6800 Ultra GS getting 2200-2900 in 3DMark05 HELP!

Hey guys

just putting the vid card though it paces and I've found that its doing quite poorly compared to what identical card out there are doing

I've heard of cumfotable OC's getting 4000-4500.

Now I dont really care about getting the best 3DMark score but this to me indicates that something is not right.

Quick spec list
AMD 3000 939 running at 1.8Ghz (200Mhz FSB)
Corsair 4000 Pro mem running at 2.5CL
Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 939
WD Raptor 74GB HD
Gainward 6800 Ultra Gold sample (430/1200)

now first I ran with 66.xx drivers and got 2200ish. then ran with 71.25 driver and got 2700ish and with a small overclock to 445/1245 got to 2900ish

Now while I will overclock the CPU eventually (letting it burn in first) I doubt that the CPU running at 1.8Ghz with HyperTransport @ 2x1000MHz has bottlenecked the card to 2/3rds its speed but then again....

What I really need are some ideas on what might be amiss.

mabe somthing in BIOS ? (AGP is sitting at 66Mhz as normal)

mabe somthign wrong with the card ? (is there any way to check that the card is fully functional e.g. all 16 pipes etc)


Mabe its simple a lack of CPU Ghz which can be fixed with faster base CPU or a good overclock into the 260Ghz FSB (bout 2.2-2.3Ghz CPu final) even that only a % boost and may ahve zero effect on card performance

not sure what else it could be but I do know that 2700 for a top of the line card is prob worse than a 6600 GT.


any advice would help or link to a test program