ATI 4770 Crossfire

You didn't list your processor...what are you running?
3Dmark06 is not a very good test for sli/xfire, as it is extremely sensitive and dependent on your CPU power for a large portion of your score. The test suite on the article used 3Dmark vantage, which is quite different. Try using a different benchmark (such as a real game) to get a better idea of your real world performance.

Well, the Q6600 at only 2.9 would be holding you back a bit. Crossfire introduces significant CPU overhead so that's why you're not seeing the improvement you wanted. Still, most games that are GPU dependent on your system should show a pretty good improvement so I wouldn't worry about it ^_^. After all synthetic benches like 3DMark greatly favor extra CPU speed when running dual card configurations. Real world games though are a different story and as I said you should see more of an improvement there, except in cases where your CPU would hold you back of course.

Well, it's not that it's really bad, but like I said your CPU is holding it back. Anyway going to vista would only help for getting them pretty DX10 visuals. With two 4770s you may as well. You can also dual boot, which isn't a bad idea so long as you have sufficient Hard Drive space . I use XP for some of my older games, notably Gothic 3.

Nice system, im a little jelous 4770 crossfie is cool, you dont mention what cooling you have on the 6600, but with a good cooler you should break 3.2ghz without breaking a sweat and that will definately help, heck even 3.4ghz with a voltage bump will be good on that mobo.


i agree though, dont worry to much about synthetic benchmarks, real world performance is where it counts and I dont think you will be lacking any of that with your system, I would definately go Vista 64 with it though so the Os sees all of your yummy 4gb and the 4770 xfire make use of dx 10/10.1 (hawx especially for 10.1) Also the 4770 is so new that the drivers currently do not optimise for them, but they will soon and they will rock! ATti will shift many 4770 xfire setups because of the performance for the price so will definately get the drivers sorted ( 4770 xfire outperforms their 4890 easily except above 1920x1080 if they are only 512mb cards)

what resolution are you running at? if its lower than 1680x1050, your cpu might cause bottleneck. if its higher, you shudn;t worry too much about your 3dmark score