poor performance GTX280

heat?

heat is not a problem, Im also water cooled.

In the bios i have the pcie speed @ 100, do I need to bump this up, I also did not OC the card at all.

did a fresh install of vista I wish it were that simple, I have it locked @ 100 in Bios.

I dunno whats going on, with my system specs I know Im not bottlenecking.

This would be the 2nd RMA on the card in general, the first one for the same deal, Im beginning to wonder if its not just poor performance on this board of some sort.

Um... I'm not sure about anyone else, but I have an 8800gt, and I'm not having any trouble with those games, I'm running at 1400x900, but i have run all of those games at 1920x1080, and I get at least 45fps even in heavy firefights. So its not your graphics card, its something else. Not your hard drives, I'm running from an IDE still, my Q6600 is only at 2.4, I only have 2gb of 800Mhz ram, I'm using a 750i chipset as well, (MSI P7N Platinum) I'm using onboard audio. (I know, but I can't afford a new card at the moment) That leaves us with one of these pieces likely at fault, try a x86 version of vista, see if that is it. As well, run a ram check to see if one of your ram sticks are bad. I can safely say though, that it is not, at least not exclusively, your graphics card that is giving poor performance.

850w Silverstone

I like the thinking of reverting back to the gts, only problem, I dont have it, Memory has passes everything, including changing back to my g.skill 800 sticks.

Hard drives are on par (and then some)

sound card I had completely disabled and uninstalled, same problem.

I got it working better, up to about 120fps in CoD4 and TF2, wow however is still struggling.

I went back and uninstalled drivers, reseated the card and went at it again.

I had Vista 32 ultimate before going over to 64 bit, same issue.

Im running WoW at 1920x1200, not everything on full, and it struggles to push 35-50 fps, all the time.

I've been playing wow since 2003 in beta, have always had a machine that was more than capable, this machine now is far better specs than my last and it is struggling, I might point out this is my first nvidia chipset as well. I have my Q6600 now at 3.2, ram at 5,5,5,15 , and of course my raid 0 velociraptors, the soundcard is as above mentioned, this system should not be chugging with WoW at all is my point.

my 8800gts with an e6420 @ 3.0 did better, I just went from it to the quad, a new mobo and ram from 800 to 1066(not an upgrade, really), this thing should be pushing WoW no problem especially at the graphics settings im running it at

Ping is good, Im always in the green usually around 60ms or so, again not an issue, just seems weird that my quad at 3.4 or 3.2 or even 3.0 for that matter couldnt handle wow?

Do you all think I should get away from my quad and go back to like an e8500 or something with this build? I'm at a loss really. Ive been in this business for 10 years, I have a CCNA, MCSA, A+ and Network+ and usually figure something out that remedies the situation. Technology is ever changing, I try to keep up on all fronts but its tough considering I'm working on my CCNP while being a network admin. Thats why I usually come to this forum, people have seen these situations before, I open for recommendation, whether it be drivers, rebuild something, etc.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Did you leave the 12v power connector disconnected from the back of the card?
I did that with my Zotac one by accident, I thought my card was defective because my games were running very slow, but placing the connector in fixed it.