Upgraded to a GTX 570. Are my benchmarks low and how to improve?

[lofemofe]

Hi guys, I just upgraded from a Geforce 8800 Ultra to a EVGA GTX 570 SC. From the advice on got on this forum it seems that my system would not bottleneck the new GPU. However, I ran PerformanceTest Passmark and my scores seem much lower than the scores on their website. So I downloaded 3DMark11 and 3DMark Vantage to benchmark a little more. Here are my scores, please tell me if my GTX 570 is being bottlenecked, and how to fix it:

3DMark Vantage:
SCORE
P14740 3DMarks
GRAPHICS SCORE
18391
CPU SCORE
9238

3DMark11:
SCORE
p4402
GRAPHICS SCORE
5645
Physics SCORE
2693
Combined SCORE
2593

SCORE
X1904
GRAPHICS SCORE
1795
Physics SCORE
2677
Combined SCORE
2384

Passmark
3D Graphics Mark
2231
Graphics 3D - Simple
2101.8
Graphics 3D - Medium
1288.1
Graphics 3D - Complex
44.6
Graphics 3D - DirectX 10
38.8

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: Intel Core2 Quad Q6700 @ 2.66 Ghz, EVGA nForce 680i Mobo 122-CK-NF68, 4 GB Ram Mushkin (996587), Gigabyte 3DAurora Case, Scythe Heatsink and Fan on the CPU.

 

[Memnarchon]

Hello.
Don't worry your benchmark numbers are correct. You have the same CPU(almost)/RAM(edit: and GPU ) with me and I have the same numbers. Our CPU mostly is our bottleneck atm, thats why you are gettin these numbers. As you can see at the 3dmark11 Xtreme settings, your score is more similar to other systems cause cpu at higher resolutions (like 1920x1080 which xtreme setting is using) isn't so important compared to gpu (games use more gpu than cpu power in higher resolutions).

So your GTX570 will be bottlenecked is some games and in some others will not.

edit: Oh and remember that synthetic benchmarks are not real world programs. It's a nice way to measure your pc's potential but in the end its better to see performance in the games you want to play.

 

[jitpublisher]

Bottleneck is such a misused term, and I don't know who gave you the advice, but a 6700 Core 2 Quad at 2.6ghz is pretty weak to run a something like a 570, you are not going to get the full potential of the 570, that is for certain.
You would see a pretty big improvement if you could get your processor to 3-3.4ghz.

 

[El Tigre]

Your CPU is causing it to bottleneck. Are you running the CPU at stock clocks or is it OC'ed?

If you are running it at stock clocks, then you need to OC the CPU.

 

[lofemofe]

I am running my CPU at stock ATM. Haven't played around with the CPU yet, but it sounds like I definitely need to to get the full potential of my GTX 570. Does it sound like my system would allow for an OC to 3.4Ghz or above?

 

[Memnarchon]

I am running my CPU at stock ATM. Haven't played around with the CPU yet, but it sounds like I definitely need to to get the full potential of my GTX 570. Does it sound like my system would allow for an OC to 3.4Ghz or above?

My cpu (Q6600@2,4GHz) was stable at 3Ghz (9x333Mhz) with stock voltage and air cooling.
If you play a bit with the voltage you will easily go to 3,3-3,4Ghz. But beware of temps.

But your cpu might not be bottleneck any game you play (well starcraft 2 and skyrim are a few games that you might get a bottleneck and skyrim mostly cause of the poor cpu usage, although on my pc with my settings at skyrim is mostly bottlenecked by gpu VRAM ), like Dragon Age 2 which kneels almost all single gpus while it requires something like GTX590/HD6990 in order to bottleneck a Q6600. Source: GPU CPU
Edit: Same happens with Max Payne 3 .

 

[jitpublisher]

^ do nothing, I mean nothing other than pull that GPU out of the board its in now with the old quad core and pop it into a board with something like a 2500K and watch most of those benchmarks jump 30%, literally. But we must remember, these are benchmarks, the most important thing for the OP to consider is............how does it run the games you like to play? Don't dwell too long on benchmarks, they can be manipulated to just about anything you want one way or another.

 

[lofemofe]

I play Tribes Ascend and Starcraft 2. In Tribes the performance is okay. I hover around 60 FPS with drops below 30 FPS once in awhile, but very playable. In SC2, during big battles my FPS drops down to the the 10-20 FPS which is pretty annoying. Both games are being played at Highest resolutions and Graphics though.

 

[Memnarchon]

I play Tribes Ascend and Starcraft 2. In Tribes the performance is okay. I hover around 60 FPS with drops below 30 FPS once in awhile, but very playable. In SC2, during big battles my FPS drops down to the the 10-20 FPS which is pretty annoying. Both games are being played at Highest resolutions and Graphics though.

Starcraft 2 is very cpu intensive and the problem is that it is only 2-threaded.
StarCraft II: CPU and Multi-core Performance
So if you want to improve your performance at starcraft the only way is to get an ivy cpu (they have ~10% better performance than sandybridge on starcraft), cause as you can see overclocking isn't make it playable.