Performance too slow for my PC

Hi,I need help knowingwhy my pc is not runnig well, cause I think it should do much better than this:

My PC is a P4 3.0 GHz,1gb of ram and a ATI Radeon x1950 pro agp 512mb,all running with a 420W PSU and for the card 18amps on the 12V.I have lastest drivers for the card but for the motherboard they are like 3 years old.(I think this could be a problem but i want to make sure)

I get 40fps on FEAR at 1024 X 768 with almost all maxed out while with the same pc but

with a radeon 9800 pro at 640 X 480 with some high and max settings i got 48fps.In COH with the 9800 and everything at lowesti got 50fps and with the x1950,listen this,ONLY 25FPS(SAME SETTINGS).In W40K Dawn of war,STALKER,Battlefield 2, Medieval 2 total war,Act of War,Bioshock,supremme commander,and need for speed carbon i get around the same or sometimes slower with the newer card.I'm running Windows XPPRO SP2.

I can barely play Rainbow Six Vegas at 640 X 480 with the lowest settings and various of those games i mentioned before

my pc crashes sometimes to the desktop or just reboots.

I know that the cpu could be bogging down the card but not this much.please help me.

I have the lastest patches and heat is not a problem,the pc very cool,I was thinking though on the PSU,cause the difference appears to be in the gpu and having 18a on the 12v when it recommends 30 minimum and 420 for 450 minimum sounds pretty badyeah_28

The X1950Pro doesn't need 30a on the +12v rail, even in a power-hungry computer. Still, 18a is likely pushing it quite a bit. If you feel that the problem is likely caused by the power supply, go ahead and consider a replacement.

From the very top, you realize that the CPU you have has gotten pretty far down in the performance category by now, being right at the minimum for a bunch of what's out, like Crysis. Add to that only a high-medium, or lowest end of High Quality, as a video card level, and you shouldn't be expecting so much, I don't think.

Between 640 * 480 and 1024 * 768 you have MORE than double the number of pixels to handle, so I think you are trying to set your image quality somewhat higher that you should with that system, You probably would see some benefit from an increase in RAM up to 2 GBs, but the worst weak spot is that P4. If the MB you have won't take a C2D, and you can't afford a C2D- capable replacement mainboard, you could invest in a high efficiency CPU cooler and see what an overclock could do.

I might add that my x1950 pro its factory overclocked for wich it has a huge fan with heatpipes(His ati Radeon x1950 iceQ turbo 512mb)

I know this pc could do better cause i 've read reviews from people with the same pc with exact same gpu as me but better psu and they do MUCH MUCH better.

So you think that the lack of power in my supply could cripple performance so badly?

I might add that my x1950 pro its factory overclocked for wich it has a huge fan with heatpipes(His ati Radeon x1950 iceQ turbo 512mb)

So you actually think that the lack of power in my supply could cripple performance so badly?

yeah_28

I might add that my x1950 pro its factory overclocked for wich it has a huge fan with heatpipes(His ati Radeon x1950 iceQ turbo 512mb)

So you actually think that the lack of power in my supply could cripple performance so badly?

yeah_28

It could cause crashes and restarts - low performance might happen if the graphics card was drawing too much power and could sustain itself, but it's not common.

If its not that common do you think of anything else that could be the problem?

I mean,the only change i did was the GPU and since some games run even slower