Well a few months ago i upgraded from my 8500gt to a PNY 8800gt. Getting Crysis to celebrate the occasion I notice the fps being a little slow from what iv been seeing other 8800gt's going(even Ocing mine to others it still was lacking performance). Im guessing my CPU is the problem becuase of it being very very underpowered. My system specs are as followed:

4200 x2
Asus mobo (distributed with HP comps)
2gb of corsair 800mhz (forget which model exactly)
250gb SATA 3gbs 7200rpm
PNY 8800gt XLR8 series

I ran some of the GPU tests and it seemed that all the details were getting almost the same FPS except in 1280x800

test0, med , no motion blur= min=17.56 max=38.56 avg-28.27
test1, high, no motion blur= min=6.61 max=31.83 avg=21.41
test2,vhigh, no motion blur= min6.86 max=27.57 avg=20.83

If my CPU is my problem what would be a good way to go. Iv been looking at getting a new mobo (due to this one's BIOS being locked) with a nice cooler and OCing it, but would that really help due to AMD lacking in L2 cache and architecture? If not I was thinking of going for the new Wolfdales C2D that intel made. Any help, or opinions would be great .

Yea, it most likely is the CPU thats bottlenecking. You could buy a new motherboard and OC to eliminate the bottleneck, but if you can afford a new processor that would be best. For gaming the best you can get right now is the Wolfdale cores, E8200 would do fine, but 8400 and 8500 are better, depends on how much you wanna spend

how much of a performance increase would OCing my prossessor really give, im more tempted to just sell my soul and spend the 300 to get a lg775 mobo + e8400. But again how much performance am i really gonna see with doing either of those options?

You may want to check out this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/messag [...] id=2149026
and it's associated link: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] out_9.html
and Tom's CPU charts (Click through the different benchmarks): http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] 235%2C1250 - for an overclock estimate, I use an X2 5400+ (2.8) as it's the highest model based on the same Windsor-512 that the 4200+ is.

Couldn't of said it better myself, exit2dos. However the E7200 is also a good option if you want to save 60$. As for motherboard, I recommend...
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128337
89.99
Asus P5K-E
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131225
$139.99
Abit IP35 Pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813127030
$129.99 after $50.00 MIR
eVGA 750i FTW
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 750i%2bftw
$189.99

All boards are good choices depending on your budget. The Gigabyte motherboard is obviously the most affordable. No raid, wont do any record-breaking overclocks, runs hot.
Asus motherboard has all the features you really need, good overclocking capability.
Abit board is a fantastic deal with $50.00 MIR. Similair to the P5K-E in overclocking and features.
eVGA motherboard is the best board ever! Well, I think so anyway. Great overclocking, no non-sense motherboard, and SLI.

sweet thanks guys, exit2dos that first link definaly desided me on a C2D a x2 gainon most games over 4200, thats insane.Definatly expains my low fps =(.
yeah even if i get a C2D i still wanna OC, and thanks omen for the mobo links.

SELL SOUL SELL SOUL

1) Crysis at a low screen resolution =

2) 8800gt + x2 4200 @ 16x10 =
(for 95% of games)

If your current board supported OCing this would be a no brainer, just crank that 4200 up and enjoy, however, if you have to buy a new board anyway, defiantly sell your soul and get the Intel.

+1 for the wolfie and DS3L

f1nal_0men is correct. Check my sig out below. The e7200 can easily reach 3.8G at 400FSB. My cpu tem never exceeds 57c. I am only using a Thermaltake golden orb 2, if i had a better HS&F i would push 4.0G. For $139 the e7200 is hard to beat its value. If you OC.

wow
just O.C. the cpu you have now and don't worry about selling anything to get only a FEW frames more

*side note - the comparison between the 2 cpus above is bogus. O.C. the 4200+ then re-calc. the results. The cpu score will be closer to 2200. In real game tests the intellll will only get you a little more.
The vid. card being the most important... of course. Your's is fine for a while. I recommend that you experiment w/O.C. -ing, instead of buying a new mobo and cpu, reinstalling everything, and only getting 10(+/-)FPS difference for your $300+ AND a new O.S. = $150+ TOTAL = $450+ for 10fps "?"
Your current O.S. isn't gonna transfer unless you have a FULL install disk, I'm sure you know that.

FYI - to answer your question...
Your overall score for 3DMark06, @default settings of course, will increase by about 3,000 points FOR FREE!!!