Ok.  In which case '-a 1' does something entirely different and no averages taken by default.

What is your RAM clock and AGGRESSION at the moment?

Also, you mention you are running headless.  I assume you are therefore using custom '/etc/X11/xorg.conf', '/home/user/.xinitrc', et cetera, to activate the cards and give the drivers and poclbm something to point at but without asking the cards to drive any kind of desktop.  If so then I must admit I'm having some trouble getting xorg.conf just right.  I've got it to a point where if I plug a monitor into one of the cards there will be no signal but I'm not convinced it's not doing something anyway.  Any tips would be appreciated and I'll happily share my files if you're interested.