Where is my bottleneck?

I've always had the feeling that my machine isn't running as fast as it should so last night I started running some 3dMark Vantage benchmarks. It seems like I am coming in quite a bit lower than I should be when looking at other peoples scores with similar hardware.

This was my result running a 'Performance' benchmark which I scored P10295 whilst other scores I looked at where 16-20k with same video card, cpu, and amount of memory.

http://www.c-zone.net/prozack/benchmark.jpg

Here is my system report if this will help:
http://www.c-zone.net/prozack/systeminfo.zip

Nothing is overclocked. I haven't messed with any settings in the bios or ATI control center. I recently updated the video card drivers.

So I guess my question to you all is if you had the same components and are an overclock noob (but not scared and not a computer noob by any means) - what would be your thoughts/steps to get this system running stabile but faster? Where is my bottleneck?

System Components:
Asus P5Q-Pro - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131299
Intel Q6600 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017
ATI Radeon 4870 X2
4 GB Mushkin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146731
2x 75 gig Raptor drives (raid)
850 Watt Antec Power Supply (Truepower Quattro)
Coolermaster RC-690 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119137
Vista Ultimate 64

Here's my thoughts - any advice would be appreciated.

1.) Buy an aftermarket CPU cooler. Advice on which one?
2.) Overclock my Q6600 to 3Ghz - will do more research but found this 3.) Replace or overclock my Mushkin memory. When I purchased it, I seem to remember on this forum telling me not to bother with higher clocking memory as this was the memory to buy as it's easy to overclock.

you quad is definitely bottlenecking, overclock that maybe to 3.2ghz+ and it'll go up. for as the cooler i reccomend a scythe mugen 2 or if thats too big a xigmatek s1284.

since i dont own a intel cpu just wait for someone else to post a guide to this, and i think theres a guides on the forum about overclocking too.

Good to know the quad is bottlenecking - I can certainly work on getting it overclocked to 3 or 3.2Ghz (3.6 if I want to push it)...

What about the memory?

Faster memory would help, but at stock CPU speeds (and FSB, especially) faster memory probably wouldn't do much.

But yeah, at the moment CPU is your issue, most games only use two cores so what you have is a conroe 2.4ghz dual core as far as they're concerned, really not very fast.
OC that to >3ghz and you'll have much better results, both from the faster CPU speed and from the larger bandwidth of a faster FSB.
Get your hands on a xigmatek hdt 1283/1284/dark knight, or a sunbeam CCF, all are excellent coolers at very low costs.

Bobnova said:

Faster memory would help, but at stock CPU speeds (and FSB, especially) faster memory probably wouldn't do much.

But yeah, at the moment CPU is your issue, most games only use two cores so what you have is a conroe 2.4ghz dual core as far as they're concerned, really not very fast.
OC that to >3ghz and you'll have much better results, both from the faster CPU speed and from the larger bandwidth of a faster FSB.
Get your hands on a xigmatek hdt 1283/1284/dark knight, or a sunbeam CCF, all are excellent coolers at very low costs.

Click to expand...

don't forget mugen 2

Unfortunately the Mugen 2 won't work with my case according to this page:

http://www.overclock.net/air-cooling/527713-scythe-mugen-2-information-center-club.html

Any other cooler recommendations? Bob recommended xigmatek hdt 1283/1284/dark knight - out of those what would you buy? Is there something better that's around that price? If it costs a little bit more money that's fine.

upgrading ram speed if mobo allows it will also increase score a bit.

Ideally a 1284 with a bolt through kit.
Failing that, a dark knight as it comes with the bolt through. If you can find a deal on the 1283+bolt through get that, it cools marginally better then the dark knight due to no plating. The difference may come down to just review technique though, it's not that big of a deal.