My 3dmark03 overclock score (screenshot)

Not bad...but that's pretty mild OCing. 9700's are capable of A LOT more.

Erm,

Straight away i have found thing slowing your score down
#1 Norton. U must ALSO disable its startup utility.
######
theres alot more

The 9700 comes clocked at 499/297 standard in the Sager. I'm not saying you should clock it that high, but just wanted to give some criteria to what Flapjacks mentioned.

FYI,
I run Norton on mine. It benches roughly the same. I benched mine after a fresh install with nothing loaded and got a 3877. I benched it again today prior to upgrading to the ATI 8.0 drivers from 7.97. I got a 3866 with 48 processes running, including Norton. I then got 3880 after the upgrade to the new 8.0 drivers

edit 1 - the 48 processes including norton dropped my Aquamark from 31,358 to 31329

Everyone knows Norton steals resoureces.
Havent you noticed if you turn it off startup you startup ALOT faster.

Norton = Resoruces Stealer

U made sure norton wasnt on startup when u did it without norton. Trust me norton is a bad resource stealer :P

First, let's clarify what are we talking about here. I'm refering to Norton AV.

Second, Norton was not even on my system the first time I ran it. The point in question, however, was not if it took up resources. It was, as stated, whether it would affect benchmarks which was different entirely from how it affect resources. It drop my benchmark by 11 points, which is very little, and didn't even take into consideration the other 47 processes.

Just wanted to clarify. now as far as resources, it takes up roughly 20mb (edit 1 - 27520)on all of the processes, which in the grand scheme of things, for the purpose it serves, is very little.

Here you go guys.

Has anyone tried settings near these on the Alienware 9700???

How were the results?

So here's a few tests i just ran back to back...no rebooting, air cooled, no reg hacks, 20 processes running, just clock adjustments...remember, I'm still running a 9600.

*The clock speeds are in the filename

Damn!!! I just realized that I forgot to publish the last 2 runs

When i get my AW up and running and get another highscore ill take a SS

@lurking. Maybe they fixed that terrible 2003/2004 problem that stole resources on startup and when yur doing alot of hardisk work. (well all the time it took way more than needed)

Thanks, I've always been curious of what they would be. They are roughly the same, and I have the same Configuration with excection to the 3.4 processor on mine, just for reference.

I have seen problems with Norton on several different systems in the past, to the point where I recommended that the people use Grisoft AVG instead. So I certainly will not say that it doesn't have its issues. I've just never encountered the problems on systems I set up or maintained in the past. It was always a matter of not wanting to own the persons problems by working on their system. It was easier to install AVG, which is fantastic software. The most common thing that I see that tells me there will be an issue is in fact on startup, the icons load extremely slow. Usually, at that point, if I don't currently maintain that particular system, I uninstall Norton and install AVG.

I learned a long time ago, when dealing with computer iliterate people, which alot of my friends and family are in that catagory, make it as simple as possible. Find something that works quickly and effectively and stick with it to save headaches and phonecalls at all times of the day and night. Half the time I would find 2 and sometimes 3 Virus programs running at one time and the person would tell me how good they are with computers and how cautious they are with protection schemes.

Really, what it comes down to, is that I've used Norton since it's inception back in the early 80's, and have never had one problem. This includes running a small company of 35. Then again, the day I hit a snag on my home pc that I cannot figure out, I would have no problem with switching to AVG.

edit 1 - one other good thing about AVG is the automatic update functionality, works great for computer iliterate people. I think one reason I've never had a problem is that I update my definitions manually every day that I log on the web. Symantec definition updates have been my home page for about 10 years, when I used to maintain corporate virus software.

Hi guys!
What do you think I have to do to make the best benchmark on my sager?
I own a 17" with 256mb 9700 radeon. How can I find the best Atitools configuration?

Just keep trying to Overclock it by 5Mhz usually. When it crashes, bring it down like 10Mhz. And you should be set.

Jose is right...

Also look for "artifacts" (sprites?) while the benchmark program is working...that' means you've gone too far and should back off by 5MHz and try again.

Done!

this is my score:

Aquamark 3
8790@460/290 29,525
8790@ 515/300 32,610

3DMARK03 (340 patch)
8790@ 460/290 3,857
8790@ 515/300 4,150



I think they're also better than the one made by Adam.
Configuration

DPC Nosferatu (Clevo)
ATI 256MB
CPU Intel Extreme Edition 3.4GHZ
RAM 2x512DDR 400mhz dual channel
HD 60GB 7200

Very nice!!

Tanx really better than Alienware