How are people getting 3-4 times the score I am?

[JeremyVnc]

Just like the subject asked. I was looking at the top 10 baselines and the top is like 1200-1300 final score. I'm just wondering how these people are getting so much better results than myself.

p4 550 (3.4GHz Prescott)
1 GB Corsair XMS DDR2
200 GB WD 8mb buffer (IDE)
16X DVD Dual Layer
500W Ultra PS
Radeon x300 (P.O.S.)

I mean other than the x300, my computer is just about top of what you can buy. Is this my problem? Any suggestions?
-Jeremy

[David (PassMark)]

Without knowing the individual test results it is hard to know where your machine is behind the top results.

However at the moment

- All the top results are using the X800 or x850 video cards. And due to the expotential increase in video card speeds over the last couple of years, this can have a big impact.

- Almost all the top machines have a faster CPU than yours

- Many of the top machines are using RAID disk systems.

You might have lower CD result, depending on what CD you used for the test. You need a CD with large files on it for the best results.

> my computer is just about top
> of what you can buy

I think you'll find you could easily spend several thousand additional dollars if you tried hard enough

Also don't be fooled into thinking that a big hard drive is a fast hard drive or that 1GB of RAM is going to be quicker than 512MB in normal use.

Finally the people getting the top results are often those who sacrifice stability for speed or visual appearance for speed. This can be done by overclocking your hardware, using 16bit color instead of 32bit, adjusting 3D video card device driver settings and turning off certain windows features, like smooth fonts.

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David