Overclocking E6600 and XFX GeForce 9800GTX Sli...poor results!?!

[nox406]

Hey guys,

I had a bit of free time over the weekend and decided to dust off my old desktop and give it back a bit of juice. Here are the Specs.

Asus P5N32 sli SE deluxe
Intel E6600 @ 2.67Ghz stock speed
2x XFX Geforce 9800GTX in SLI

using a ZALMAN 9500A cpu cooler and stock cooling for the GFX cards

Now I know this MB is pretty bad for overclocking but I still gave it a shot. Stopped at 3Ghz 1200Mhz FSB for now as it is stable and wanted to try and OC the GFX cards a bit.

Before doing so, I ran 3D mark 2006 with the OCed processor and the stock GFX cards and got around 14000 which is an okay result for such a configuration.

However, after I proceeded to OC the graphic cards, 675 -> 775 core speed and 1100 -> 1200 memory speed, my 3D mark 2006 dropped a good 1500 points which got me puzzled. My CPU score stayed the same but both graphic scored went down.

Would anyone have any idea as to why I actually got a performance drop?

I know 3D mark 2006 is not the most stable benchmarking tool but still, I would have at least expected a slight increase.

Thanks for your responses

PS: I'm using windows 7 RC with the latest forceware drivers

 

[megamanx00]

Your GPUs might be getting too hot. That motherboard has two slots of space between the cards so that the cooler of the first is not up against the back of the second, but it could be you have poor case ventilation so they are overheating anyway 😀. Also the drivers may not really like your cards and it's hard to nail it down with you using an RC of win 7.