1000 point DROP in 3dmark w/ my ti4200

[varkeast]

i just got my gainward 128mb ti4200 today in from fedex. for the most part im very pleased... but, when i first installed it, and ran 3dmark just to see how it would do, i got a 9500 or so in 3d mark, i was pretty please. but then i played some games and figured i would try bumpin up the memory/core speed some to see how it did. after i did that it seemed like my FPS went down, not up. i ran 3dmark again, and only got 8500 or so points. i've ran it several times since, w/ reboots, new drivers, reinstall drivers, reseat, factory freqs, all give me around an 8500 score still. im stumped. if anyone knows what i am missing or what can fix this, please help
-b

 

[varkeast]

all the fill rates are higher, but frame rates lower

 

[BD231]

You pumped up the core to high, which pretty much created a bottleneck. The GPU is pumping out more data than the mem can handle. Go back to default GPU clock, then push your mem as high as it will go, then very slowly bump up the core till you get a bottleneck, then back off accordingly till you get silky smooth frame rates.

 

[varkeast]

it seems like no matter what my settings are, gainwards safe (250/444) enhanced (260/520) or anything i set it to, the speed doesnt change any noticeable amount. could something else in my system by causing a bottleneck? im running an athlon XP 1600+ at 1550mhz on an MSI nForce mobo. is there anything is bios that could affect it, like what should i have AGP aperature set to and everything like that. thanks again
-b