Performance Issues - GeForce 7600GT and WD2500AAJS

[thechatking]

Hi,

I've been noticing poor performance since a re-build of my Vista Ultimate 64-bit system (poorer than normal, should we say), so have run Passmark to try and identify the cause. Doing so has highlighted two components that are not running to their capacity:

• NVidia GeForce 7600GT graphics card
• Western Digital 2500AAJS hard disk

GeForce 7600GT

The 3D Graphics Mark for this card is 383, which seems about right compared to similar baselines, but the 2D Graphics Mark is significantly lower at 163 (comparable baselines score ~450 and my friend's 7600GS even gets 425). Here are the 2D scores for my 7600GT (with a comparable value in brackets):

Solid Vectors: 1.0 (3.99)
Transparent Vectors: 0.97 (3.63)
Complex Vectors: 18.9 (93.1)
Fonts and Text: 60.5 (105.3)
Windows Interface: 15.9 (89.
Image Filters: 207.5 (213.4)
Image Rendering: 270.1 (284.3)

It's strange that the last two values are decent, but the other five are dismal. I have the latest NVidia drivers.

Why would my card perform so poorly in 2D, but not in 3D? I am using Vista Aero, but so is my friend's 7600GS and his results are fine. Any ideas?

WD 2500AAJS

Additionally, my primary hard disk seems to be performing much lower than the benchmark rating available for it on the Passmark website. My Disk Mark for this drive is 377.5, whereas the benchmark is 605. The full disk ratings are:

Sequential Read: 52.7
Sequential Write: 48.4
Random Seek + RW: 3.33

Any ideas on this one?

My System

Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit
Foxconn 9657AA (BIOS 6.00PG)
Intel Core2Duo 6600 @ 2.4ghz
4gb DDR2 RAM
Western Digital 2500AAJS-00VTA0 250gb Sata II hard disk
Maxtor 6V250F0 250Gb Sata hard disk
Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (display 1680x1050)

Vista is completely up-to-date, I have the latest drivers for everything and the BIOS is also the latest version.

Can anyone offer me some advice or thoughts on what might be causing these performance issues? Let me know if you need any more information on anything at all and thanks for anyone who takes the time to help.

Mark

[David (PassMark)]

Some of the 2D results are CPU dependant as well as video card dependant. So you need to be sure the CPUs are very similar as well as the video cards before comparing results. There are also very significant differences between XP and Vista. Especially for semi transparent (alpha channel operations). If you friend has a 32bit machine it is possible the 32bit drivers are more optimised. There are also known nVidia device driver bugs for 2D which have probalby never been fixed.

The disk R/W of 52/48 isn't all that bad.

[thechatking]

Both the benchmark and my friend's PCs are using the same CPU as I am and both are also running Vista. I think the benchmark may be 32-bit, but my friend's PC is using Vista 64-bit. That's interesting about NVidia's drivers, but not at all surprising. What would you suggest I do to confirm or deny a driver issue with the graphics card?

The hard disk is perfectly usable at those R+W speeds, but it's not performing anywhere near what it should be doing. The Passmark score is almost 40% lower than the benchmark on this site, which suggests a problem or bottleneck somewhere along the line.