Annoyed With Benchmark..

I Had:
300W PSU
Amd Athlon 2200+ (1.8ghz) @ 266mhz FSB
PC CHIPS M848ALU Motherboard
512mb Ebuyer pc2700 ddr
ATI Radeon 9600XT 128mb
60GB Excelsor 7200rpm 2mb cache
Windows XP SP1
Omega Corner Drivers
Latest Drivers e.t.c for everything = 11,495 odd marks in 3DMark01SE

I now have:
600W PSU
Amd Barton 2500+ (1.83GHZ) @ 333mhz FSB
Gigabyte 7N400 PRO2 Ultra 400 Nforce 2
1GB Dual Channel PC3200 Corsair
ATI Radeon 9600XT 128mb
160GB DiamondMax 9 7200rpm 8mb cache
Windows XP SP1
Omega Corner Drivers
Latest Drivers e.t.c for everything = 12,234 marks in 3DMark01SE

as you can see, compared to my original system i have spent quite abit of money, and no real performance gain! (well not according to 3dmark01se)

personally my pc runs ALOT faster than it used to, and is alot more stable..

however i was incredibly disappointed with this benchmark. infact its f*cking out right annoyed me now.

o and i ordered a Aero Lite Jet 7 + because the default heatsink that came with my Barton is shit, and my cpu is running at around 45C-50C without load (50-60C loaded)

Did you do a fresh install of XP when you got your new board ?
If not, look no further.

Also, when you install new drivers you should always use driver cleaner (read the help file) to make sure no traces of the previous drivers are left before you put in the new ones.

There's also a certain order in which you should install things one windows is installed, here's mine:

- Every critical update
- Recommended updates that I feel are useful (most of them aren't imo), that includes DX9b
- chipset drivers
- video drivers
- sound drivers
- everything else

I used to install the chipset drivers right away but with the newest nforce drivers, you need DX9 so that's why I do it this way now.

You should get 15k at the very least with your card.
I get close to 17k but I oc my cpu so my score might be better than yours even if your card's better.

right well: 1: my pc is still running my windows install on my shity hard drive (60GB not my new sata) (forgot!) also.. i havn't reinstalled in a while..

i have been avoiding it for a few days but i'm going to completely reinstall Windows onto my SATA clean install, and do it the way u suggested.

One thing just came to my mind. You should make sure AA, AF, Vsync, etc are all turned off.