Not so fast...

Before getting an AOpen 6800GT I had a a GF Ti4400. Now, playing UT2004 with almost everything off in 800x600 I could pull 90fps average online with the Ti4400. In exactly the same system with same drivers and settings, the 6800GT is in fact slower! Also, in the idle time between maps the Ti4400 shows 700fps whilst the GT shows 500fps. I should add that that is with the GT oc to 418/1.1.

The GT will allow eyecandy, eg 1280x1024 and most on, and still pull 80fps average whereas the Ti4400 is brought to its knees.

So these 6800s do not seem 'faster' than such previous cards, they simply seem to do more in the same time - 4 pipes versus 16 pipes seems to underline this. This is likely why many find Doom3 playable with a lowly card and eyecandy turned off.

did you install the card on a clean install??

wouldn't really matter if it was a clean install or not

What res are you playing the game at with the 6800?

At 8x6 res. on a mainly DirectX 7/8 engined game like UT2004 your results don't suprise me. As you say, at 1280x1024 with the eye-candy, your GT is a huge leap, so your quote that "these 6800s do not seem 'faster' than such previous cards" isn't really true, as you've proved.

You also don't quote your rig specs. Maybe they are holding the GT back?: you do need a powerful system to make the most of these newer cards. Oh, and yes, they really do need more modern software like Doom3/FarCry to show what they are capable of. But looking forward, that's the type of game you are going to be seeing much more of, so you've made a wise purchase. Enjoy.

Nomadd

Sounds like the card is throttling. Lower the OC (try at stock before major OCs, otherwise you never know what an OC is doing).

4 pipes vs. 16 pipes in itself is a major improvement, 4x improvement in fact! What else can they do other than add features, and make the cards faster?

Could it not just be the limit of the engine?

I know the game limits when you play online....

latest drivers from nvidia.com? you dont have anything dumb like fsaa or vsync on do you? just be thankfull you didnt buy a nasty FX series card, those were often a big step down from gf4ti!

did you uninstall and reinstall the drivers? not sure if itd make a difference but worth a try