Just built a high spec rig but getting poor 3dmark11 scores :(

[Austin772]

Hey there everyone! So I recently just built a new build of mine that I'm very pleased with. Finally it was time to run a benchmark or two and I go to run 3dmark 11 and get dismal scores in comparison to others with my same set up specs wise. I'm more then a little distraught you could say... Now my specs are as follows: intel 2500k @stock (soon to be overclocked), 8gb of G.Skill sniper ram, SLI EVGA "superclocked" 580's, an ASROCK p67 extreme 4 gen3, with a Cooler Master v6 cooling the 2500k, an Antec 1200 watt power supply, and all of this is wrapped up in a full tower cooler master HAF X.


I believe I have updated all my drivers to the current ones available so why the poor performance in comparison to others with a similar set up? Here is my overall score, P9274. According to the graph I am one of 16 others who have gotten a score in the 9000's with this set up, while the majority (366 users) have scored in the 1100's... Is it possible that I need to overclock my cpu in order to rid myself of any cpu bottleneck that could be the issue with my SLI 580's which EVGA has bumped up a little bit due to the "superclock"? I would appreciate any suggestions you guys may have regarding this issue, don't want my new pride and joy to be underperforming especially with the Battlefield 3 beta almost upon us!

Thanks fellas!

-Austin

 

[rvilkman]

Yeah GTX580 SLI actually requires quite a bit from the CPU to be fed enough data to process it all, so once you go 4GHz to 4.5GHz the score should improve nicely.
They saw this issue on hardocp when they were running tri SLI vs tri FIRE, which was rectified by OC:ing their CPU to 4.5 or 4.6Ghz.

 

[Austin772]

Ah I see! Well thanks so much buddy! I appreciate the quick reply. I guess I'll have to look into overclocking my cpu as soon as possible. It's my first time OC though so I'm a bit nervous haha. From what I understand the 2500k is a breeze to OC with my mobo bios though. Hopefully all goes well!

Thanks again,
-Austin

 

[rvilkman]

Yeah you can get a 4GHz on most motherboards by simply changing the turbo multipliers to 40, no other settings changes needed.
to get 4.5Ghz usually a few more tweaks are needed.

 

[inzone]

Your MB has three full size pci-e slots and the very bottom one runs at x4 speed while the other two (if both occupied) run at x8 speed. This is why a lot of people are going for the z68 boards.