FX5900 Very Low 3DMARK Score

Question

With the system below, I get a 3DMARK3 (Build 340) score of 4540 (53.03 drivers) at standard clocks (400/850), which seems to be rather low.  At the highest stable OC (425/925), I get 4791. Any tips, suggestions or comments? Thanks in advance.
System:
Intel P4 2.8C 800FSB, HT
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe UAY
OCZ 2X512MB PC3200 Dual Channel EL Platinum
MSI FX5900 VTD128 VIVO
Detailed Results (at 400/850):
3DMark Score: 4540 3DMarks
GT1 - Wings of Fury: 161.8 FPS
GT2 - Battle of Proxycon: 33.3 FPS
GT3 - Troll's Lair: 27.1 FPS
GT4 - Mother Nature: 22.1 FPS
CPU Score: 568 CPUMarks
CPU Test 1: 59.6 FPS
CPU Test 2: 10.7 FPS
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing): 1365.1 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing): 2835.3 MTexels/s
Vertex Shader: 11.7 FPS
Pixel Shader 2.0: 43.0 FPS
Ragtroll: 15.9 FPS
No sounds: 50.2 FPS
24 sounds: 40.8 FPS
60 sounds: Not supported

Answer 1

Quote
Originally posted by The Black Wibble
I'd be interested to know the 3DMark2003 score when there are fewer programs running in the background.  Use msconfig to disable all the programs under the startup tab except NvCpl and rundll32 nvclock.  Assuming you are running XP try to disable as many *non* microsoft services as you feel safe doing.  Reboot into that environment and redo the benchmark.
Also, do you know for sure that your pc3200 memory is running at full speed (ie. 400MHz) and is not using some other fsb:mem ratio of 4:3 or 5:4?
The given score is with every non-essential background process and service diasbled (though it makes very little difference). DRAM is running at 1:1 (ie 400). Tried 5:4 with FSB=230 (max stable at stock voltage). Gains a little (CPU), loses a little (RAM), doesn't make much difference in the end. IOW, everything is running at specs now.
Also, (to ToxicTaz) it's not a SP.
I noticed a peculiar thing, though. When I ran Aida and checked video mem speed, it reported, as "actual speed", some odd number quite a bit lower than 850 (something like 736). This is in 2D mode of course (but memory speed should be the same). Anyway, now I cannot duplicate it. Could it be that the memory is stepping down on its own accord? GPU, yes, but I didn't think memory could do that. GPU doesn't get too hot either (~48 deg right after 3dmark3). Is there a way I can check "actual" memory speed during 3D testing, if there is even such a thing?
Mind you I can OC memory upto 930 OC and it passes nVidia test and seems to be running fine at that. But if it's lowering down behind my back, that would explain it.