Lower 3DMark Score?

So I'm a dummy when it comes to this, but have now ran a 3DMark three times to see where my default settings are. On all three, I've gotten below where the *average* seems to be. Was wondering if anyone here has any suggestions or if this is normal.

Testing with 3DMark Advanced Addition.
Test: Fire Strike
Laptop: Sager NP9370
CPU: i7 3630QM
Radeon 7970M

Average score seems to be between 4200-4800 and I keep getting at the 4051 mark. Results from latest test here. I'm mainly looking at the Similar Systems Scores.

I'm just curious on if there's any wisdom from others that I can gain to be sure I'm gleaning the most out of my Sager 9370.

 

First place to check would be your drivers. Your score doesn't appear to be so low that it would allude to a hardware problem, so I would say start there (not sure which release you're on). Try updating them if applicable.

 

Yeah I was thinking that. Noticed that my driver version is 8.97.10.6. Not sure if that's the newest. Went to AMD's site and saw they have the 13.4. Downloaded and installed and the version says it's still 8.97.10.6. This isn't the latest version right?

 

It's the latest stable release (WHQL). 13.5 is technically the latest, but it's in beta.

 

I'm not a 100% sure but judging from the fact that in your result info your driver is listed as (AMD Radeon HD 7970M (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM v1.20)) it would point to default win8 driver so I'd say it's a driver issue. It seems like it's not loading the AMD driver properly. Usually it would be listed as just AMD Radeon HD 7970M (without additional stuff).

 

Hmm. Yeah, I'm starting to think that as well. Dang Windows 8...

 

Grab the latest enduro set.

 

Windows 8.1 is not too far off, so hopefully that will address a lot of bugs - as well as user complaints about the OS on the whole. Until then, play with the drivers and try the latest as suggested.