Overclocking help please rig is not performing

First off I'd like to say hello this is my first post over here, I used to post over at the CPC forums.

Ive overclocked my rig slightly yet it still seems to struggle...sometimes im only getting 20FPS in ARMA 2.

First off heres my rig

Asus P5Q-E motherboard
Intel Core2duo E6750 ( 8x 425FSB = 3.4GHz overclock 1.43v ( in bios ))
8GB DDR2 OCZ pc-6400 ram ( running @ approx 850MHz due to overclock )
2 x 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA II hdd
BFG GTX 275 896mb OC ( running at core 648MHz , shader 1512 MHz and mem 2448 MHz effective )
samsung 18x DVD-RW
Creative X-Fi Xtreme gamer sound card
Jeantech storm 700W psu
Windows 7 build 7600 x64
Antec nine hundred case

ive run 3DMark06 and only got something like 14800 points and in the CPC benchmarks i only scored 965 which to me is pants.

what im wondering is where am i going wrong and wh are my scores so low.

Could it be the PSU not providing enough ampage? Would a better PSU solve this?
Could it be the CPU bottle necking the entire system? Should I go for the Q9550?

Please help as this is driving me nuts

 

what CPU cooler are you using/what temps are you getting on the CPU. High temps might cause the CPU to start throttling and cause those low fps's.

 

hmm, that is weird as I can't really see a prominent bottle neck. All drivers up to date and what-not?
That's the most I can think of to be honest.

 

im using the arctic Frezzer Pro 7 and the temps im getting according to real temp and core temp

IDLE : 34 c / 35 c

LOAD : 48 c 49 c

Ive also checked the GPU using EVGA precision

IDLE : 48c

LOAD : 59c

 

Stupid question: Got the latest patches for ARMA 2?

 

lol yup i got latest patches and all drivers are up to date as well....i even reinstalled 7 a fw days ago...this is as good as the RTM version

 

Might be obvious, but what resolution?

I Was getting around 50FPS with my rig in the demo, at 1680x1050, all full. So it might begin to struggle at 1920x1200

 

Those scores seem about right for that rig.

 

im trying to run it at 1680 x 1050

 

that seems right then. That is not really a small resolution

 

Only thing i could think would be CPU, only thing about my rig thats better than yours.

 

well playing at 15 fps is no fun at all. i would have thought 8GB ram would have been enough so looks like im going to go for the Q9550 ( its only abouts £150 at ccl ) and clock it around 3.4 ish hopedully that will solve it unless its my PSU not delivering enough ampage.

 

Im not saying to do it but can you drop the over clock down to 2.8ghz, run a bench mark, then up the over clock to 3.2 ghz run a bench mark, then either return the system to the orginal 3.4ghz or miss it and try for 3.6ghz and run a bench mark.

Im just trying to think of some kind of way to collect data about your system that will, well give some options.

You could just do the cliff notes and up the overclock to 3.6ghz and see how much of an improvement that makes but if you have numbers to work with over a span of cpu speed.. I mean maybe just maybe you get the same darn speed at 2.8ghz then there really is some thing to talk about.

Do the benchmarking, I would, Arma needs a quad I believe.

 

Just wondering what score you were expecting as at stock 3.2ghz I get about 16500 in 3d mark with a 955be quad and xfx 275 xxx.

Seems about right to me.

My friends got an E8500@ stock with two 8800GTX's and he only just breaks 16k.

 

ive just noticed that my BIOS is well outta date

Installed version : 1003 date : 07/09/2008

new version : 2101 date : 04/06/2009

would a flash have any improvments at all as my rig is over and above the CPC test rig yet im scoring lower

 

Something is definitely wrong with that - I get 14800 in 3DMark'06...

To help us out, try a 8M superpi benchmark (download here.)

I can't see a BIOS upgrade really helping performance all that much, it might give you a couple of %, but not anything major.

That'll help us narrow it down to graphics or CPU/memory.

 

im running the superPI now....however i have just adjust my ram voltage to 2.00 as suggested over on the OCZ forums and my cpu temps have gone up on idle to 43c / 45c ill post the superPI results later when i get back in.

 

use CPU-z to check PCI-e multiplyer. could be at 1x due to the CPU overclock

 

ok i ve run super PI

and the results are here if any one can tell what it means



and cpu-z reports PCI-x as normal

 

some times heat sinks get clogged up with dust. have you dusted recently?