Spec not performing as it should?

[corporategods]

hey everyone

I've been constantly building and rebuilding my pc to keep it capable of playing the most demanding games. my current specs are

q6600 processor (not the energy efficient version)
foxconn mars mobo
geforce gtx280
4gb corsair dominator ram
vista 64 bit.
26inch monitor at 1360x768

i thought this would be able to handle pretty much anything but i'm getting lower framerates than i'd expect in most games. Flight sim X maxed out can drop to 13fps, crysis maxed out drops to 10-15fps, in fact oblivion maxxed out with nvidia's own performance software drops down to this region too.

I'm not overclocking anything btw, i've tried in the past using the gladiator bios that comes with my mobo and not experienced much performance increase.

Am i being unrealistic expecting this setup to run everything smoothly? or might something be holding it back, hard disk data transfer rate or something like that?

If my spec's just not good enough, what areas should i be looking at upgrading?

 

[theAnimal]

At that resolution, the video card is more than enough. OC your Q6600 to 3GHz+.

 

[scatrdfew]

Something isn't right, that's for sure, have you tested or RAM?