Problems with New ATI Radeon 9800 128 (non-pro)

[compnut5x]

Greetings all. I have a problem that is bugging me. I recently upgraded some parts of my pc to have speedier gameplay, but I am not getting that. Specifically, its my FPS in games that a problem. Here are my specs:

Athlon T-bird 1.2 266mhz
GA-7N400 Pro Nforce2 mobo
Generic DDR333 1GB ram (2x512 running in DDR mode)
Sapphire OEM Radeon 9800 128 non-pro
Maxtor 40 GB 2mb 7200rmp HD
Gigabit ethernet card (intel 1000/Pro)
300watt Generic Power Supply.

I have WinXP SP 1 installd
DX 9.0b
Catalyst 3.7 installed - All grapics card settings for ATI are at default
1024x768 32bit 85Htz
Latest Nforce drivers

Bios Settings are set for AGP 8x
Fast Writes enabled

Now. With a configuration like that, I dont expect to get extreme frame rates (as my cpu is the main limiting factor). But, here are some of the numbers that I am pulling in Games. I used FRAPS 99 in most games to get fps.

No One Live Forever 2 - approx 24-30 fps
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory - approx 30fps indoors, 24 outdoors
Quake2 OpenGL - 100fps
Warcraft3 Frozen Throne - 15-27 fps in movies, 35 ingame.
Unreal2 (lowest detail possible) - 20 indoor, 15 outdoor.

Aquamark3 - 15.85 fps - GPU score of 2448, CPU score of 2248

Does anyone have ANY idea why I am getting such low scores? I checked comparable scores in Aquamark3's database, and my score is the lowest of my category. The next lowest is a user with an Athlon 1.1 with 768 ram and a radeon 9800 reg, and he got 24 fps as his average.

One theory I had was that the card wasn't getting enough power and was running at reduced speed. Is there anyway to tell this? I have 2 hard drives, a cd burner, dvd drive, floppy, ide zip, graphics card, and motherboard/cup all running off a 300watt generic power supply. Is it possible that its not getting enough power? If that might be the case, is there any way to check that (software prog possibly?) I dont have a multi-meter to test voltage, and I dont have a higher PSU to swap out. Is there a formula to tell how much stuff you can connect to a power supply (like how much power each item needs in watts to tell if I am over?) Could this theory have any creedence?

Either way, ANY help from you all would be most greatly apprecated. Feel free to post your suggestions/comments and I will try them out and let you know if they work. Thanks a lot guys. Hope you can help me!

Steve
compnut5x

 

[FFactory0x]

Well you cpu is the bottleneck to your pc. With a fast gfx card like that you cpu cant process all the info fast enough. By a $50 1700+ and oc the hell out of that puppy. you could get one cheap on the for sale thread.

Others should chime in and agree about your cpu.

 

[compnut5x]

Yeah. I was planning to get a new cpu in November (after price cuts come from intel and AMD counters). I was going to go w/ the XP 2700+ as that is the current price/performance break I feel. So I assume that once I get a new cpu the scores will improve, but I still don't understand why a lower performing cpu would get a higher score on Aquamark3.

Steve

 

[FFactory0x]

why not save some cash and get either of these? 2100+,1700+ or 2500+ and a really nice hs/fan. This would give you great performance plus if you decide to oc, you could easily do this in the future giving you much more value for the chip