I just installed a new 8800GTS (320 MB), 3GB of RAM, a sound card, and a 700 W power supply. That is in addition to a AMD 64x2 3800+. I thought I would be able to run all my games at 1440 x 900 on all high settings at around 80 fps but it seems like I'm not able to.

CS:S - 50 - 70 fps (gunfights) 90 - 110 fps (still)
HL2 - 40 - 50 fps (gunfights) 90 - 110 fps (still)
TF2 - 40 fps (gunfights) 100 - 120 fps (still)
COD4 Demo - 40 - 65 fps (gunfights) 70 - 80 fps (still)
Portal - 90 - 110 fps (action)

...and that is with compromising some settings, but mostly all high on 1440x900. Any ideas of whats up? Or is this normal? How can I increase the fps all around?

Did you do a fresh install? I know it seems an off the wall question but I'd wipe and fresh install, redo all my drivers, yada yada. It should help I would think. Plus all your pron viruses will be gone.

yea i just installed everything the other night

im having the same issues father, i got the 8800 with 640 mb ram and i seem to be seeing the same thing.

yea i just tried that and it didn't help. maybe it is an XP thing. who knows. i probably won't upgrade until Vista has all the bugs worked out. thnx for the imput.

Vista isn't all that bad in general. Sure it has a couple quirks, but overall it's pretty stable and I haven't had any major problems with it yet. They say with TF2 you lose about 5% performance going up to Vista, but that it also stabilizes the game more. I was in a discussion about it with some guy the other day on a server, saying that the drivers for the bigger, newer cards are more refined on Vista because that is their main development area.

Well I found out that it's not an XP problem. I also tried reinstalling all the drivers and still had no success. I can't imagine what it is.

Done some in depth searching for possible causes of the lower than expected fps numbers but I still could not pin point an exact reason. Some people had low fps becuase of bad drivers but apparently the latest one fixed that. Others also suffered from weak PSU's but I just installed a 700W so I should be fine. I'm gonna go ahead and join a tech forum and try getting some info first hand. If that fails that I'm gonna call EVGA. Hopefully this gets resolved soon cause $300 was a lot for something a 7600 can do -- kind of makes me mad.

I hear you there father.... I was seeing some of the same issues with my 8600 gts oc.. but I figured them out. It was mostly due to my dual core processor, and after I turned one off it fixed the problem... don't know. The other thing that I found was allowing the game to control the graphics and not so much the card, they both try to help increase quality and it slows it down in the long run. Kinda like having 2 firewalls from your router then one on your pc...hardware/software firewalls. I don't know. I will try to get on vent tonight if you can get on, I can try to walk you through what all I have changed on my card to help your performance.

yeah that would be cool

Ok, well a lot of people think it could be my CPU. I didn't think it was that old already. But the thing is if I get a new processor then I need to get a new mobo and new ram, and at that point I might as well build a whole new tower. I bought the card as temporarily upgrade until I could make a whole new rig but I guess not. Kinda pissed now. And then I come to see nVidia release a 8800GT SC that is a better card for the same price. Ugh, i don't what to do.