8800 GTX bottlenecked?

I've been playing Assassins Creed on my E6600(stock speeds), ASUS EN8800 GTX, 4 x 1 GB of Kingmax DDR2 800 - on an Asus Commando motherboard;
Been playing at 1680 x 1050 as it is the native resolution of my Samsung 22" LCD monitor.
If I max out everything I get poor performance according to my expectations as I believe to be having on of the best video cards in the world and should be able to play super smooth everything thats why it is so good.
I can't tell the fps exactly but my gaming experience makes me estimate about 25 fps.
What is my bottleneck? should I over clock the CPU(if so what do I need to buy and what products do you recommend)? are the memories good enough? Change the CPU to quad?
Please advise me on how can I get better performance on max settings and that resolution.



Thanks.

Try a mild over clock to your CPU and see if it makes a difference.

You said you estimate 25FPs you should run fraps in the back ground to display your FPS in game, it also has a FPS recorder which gives you the max min and average FPS at the end.

And a quad for that game would be a waste of money your dual is sufficient enough.

Thank you for your post Mactronix.
No I'm not expecting to play every game from now on with no probs but I am expecting to do so as long as my videocard is situated in the top 5 world's fastest video cards. Maybe that is the only explanation - the game is badly coded.

You wont need that cpu cooler for only 60-70 mhz fsb increase though it wud be always good to have one aftermarket.

I totally agree, while its good to have an after market cooler when overclocking. The one you mentioned will definatly be overkill.
Just something a little better than stock will be ample for your needs. If you have the funds and dont mind or prefer overdoing things to be on the safe side then by all means get it but its not really needed.
Mactronix

Not trying to be funny but there are games out there that you just plain and simple cant max out, yes they are few and far between but to be honest i dont think the brute force approach way is always the best way to go. A lot of people and im including enthusiasts here dont bother tweaking there hardware at much more than the most basic level in the control panel. There are so many differentials that its not sensible to go into them all here. My point is that without some sort of optimisation to see what sort of results illusionx can get its a bit cavalier to start throwing money at a rig.
Im not saying your wrong either just conflicting views on how to go about things, personally i wouldnt update or worry about the performance of a component based on bad results in one game.
To illusionx,
Just want to be clear im not saying what annisman is suggesting is a bad idea, infact far from it if you have the funds and feel confident overclocking then its almost silly not to upgrade the ram and get that aftermarket cooler and aim for the sky. All your other games will benefit also. Dont over look the power supply though make sure it can give you the extra juice you will need for the overclocking.
Check out the overclocking section for tips on your overclocking if needed and good luck with what ever you decide to do.
mactronix

i have a 8800gtx and i play crysis all at highest settings 8x aa at those frame rates and i doubt that game is as taxing as crysis, buy a cheap after market cooler clock it to around 3.4 and you will have much better frame rates. Your memory should be fine. overclocking your video card gives very little gain maybe 2-5 frames on the highest overclock you could do on the stock cooler. the only thing you should worry about is your power supply when overclocking. The 8800 gtx is a great card no reason to upgrade to the 9800gx2 it would be better to sli them.

I am playing on Vista Ultimate 64 bit

link isnt working
Mactronix

Keep an eye on here http://www.tweakguides.com/ Heres what hes saying "Just a heads-up that as promised, I'm working on an Assassin's Creed Tweak Guide, hopefully for release within the next week. The game isn't immensely tweakable given it's a console port, however there are still enough options and tweaks worth covering in a guide, so stay tuned."

I may get a CPU cooler in a few days.
Anyway another weird thing I found moments ago, maybe you guys, especially 8800 owners can enlighten me.
Look:



Is it normal? Should I be worried? It is not idle temperature as Assasins creed is running as a window or something, not really alt tabbed.

Can please anyone tell me if the 8800 GTX's 100 *C load temperature is normal? maybe it's slowing itself down and I get poorer performance? I have attached a screenshot in the previous post.

try usig rivatuner (if it works on vista) to log temps whilst playing. I'd say 100C is not good, although when I queried very high temps with nvidia on my 6600GT, thier response was that if it is in the green or orange on their old colour coding for temps on control panel graphs then they think its ok. I was hitting high 90's at that time.

I have an 8800GT and I maxed everything out (minus AA, since I must be blind because I cant tell any difference) and I never dip below 33 fps in AC, but I am running in XP dx9 and not dx10.

Great game though.

Mercy thats a hot one.

get some circulation in that case with good 120mm fans, preferably one or two sucking cool air on the side on to your card(s) and a couple sucking the hot air out. Use RivaTuner and set your card fan speed to 100%.

I have two GTX's and they both idle 52C and maxed out playing anything they crawl to 69C after an hour or so and might break 70C on a warm day, plus they are OC'ed.

Whatever dude. A GTX is every bit as powerful as any new top of the line 9XXX anything. A 8800GTX will even overclock beyond the specs of an Ultra, making it an Ultra-Ultra. Now try and tell us an Ultra is slow and old also?

Try this cooler instead, easier to install and grab some of the Artic Silver 5 thermal paste to cool the 6600. My old 6600 was at 3.2 for the year or so I had it.

http://www.intend.ro/index.php?mai [...] ts_id=4756

Go to the stickied posts in the forum section on overclocking, and follow the guides there. Folks have done your footwork for you.

The GTX is too hot. Mine are watercooled, and stay at 54ish loaded. I had an aftermarket Accelero or Thermaltake cooler on there to keep the original 90c load down in the upper 70's.

This pretty much sums up your problems:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/th [...] m-bad-port
Nothing wrong with a 8800 GTX. It hangs in there right with Nvidias supposed "new" cards.

Thanks a lot guys for the information.
I am going to try the Tuniq Tower 120 I think and aim for the 3.4 Ghz.
Also about the high 8800 GTX temperature I will try to improve the airflow inside the case. I need your help to tell me what kind of fan do I need to install there (check out the attached pictures):





I also know that some rewiring is mandatory.

I have ordered a Tuniq Tower 120 CPU cooler and the case fan in the webpage to mount in front of the videocard as displayed in the attachements of the previous post.
http://www.pcgarage.ro/ventilatoar [...] -blb-blue/

It's 120 mm I hope it's good. Can I mount it in such way that it gets fresh air inside the case and blows it on the videocard? Or a case fan is specially designed to either get air from outside or get it from the inside. Or it depends on how I mount it?

ok thanks romulus
about the fan question, can anyone help?