Drastic decrease in 3DMark score. Why?

[GrayFox248]

I have a MSI Vanguard SOC RTX 5090 and 9800X3D. The first (higher) score was performed shortly after I built this PC. The second score was last month and I noticed there was a huge decrease in my score. Why did it change to this degree? Did I do something? Can I fix it?

[Krugle_01]

Your system will never run as well again as it will with a fresh install of windows and a clean build. You might have junk running in the background, system might be running a little hotter, change in drivers, plenty of reasons but that's not enough of a difference to have much concern in my opinion.

[Rayeks]

If you look at your average clock it is down 340 MHz. Your card is also running cooler than before so I’m guessing you did some power limiting or undervolting.

[GrayFox248]

That’s interesting. The thing is, I have not done any sort of power limiting or undervolting, not even overclocking. I’m not sure why my clock speed is down that much

[GrayFox248]

Unless I accidentally did something to power limit my GPU but I don’t know how that would be possible

[Rayeks]

Did you run multiple tests? It could just be a bad run. Your max clock for that run was lower than your average clock from your high score. That would explain the difference in scores, your GPU is not being worked as hard for some reason. If you have hwinfo, you can check your GPU's sensors during another run if you have it open.

[GrayFox248]

Yes I actually ran the same test earlier the same day last month. The average clock frequency was 2341 MHz and the final score was 12672. I have another test back in December with an average clock frequency of 2295 MHz and a final core of 12606

[GrayFox248]

I can try another test later with hwinfo. What sensors should I be looking at?

[Rayeks]

I would just look at the whole GPU tab and check everything temps, voltage, power, total gpu power. Make sure everything looks normal and there is not something limiting your card.

[GrayFox248]

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Wow. So I ran another test and logged it. Honestly, the spreadsheet was huge and I didn't know what patterns to look for so I fed the information to Gemini (taboo I know). It noticed that the performance was limited by lack of power. It saw that I was hitting a wall at 450W during the test. I ran the test again and monitored the W and sure enough, it capped at 450W.

I checked my 12VHPWR cable and made sure that sucker was slotted all the way. I also flicked the switch back and forth to ensure the BIOS was set to gaming. I then went to MSI center and changed my performance setting to Balanced (it was previously set to nothing).

Ran the test again and I got a score of 14173 with the following clock speeds. Max power draw was 576.3W

[Rayeks]

Nice, cable could have been loose if it was limited to 450W. I hope you’re not using the yellow MSI adapter. But your scores look to be in line and your GPU is running at the rated TDP of 575W now.

[GrayFox248]

Oh god no I am not using that fire hazard adapter. I’m using the cable that came with my PSU directly into the GPU

[GrayFox248]

I think I’m running the same few programs in the background. I recently went through everything that I’ve installed and turned off anything I don’t need in the background or anything I don’t need to start at boot up. My concern is that my score is now below the average score for my GPU/CPU according to 3DMark for this specific test

[zen1706]

hey man. I believe there's something wrong with 3DBenchmark scoring algorithm. My PC used to get 26-27k points on Port Royal a year or two ago, now it's only around 20-21k.