9800GT running slow, with abnormally low benchmarks

Just got a new XFX 9800GT 512mb, I noticed while playing World at War it was running with a lot of lag with default settings a heck of alot slower than my old 8800GTS 320mb which ran it virtually flawless... So I get 3Dmark06 to see how my card performs here are my results


From what I researched these results are much lower (about half as much) than other 9800GT cards.

How to I go about correcting this? I know this card isn't the best on the market but I expect it to run COD 5 and such games at least at par if not better than my old card.

My specs are as follows

Processor: AMD 5600X2
Motherboard: ECS GF8200A
Ram: Wintec Ampo 2gb
Videocard: XFX 9800GT 512mb

Usual checks apply at this point...Uninstall your drivers, download and install the latest from Nvidia. Check the power leads are fully connected and making good contact. Check the card temperatures with Rivatuner.

Because my 8800GTS died (what happened to it and why I dont know and my warranty didnt go through) So I picked up this 9800GT for 100 bucks since the price was right. From what I read I thought the 8800GT outperformed the GTS except in very high quality situations in which the GTS did better... So when I got this card I assumed it would be as good as my old one, however even if technically its not as fast the performance difference is far greater than it should be.

Either way I have this card now and am stuck with it. More importantly is that other 9800GT on average out perform my based on those benchmarks nearly 2:1 from what i saw. Im trying to figure out why that is and how to correct.

Longshot, pcie1.0 vs pcie2.0?

After checking with GPU-Z I did notice some oddities

1. being my fan is set at 47% (not sure if that is normal)
2. It says my card's memory is being clocked at 900 Mhz and according to the newegg (where i bought) it should be clocked at 1800Mhz

(Also my motherboard is pcie 2.0)

They are probably overclocking their cards or their processors. When you compare to others on 3dmark, pay attention to the core/memory frequencies of their 9800GT's and the speed of their processors. Its like a game they play to beat out the next guy. Find someone with your exact processor at stock speed and a 9800Gt at stock speed and if yours is significantly lower, THEN there's probably something wrong.

900mhz at double data rate (ddr2) = 1800mhz

make sure all the filters are off, get ntune.. check resolutions etc. make sure ansiotropic filtering isn't higher than it should be and antialiasing too.. try changing all the stuff to default.

I checked the filters and they all appear to be default, application controlled.

With one Inno3d 8800GT stock O/c'ed at 650/1900 with a 3Ghz Core2 I used to get 11000, but then with the same card with the old E6320 at stock 1.86Ghz I used to get around 8500, so 3Dmark scales significantly with CPU speed. However a 5600 X2 should easily beat a stock E6320 so I reckon your score should be about 9-9.5k. Think there's got to be something wrong there. If you've definitely sorted the drivers try a motherboard BIOS update perhaps? - 8800/9800GT is a newer chip than your old GTS, might be worth checking up. I assume you are testing at the smae default res - 1280x1024?