Problem with Voodoo5 PCI and Sempron 2600 (1.6GHz-s754) on MS-7032 v1.0 (kt8neo-v)

[pierrickuk]

Hello,

I recently inherited the following combo: Sempron 2600 (1.6GHz) on MS-7032 v1.0. I thought it would be a good platform to receive my voodoo 5 5500 pci (mac card flashed to pc).
I set up Win Xp Pro Version 2002 SP3 and Win 98 se and was a bit surprised by the apparent low performances.
So I ran some benchmarks (3d mark 2001 se).

The results:

AMD Sempron 2600+ (1.6Ghz, L2 cache 128kb)
MSI MS-7032 (k8t-neo-v 1.0, bios 5.1)
1GB DDR 400
Driver: Amigamerlin 3.0 for Voodoo 5500 PCI/DVI (tried later with 3.1 too)

3d mark2001 se v330
Win Xp Pro Version 2002 SP3
With one chip only ===> 1240 3D marks
 default, 2 chips enabled===> 1300 3D Marks

Tried again with Win 98se, with amigamerlin 2.5, all default settings: 1400 3D marks

From the very little difference with one and 2 chips activated,  I thought there was a problem with the card. So I later tried it in an old p3-s 1.4 on ms-6309 with 512 meg SDRAM 133, on which I also have a V5 5500 AGP.
The OS on the p3 machine is WIn98SE +unofficial service pack, driver is Amigamerlin 2.5:

3d mark 2000
V5 PCI: 4708
V5 AGP: 4742

3d mark 2001
V5 PCI: 1907
V5 AGP: 2186

The difference here between the AGP and the PCI is very small, so I concluded that the PCI card is fine.

What do you think the problem is with the sempron+ v5 pci configuration? I have since tried sfft drivers, latest amigamerlin 3.1 R1 drivers and still get the same low result.
Anybody has the same or a similar configuration? Am I missing something obvious in the bios maybe?
Could it be the small cache of the sempron? or just bad luck with hardware compatibility?

[H-street]

how does it behave under win98se with the latest official 3dfx drivers?

[pierrickuk]

Well, I haven't tried with different drivers, instead I tried with a different card: a v3-3000 16 meg pci.
the results are as follow:

In both case, OS is Windows 98se + latest unofficial service pack.
PIII-s 1.4 @1582      
fsb:150, sdram:133      
3dmark2000    3362                      
3dmark2001    1789                      

Sempron2600 @1864MHz
fsb:233, sdram:233    
3dmark2000    2787
3dmark2001    1521

You can see some screenshots with more details on this thread (in French):
http://forum.hardware.fr/forum2.php?config=hfr.inc&cat=1&subcat=109&post=567660&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=0&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=7799101"e_only=0&new=0&nojs=0#t7799101

What do you think?

The difference in performance can also be felt in games. I tried Supreme snowboarding (glide3, 1280x1024, 16 bits, max settings for game details), it is definitely smoother on the P3. At 1024x768, not much difference.

I am very interested in feedback from people with the same mobo (or equivalent) to try to find out where the problem is.


To H-street, I will try latest official drivers when I have the time.