New System, Poorish Performance!

Hi Guys,

I just brought myself a new PC, and brand name PC to be precise, an Acer Aspire SA80! Basically its a LGA775 P4 3.06GHz, 512MB Memory @ 533, DVD Player/Writer/Combo, 160GB SATA HDD, etc

The only thing I did was purchased a new nVidia GeForce 6600GT 128MB, I wasn't going to settle for the On-Board GFX!

Well, I wasn't going to settle for the Acer XP Home installation CDs either, I got my copy Windows XP Pro and SP2 out, Formatted and installed them, then I install the nVidia 81.95 Drivers, RealTek AC97 Audio Drivers ver 3.37 or something, DirectX9c, etc

My CPU/Board Supports HTT, EM64T, etc... Are their meant to be drivers installed into XP for the support of these? becuase my system isnt exactly 'crap' persay, but to me it doesn't appear to be performing like it should be for its specifications, I can run CoD2, F.E.A.R, etc... But to get a decent smooth speed the graphics cannot go past mid range @ 640x480... Anything more it starts chopping in most scenes.

Any idea's on what I should Install after a fresh format?

Also, I have a SDCard adapter that accepts many mem cards, that was in it in replacement of the FDD, so when I originally formatted this machine using XP CD, it only gave me 127GB for main partition and the rest I had to manually partition when I got windows installed and make it D:.... Any idea's on how to overide this so I dont have to partition my hard drive at all, remembering I cant use a method that requires DOS and an FDD becuase I just dont have one.

Thanks in advance guys...

Acer Aspire SA80 R01-B4

Board: Acer E661GXM
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD R01-B4 12/16/2005

CPU
3.07 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Info collected using Belarc Advisor!

Mainboard is a SIS Chipset

 

And yes I know I should be well aware of what to do, I was always known as a Intel Fanboy back in the day when they carried the horse...

But honestly, I`ve been out of the PC era for a few years now, and everything has changed so much, yet so little... you know what I mean!

Hardware is Jaw Droppingly SLI licious! Dual Core, 64-Bit, yadda yadda yadda... This is where I get stumped! When I was last here I just got myself a GF4 and P4 2.53....

OS and Software hasn't changed, well maybe it has, probably more stable, better graphics, etc.. But It doesn't scare me like all this new hardware, I feel... DUMB!