New system, how do I make it optimal?

[chojinalpha]

Hi All,
Newish to building PCs, have done inthe apst but not really fiddled to much with things. I just assembled:

Sapphire HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
Scythe Mini Ninja Socket 478/775/754/939/940/AM2 Heatpipe Cooler
Corsair 520W HX Series Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz/PC2-6400 Memory
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor
ASUS P5KC AiLifestyle Series iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard

To set my mind at ease I wanted to know (excuse the noobishness of this question). Am I OK sticking with current settings, I have not touched the memory timinings of my memory in the bios and all seems stable, although I have yet to run any hard apps yet (still installing my games). I have heard bad things about stability with this mobo ram combo but as yet all is stable.

I just want to know if I am running things at their optimum if I leave the settings as auto.

Was also a bit concerned by the lowish score on 3d mark 06 of 11000, i thought maybe this wsa realted to it not really recognising my quad core???? According to the online results this is a low end of middle for a rig. Hope not since i spent loads of money!

Oh yeah I also have some PC2-4200 Kingston Ram left over from another build in 2x1Gb sticks, will I get any benefit from putting htis in the B1 and B2 channels or will it slow down my ram as a whole?

 

[auscanzukus]

Instead of listening to rumors, stabilize the pc yourself. Write it to a disk & boot it up for 8 hours:

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

And then this in Windows for 8 hours:

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=200

If both check out, your pc is stable. If not, you might want to bump ddr2 voltage up a notch and retest.

Well, newer 3dmarks will always score lower than older ones.

No, sell the Kingston.

 

[calinkula]

Leaving things on auto is fine, everything will usually run at their respective stock specs. Some people, like myself, like to overclock the components past specs to get more performance. Keep in mind this voids warranties.

 

[emp]

Forget about 3DMark, it's about as useful as the Atitool stress test in benchmarking. Test some games and enjoy them. I would also advise you against adding these old sticks, since all your ram would then drop to a DDR2 533 speed to accommodate it.

 

[dagger]

4gb ram is enough, don't add the slower sticks.

11k in 3dmark does seem a bit low for q6600 +4850.

I get 16k with q6600 and 8800gts.

Although 3dmark is known to be skewed. There are benchmarks designed to run on real games that you can use. Something like this:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Crysis-Benchmark-Tool-1.05-Final-download-1791.html

Results for comparison.

Some games, like World in Conflict, even has its own timedemo within the game itself, so you don't have to download additional frontend benchmark tool.