Performance issue

Hi guys,

hope you know the answer for my problem. I've been running benchmarks on my system for quite a while now and I realised that the 3dmark06 score doesn't go above 12500. First I thought it's because I was using an old Intel DG965RY motherboard with PCI-E 1.0 so I replaced with an Intel DG43NB with PCI-E 2.0. No difference in 3dmark06 score. I have a Q6600 running at stock speeds because Intel reference motherboards are suck at overclocking (you can't tweak anything apart from the memory CAS). I also have 4GB of RAM 2x2GB with 6-6-6-18 CAS (DDR2) I've got a XFX GTX 260 Black Edition 216SP (680/2000/1440).

What is the bottleneck in my system? Why can't I get higher scores? According to Tom's GPU chart an Nvidia 8800GT performs better than my graphics card. (I run a benchmark on my friends system who has a 8800GT an he got 12500!!!) I was jealous

Please help!

Many thanks!

Chris

Well the motherboard really will not change jack with performance and using Intel brand motherboards is a mistake like you found out overclocking is non existent on them boards. Make sure you have all current drivers for your video card and make sure Physicsx is enabled if that is for some reason disabled you will get a lower score. The GTX 260 is basically just a re branded 8800GTX Nvidia played a dirty marketing game by just basically re branding older models.

What processor is your friend running would help?

Also your Q6600 would give much better results if you could overclock it.

Yes definitely the Q9400 is a good bit faster than your old 65nm Q6600.

Q6600 vs Q9400 comparison benches
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=76

At the bottom you will see the gaming benches and you will see that the Q9400 will give almost a 10FPS boost over the Q6600.

It really could be that the drivers at the time weren't yet really optimized for the SLI setup that they show testing. The GTX260 is definitely faster card I think it was just the drivers weren't up to par yet when they did those benchmarks.

ok actually the 260 is an exception sorry I was thinking of the 250 the GTS 250 is just a 9800GTX re branded. The 260 is actually a newer card sorry for the confusion Nvidia re branded so many of their GPU's its hard to keep track of the ones they actually didn't. So your 260 is not a re branded GPU.

Yes your CPU is bottlenecking the card so I would just leave it at stock all your doing is creating more heat on that card for nothing.

Your Welcome

Good Luck