New AMD 64 is slooooow...looking for advice.

[Brandon]

I have built my first complete system...
MSI K8N Neo Platinum 754
AMD 64 2800
2x512 MB Micron pc-3200 DDR 400
MSI GeForce FX 5200 128MB
1 WD 120GB SATA
Liteon CD/DVD ROM
Mad Dog 8x dual layer DVDCDRW
Planar PL190M 19" LCD
Windows XP Pro, Current except for SP2
Coolermaster Centurion Case/350watt PS

Now, after a couple of bad WD HDD'S no other problems, except for the fact
that this system is slow. I did a 3Dmark benchmark2001 and got a score of
5415. What i notice is that applications are slow to load, I.E I double
click on Firefox or IE and it takes up to several seconds to load. I
honestly think these apps loaded on my 800 Celeron system

The only piece that came out of my old system is the Graphics card, which I
THOUGHT was decent, but I am finding out different. Could my current card
be that detrimental the overall performance of this system?

Some additional information.
The system boots very quickly.
All drivers have been updated, bios is current.
I have run memtest86 to 2900% (+/-) with NO errors.
Prime95 ran for 18 hours at priority 10 with no errors.

I guess I really am looking for direction as to what I may look for.
Any suggestions on where to start?
Thanks
Brandon

 

[BigJIm]

the 5200 is a slow card but should prove sufficient for 2d and some 3d
games.
it should not slow the system down that much. If I were running an amd 64 I
would
have at least a geforce 5900 or ati 9800. just my opinion I run a P4 2.6
with a ati 9600xt.

 

[Anthony]

Yeah the comptuer only goes as fast as the slowest component. I upgraded
from a 5600 ultra to a 6600 GT and DAMN everything is so much faster

 

[Brandon]

Hers the thing, I don't play games.
Will this card slow down just loading apps?
FrontPage 2003
Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc

Thanks for the replies.
BTW what IS good benchmarking(overall system performance) program?

 

[JAD]

its not your card itself...maybe the drivers for it could slow things,
if they fail to load properly.