Whats slowing me down?

[MasterWilliam]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the community and wanted to ask for you guys expertise. I recently bought 2 new nvidia 480 GTX to use in 2 way sli for gaming. Well I just installed them yesterday and enabled SLI and tested it on some games such as Skyrim. I was disappointed with how it performed. I previous had 2 nvidia 9800 GTX+ in 2 way sli configuration.

9800 GTX+ in 2 way sli configuration: I am getting about 30-35 frames in the cities and anywhere from 30-45 frames per second in all other places.

Newly bought 480 GTX in 2 way sli configuration: I am getting about 35-40 frames per second in the cities and about 35-60 frames per second in all other places.

I am assuming my cpu is bottlenecking. I am not sure though. Here are my specs.

CPU: Q6600 Intel core 2 quad operating at 2.4 GHZ
Video Card: GTX 480 in 2 way sli configuration
Ram: 8 Gigabytes of Kingston HyperX operating at 800 MHZ
PSU: 1000 Watt Thermatake


I just dont understand why its such a small increase in performance when I feel it was a substantial increase in video card power.
If you guys could help me out, I would be very thankful. Thank you for reading my post.

 

[refillable]

Upgrade your CPU, It is too old for 480 SLI... I think you better ask us first of all . Then we will tell you to upgrade your CPU+Motherboard+RAM+Cooler(Not needed if your fan is compatible with your processor) first, then upgrade your GPU, could be a single 480.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128498
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

 

[monsta]

The only other option is to overclock that cpu, you will get some more fps from it but it will still bottleneck some.

 

[thently]

Skyrim gets alot of frames from better/faster CPU either overclock like made or it lookslike you will need to get a complete system upgrade.. look at around 3.1 ghz intel and you will be golden.

Thent

 

[ilysaml]

Even Overclocking won't help, the per core performance of the C2Q is not efficient as much as the i7s.

Skyrim & WOW are CPU whores, you need a strong CPU to get a proper scaling.
See the chart below, that was even with the fastest GPU around which is GTX 680, you still need something powerful such as Core i5 2500K.