Increasing my Fraps for gaming advice

Here is my current system:

E8400 Core 2 Duo @ 3 GHz​

HD 4850​

DDR-2 800 Ram, 4 GB​

GA-EP45-UD3R (P45 motherboard)​

SSD Drive​

1280 x 1040 19” monitor​

Processor is 6.5 and Gaming graphics is 7.3 on the WEI. I get about 36 Fraps playing AC II (which actually looks pretty good). If I wanted to shoot for 60 Fraps, would a video card upgrade do it or would that just bottle-neck the processor? And is there any way to tell for sure?

Thanks for your advice.
DeeJay

 

Never base hardware performance on WEI. It's numbers are meaningless to the experiences user. Its numbers are thrown off by driver updates and the base score is determined by your lowest sub score. So you can have a fast, Core i7 processor with a sub score of 7, and a GPU with a sub score of 5 and your base score will turn out to be 5. Doesn't make much sense does it?
Try something like PassMark which will give you a more accurate measurement which lets you compare your score with thousands of other users.

There are several steps you can take to improve your fps from an internal (software) standpoint. One useful step is do disable services and startup items which use up memory and processing power. Type in MSCONFIG in the Start Menu. In the Startup tab, uncheck anything you don't need to startup upon boot.
Next, you want to disable services you don't need. I like Black Vipers list. Scroll down until you see a list of services and make sure to look at the "safe" column. Disable those from that list. To start, simply type in Services.msc in the Start Menu.
That should do it. Now you should perform a regular disk cleanup. Restart your pc.
That's pretty much the best tweaking you can do. Essentially, you need to have the latest drivers installed, as much memory space available, and low cpu usage.

This should give you a few extra frames. As far as hardware goes, an upgrade from all sides of the field seem necessary. cpu, ram, motherboard. ssd drive is a plus.

 

I answered my own question by buying a new card (HD 6850). With a modest system overclock setting the FSB to 400 (running the CPU at 3.6 GHz), I'm getting a reliable 56 FPS in AC Brotherhood with settings on max. Looks beautiful on my monitor. In conclusion, no need to upgrade the system. New card is very quiet and with the overclock gets stunning graphics.

 

Nice work man. I hope you have good cooling for your cpu