Is my 3DMark score in-line with my hardware?

Why don't you use Orb's compare function instead of asking us to guess? Wouldn't that give you more realistic answers?

I have no idea what that means - please enlighten me.

I know there is a compare feature, but seems a little sloppy.

You make a 3dmark test of your pc, post it in orb and ask it to compare your system with like systems.... What's sloppy about that?

I got ya.

When I do it, it shows similar systems, but I don't know if someone with the same hardware is getting way better results, or if I am towards the top.

However, a few minor BIOS tweaks took me from 1180 to 1350, so that is a really good start!

And personally, to me, that seems not bad for a system of your calibre. No, you aren't goint to match a water-cooled x6800 oc'd 50% with two oc'd 8800 ultras...

In the system comparison area, the other system's specs should be visible, use that comparison to get a rough idea of where you stand.

Thanks for the info!

my x850 managed 2600 on 3dmard06 and it couldnt even do the sm3 stuff, honestly thats a crap rating

What resolution?

I'm really not sure if that is a reasonable score.
My laptop with a Pentium M 2.13GHz, 1GB DDR2-533, and GF Go6800 overclocked gets a little over 2100. I can't remember what my desktop gets. Keep in mind that your CPU is no longer a power house. My desktop has a 2.8C and I've sucessfully overclocked it to 3.6GHz but it still seems slow. Maybe if I had DDR500 it would do a bit better, but it isn't worth the money any more. I stepped it back to 3.15GHz because it performs better in games with 1:1 memory.

all default settings and no cheating Catalyst low quality settings, i.e. catalyst on default also

That does seem a LITTLE low, but it's not too far off from others I was able to find with similar computers. Here's a link for some score comparisons.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=167920

I ran it and was told that I didn't have the approved drivers. I got 2182.

When I downloaded the 158.18 drivers for Vista from Nvidia, and reran it, I got 2238.

Seems about right, sure can't wait till I get an 8800GTS.

The onyl problem with ORB is that it will show 6600GT SLI systems along with the non-SLI systems.

So, if you see systems scoring double your score with an otherwise similar setup, dont worry.

I wondered about that myself. I wondered how another Athlon X2 4600+ with a 7600GS could do so much better. I wondered if it was the older Nvidia 405 chipset on this cheap MSI board.

So, SLI isn't separated out and the better performance could be due to that? All of my drivers are updated, but I'm also wondering if my running Vista vs. another system's XP makes a benchmark difference.

I have a similar AGP card on my P4 Northwood 2.8 system (the X1650 Pro) and I benchmarked that and got 1703, which seems about right. 3DMark06 specs said that I had hyperthreading, but it was turned off. The Northwood does not have hyperthreading.

The benchmark is interesting, but how accurate is it? I noted a big difference in the CPU benchmarks between the CPUs so it does take advantage of dual core.

In real life, both of my systems do well enough at high settings in Oblivion, which has some multithreading. FRAPs usually shows I have typical playable TES framerates, which have been low ever since the days of Daggerfall.

Can't wait to get an 8800GTS!

As someone said, go to the online result browser.
then log in and use search and compare from your console.
Then you can hit either approximate cpu specs or exact and see who has your set up.

Now so many being over clocked and out of spec and bios flashes to report other hardware this isnt always acurate but somewhat.
You can then pretty much narrow it down.
Now also you can go to their forums and in the section 3dmark 06 post this exact post and question and often you will find a lot of people willing to compare with you.

I use it for an idea of what a rebuild would offer me.
I went from 18k in 03 to 42k, when i saw the difference knowing the tests I was able to get a good idea what to expect for my gaming performance based on the scores.

Knowing how my 18k system ran games, and seeing a new builld would be 3x faster in that test I could summize it might be at least twice as fast in games that I already play that are also used for benchmarks.

I cant seem to get over 12k on 06, I did once but the specs were out due to an overclock and the orb wouldnt publish it.

Asus p5k
Intel duo core 2 extreme x6800 @ 3.5 7x500 ddr2@ 1000 1:1 ratio
crucial ballistix pc8500 4x1 gig
Evga 8800gtx superclocked 621/2000
X-Fi extreme gamers card
7800 inspire 7.1 speaker system
Antec trio 650 psu
Plextar 16x dual layer dvd/rw
seagate 400 gig sata 7200.10
maxtor 200 gig ata 7200
western digital 38 gig raptor 10k
Zalman 9700 cpu cooler
Thermaltake Armor 8000bws full tower
dual boot Win xp pro/ Win Vista ultimate 64

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=2135491 11936 3dmark 06

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=5385816 3dmark 03 42154 vista 64

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=3115269