Aight guys I need some help, and help from anyone would be appreciated. With my Dell Inspiron 8200 I am getting benchmarks of 893 on 3dMark03. I would like to raise this score a bit, but I am not a big fan of overclocking. Well any advice would be appreciated My specs are as follows:
1.7 GHZ P4
512 MB PC-2100 DDR SODIMM RAM
64 MB Radeon 9000
30 GB 4200 RPM HD

Thanx.

Safest way is to Use better drivers. if you can make the splurge for a new video card? you can easily double that score with a Quadro 700 other than that overclocking wont yield you much with the radeons anyway

www.omegacorner.com for ati drivers

Dont buy into the benchmark hype! Run your games and get the fps readings from them. Keeping up with bench marks will only cost you $$$$ that you might not have to spend. If your games play well and there is no freezing, I wouldnt worry about it much. I tried to play the keep up game, and the only winner was the company I spent all my $$$ with.I like you have an I8200, along with 2 other dell laptops and 4 desktops. If you want bragging rights go for the quadro, It is the leet card for the I8200. But remember no card will have DX9.0 or greater support!

I plan on living with my 8200 for at least another year, then see what is available. I can play all of my games on what I have now. And 8800 in 3dmark2001 is good enough for now. Good luck to you!

Sorry I dont buy that score. I can play 2k3, and bf1942 at 1600x1200 on full settings on my 8200 with 768mb of ram 1.7 completely tweaked out. 64mb 440go card. And mine will only run 1 out of the 4 tests. I get a 189 on it. My desktop with a ti4800 gold nvidia card just pulls a 1100 or so. I have a hard time swallowing that. Ill run a 3d2001 test, and post the results for the 8200.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6660123 5277 which is pretty darn good. Me thinks people are inflating scores lol

That test was even with less ram then what I have now. I ran a new one, and guess I need to retweak this thing. Dropped 1k or so on my score. http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7486099 4511

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6597693 Desktop for 3d 2001
Desktop for 3d2003 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=869989

He did say he was using a Radeon 9000 which can run more tests since its a DX 8.1 compliant card

I got that score by majorly tweeking my system, and disabiling any hardware I wasnt useing at the time, sound, wi-fi, nic, ect. With everything enabled it gets around 7500-7600. About par for that card. In 03, it gets a 1043 with all hardware. Dont compare a gforce440 go with the 9000, just like you cant compare a 9000 to a quadro 700! Its a totaly different ball game!speed wise!

Before you go around saying peoples scores are a lil inflated, why dont you educate your self a bit more on the subject! I am not trying to be a smartass, I am just telling you from experience! Advice: Just because you may have the latest drivers does not mean they are the fastest drivers!!

Also, 3D mark'01=DX8+. 3Dmark'03=DX9+

THe Radeon 9000 and Quadro 700 are both DX8.1 Hardware Complaint cards where as the geforce 440 go is only DX 8.0 compliant thru software only.

Thank you DELL-MACHINE. I have thought about getting a Quadro. I might give it a shot here soon. After thinking about it, it might be $$$$ well spent.

I dont plan on getting rid of my I8200 anytime soon. I hqave enough hardware for it laying around that I could sell and buy a Quadro....

Dont think I dont know how to tweak either. lol Im a full time gamer, and yes I do know what Im doing. If the 9000 is seriously that much better then Ill scoop one up. I just cant see it being much better though. After reading over the dell forums I did see some similar results. Just seems odd is all. Ryan

I would like to see a link to these 3dmark scores though.

Like DELL-MACHINE said, the 9000 is a DX8.1 card, The Gforce440 go uses software to take advantage of DX8! I ran 3Dmark at work today and got a score of 7650. But the Madonion site wouldnt let me post it. Had to do with my CPU speed. I use a piece of 3rd party software to control my speedstep, so it read out like 1920Mhz! I would just take a screen shot and post it, but I am not about to insult you or anyone else with that jargen! If you have the $333.00+ bones go for the Quadro. It is the best for the I8200!

If you want an instant boost in performance and you cant justify 2000+ dollars spent put these on your list of performance upgrade in this order

Quadro 700 64MB card ($270-350)
1 GB of DDR266 RAM ($120-140)
2.4Ghz Pentium4M ($200-250)
7200 Rpm Hardrive ($280-320)

Buying these parts in this order will improve your frames per 2nd for your games from standard parts. Prices are ranged from Dell Spare Parts to eBay use th ebets of your resources to aquire them otherwise i can assist just ask on this post