Just a note in advance, thanks for any help any of you are able to offer that may lead to a cure to this problem. I am running: Enermax NoiseTaker II 485W PSU ASUS P5PE-VM Motherboard with latest BIOS -Intel Pentium D 805 2.66GHz CPU with AC Freezer 7 Pro Heatsink/fan -1GB Kingston PC3200 400MHz DDR RAM -HIS Radeon X1650 Pro with IceQ cooling unit -80GB IDE interfaced hard disk (C:\) -320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA disk (D:\) (This drive runs all my games) -Windows Vista Ultimate x86 When I attempt to run games such as Need for Speed: Carbon, I will often play for a number of minutes before the framerate will drop to the single digits. See the images (linked) below to see the report from RivaTuner. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v... See the difference between the two, and the pattern observed in its report. Note that I do not have a temperature sensor on the X1650 and therefore cannot report its temperature, however, when I observe this choppy gameplay, the card is still relatively warm. If it had gotten too hot, I don't think I would have been able to touch the card for very long. Furthermore, if the card were overheating, it would have throttled back to a lower speed, which is not evident in the report either. My CPU also doesn't appear to be overheating as well, as it reports in Speedfan that its core temperature is typically in the upper-30's to lower 40's centigrade (under load). I would like to factor out the fact of reinstalling the OS, or reinstalling WinXP. The problem was the same with XP, and even happened upon a fresh installation of Vista. I have also defragmented my hard disks, and performed virus checks, with no luck either. The slow rates seem to exist on every occasion for 25 seconds before they recover to the double digits again, so I'm not sure if it's a loading problem, or a system process getting in the way. Any help would be greatly appreciated.