I was very happy with my recent build last month with everything up to date until i decided to run 3Dmark05 just for the hell of it.

I got a pathetic score of 9018 USING CROSSFIRE (2 X ATI X1950pro).

After looking around for similar setups i found that i should be getting between 14K-15K. Something was definitely wrong...

So i tried the following fixes:

Clean install = Nada
Swap Video Card = Nada
Update to Catalyst 7.8 = Nada
Various settings change = Nada
Disable Cool&Quiet = Nada
Disable all kinds of stuff = Nada
Check PSU at Store = PSU was Fine

After some endless investigation in forums, i finally found someone with the same board that was having the same issue and a fix was there too!
The fix was something that i had not considered. The old motto is "make sure that everything is fully updated". Not this time.

REVERT TO THE PREVIOUS BIOS = FIX

So short of RMA my board, i decided to try it out. IT WORKED!!!

My 3Dmark05 score jumped to 14933 (Stock). YEAH!. Company of Heroes jumped from 41.8 to 92.8 (Average FPS) in the performance test.

So to all out there with a K9A Platinum Motherboard, Do not use BIOS 1.6 unless your running Vista Ultimate 64 + 4GB of ram.

Stick with BIOS 1.5. Hopefully a fix will be made for a next version. I've emailed MSI about this.