Slow Performance - win7 64, x4 955, 9600gt

Ok
I just helped my roommate build a budget gaming pc and this is what we got.

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3
Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Proc: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W
Video: ECS N9600GT-1GMS-F GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
OS: Win 7 ultimate 64

After putting it together we ran the windows performance index and its getting good scores for everything but Aero Graphics.. its scoring a 4.4, it gets 6.4 for gaming graphics. We ran 3dmark vantage and the video card is scoring just over 1k and processor is getting 11k. I ran the 3dmark on my machine as comparison(q6600@3.0, 9600gt 512mb, 4gigs ddr800, abit p35 mobo, vista 64) and scored over 4k video and over 22k cpu. His 9600gt is a 1gb card and all in all his pc should be beating mine.

I've tried installing the chipset drivers that came with the mobo, and the newest ones from the site. I've tried a few different nvidia drivers including the newest that came out yesterday and back to 8.5's.

I've checked, his 9600gt has power connected and is running at 16x 2.0 pcie.

I'm not really sure what else to do here, any ideas or help would be appriciated. We are just kinda disappointed it the results so far.

Im wondering if its an issue with win 7