Poor 9800 GX2 Performance

Motherboard: EVGA nForce 750i FTW
PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700w
CPU: Intel Q6600
GPU: EVGA Nvidia 9800 GX2
RAM: 2 GB OCZ DDR2 PC2-8500 Reaper HPC
HDD: 2 300 GB
OS: Vista 32bit
4 Case Fans

I recently upgraded my video card from a 8800 GTX to a 9800 GX2 and have been experiencing performance worse than my 8800 GTX. I used to be able to play CoD4 and CSS at max settings at 1680x1050 with my 8800 GTX and get good performance. With my 9800 GX2 I have to lower the settings to be able to get comparable framerates.

Ran 3DMark06 with my 9800 GX2 and got a score of 10608.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Don't even try using the 180 drivers unless its the 181.20 release for the GX2. Too many SLI issues that caused stability problems...I wonder if the 295 will have the same problems...

If you have AA on, turn it off. Anything about 1650x1280 and 2x AA (4x on older games) causes the card to hit a brick wall, thanks to 512MB usable RAM. If you get one for around $250, its a decent buy, but its not a high-end gaming card due to its RAM handicap...

Still though, I play CoD4 at 1920x1200 2x AA, and it runs perfectly smooth (no FPS benchies; its smooth, thats all I care about...I'd guess 50+ FPS), so its possible if your Q6600 is at stock, its acting as a bottleneck...

Used to play at 1920X1200 with 4XAA with my old GX2, never hit a 'brick wall' that you seem to speak of.

You are right about the Q6600 however, if it is at stock, get it to 3.0Ghz and you will be fully utilizing your GX2, most likely it is a driver issue not using both of your G92 cores however, as that would = a bit less performance than your old 8800GTX.

i have the same prob Q6600 3GHZ 2x8800 GTS 512 sli and get score of 12667 so close to your i think the prob is that sli is not working as i have diabled sli and i get the same score and since your card needs sli to utilise both cards youll only get the performance of 1 8800 gts