Low Performing 7600GT

Hi, today I upgraded my AGP 9800 Pro to a PCI Express 7600GT overclocked edition and there seems to be little improvement in fps in games that I have tried (HL2 Lost Coast and Just Cause).

I ran a test on pcpitstop.com and it said my card was performing at 47% as well as other people's 7600GTs.

Core 2 Duo E6300
Asrock 775 Dual VSTA
1GB DDR400
XFX 7600GT XT

I uninstalled my ATI drivers and used Driver Cleaner before trying both the newest Nvidia drivers as well as the ones that came on the disk.

Are there any other tools I can use to see if my card is underperforming compared to what it should and if it is underperforming what might be some reasons?

3Dmark would work alright.

Might be easier just to crank up the eye candy in HL2 and see if you lose many fps.

Also, the PCI-E slot on that board is only a 4x, this could be impacting performance in some cases.

Somtimes, in my experience, it is also best to remove and reinstall chipset drivers (after removing the video drivers again) when swaping video card brands as well.

Changing brands can be a right pain, certainly. I'm not looking forward to doing it myself soon. Some people even say a windows re-installation is a must :/

Certainly I'd try re-installing every driver you can get your hands on, including directX.

Yea, do a complete format and install all fresh. I have a 7600GT and i am very happy with it.

I have tried it on a blank windows installation on a spare hard disk as well as disabling the AGP driver through device manager. I have also set PCI Express as the default graphics solution in BIOS.

I have been playing Half Life 2: Episode 1 with high settings and get around 50 FPS.

Like the second poster stated........that board is only PCI-e 4x

Theres your answer. Nice components but that mobo is seriously letting you down.