other utilities that I might use to narrow down the problem. Any settings in windows that I could change that might help me isolate it?

Nothing else was running during the test, and it was performed immediatly after a reboot.

Any help is appreciated.


Additional Information

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH DELUXE LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel
OS: Windows Vista Business x64
HD: 2x WD Raptor WD1500ADFD SATA (not in RAID configuration)
Memory : mushkin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) 4GB
VideoCard: 2x XFX PVT84JUDF3 GeForce 8600 GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 (only one is used currently)

[David (PassMark)]

Check the PerformanceTest preferences window. Make sure you have 4 or more processes selected, in order to load up your quad core CPU.

Remove the 2nd video card completely (as SLI often causes more problems that it is worth). And (re)install up to date video card device drivers.

Check for overheating and CPU / video card throttling.

Also see this previous post about fixing slow computers.

[deepfry]

Thanks for the quick response. I checked the preferences and it's set up to use 4 processors already. I removed one of the video cards (it was never set up to do SLI, it was originally intended to be a multi-monitor rig, but I decided that I liked the single 30" monitor better), so it didn't have the SLI connector on it. Either way, without the second video card plugged in, the perf tests all ran about the same.

I looked in the "Power Options" widget in the Control Panel, and sure enough, it was set to "Power Save". I changed it back to "High Performance", re-ran the tests, and they all come out about where they should be (about 2-3x where they were) Thanks! Looks like I just had it mis-configured. I'll post my new results here, in case anyone comes looking for a similar problem in the future.


PassMark(TM) PerformanceTest 6.1 (http://www.passmark.com)
Results generated on: Saturday, November 29, 2008


Benchmark Results

Test Name: This Computer
CPU - Integer Math: 1103.7
CPU - Floating Point Math: 1506.7
CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 723.6
CPU - SSE: 9004.5
CPU - Compression: 12914.2
CPU - Encryption: 68.1
CPU - Image Rotation: 4650.0
CPU - String Sorting: 6128.1
Graphics 2D - Lines: 97.3
Graphics 2D - Rectangles: 64.7
Graphics 2D - Shapes: 40.2
Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text: 217.5
Graphics 2D - GUI: 145.8
Graphics 3D - Simple: 905.5
Graphics 3D - Medium: 240.4
Graphics 3D - Complex: 68.2
Memory - Allocate Small Block: 2398.5
Memory - Read Cached: 2097.2
Memory - Read Uncached: 2031.8
Memory - Write: 1610.0
Memory - Large RAM: 1428.5
Disk - Sequential Read: 78.4
Disk - Sequential Write: 82.2
Disk - Random Seek + RW: 4.2
CPU Mark: 3148.6
2D Graphics Mark: 401.9
Memory Mark: 707.2
Disk Mark: 596.1
3D Graphics Mark: 388.5
PassMark Rating: 1199.5

System information: This Computer
CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
Number of CPU: 1
(4 Core(s)/CPU, 1 Logical(s)/Core)
CPU Type: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz
CPU Speed: 1109.2 MHz
Cache size: 4096KB
O/S: Windows Vista (WIN64)
Total RAM: 4094.2 MB.
Available RAM: 2870.5 MB.
Video settings: 2560x1600x32
Video driver:
DESCRIPTION: GeForce 8600 GT
MANUFACTURER: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
BIOS:
DATE: 06/11/07
Drive Letter: C
Total Disk Space: 139.7 GBytes
Cluster Size: 4.0 KBytes
File system: NTFS