I just built my first system and Im pretty much a noob(I'm learning tho!)I just want to know if anyone thinks that my system is bottlenecking anywhere. I paid a lot of money for everything and I want to make sure I am getting everything I can out of it. Heres my setup:
- i5 2500k OC'D to 4.3ghz
-ASUS P8Z77-V Pro
- 16 GB Corsair Vengenance 1600
- GTX 570HD 2.5 GB (NO OC)
Monitor- ASUS VE248H 60hz refresh reate
 
Any reccomendations to clock the 570 to? Any tips on any settings? I run BF3 at an average of 60fps and it only dropping into the low 50's to mid 40's when in vehicles, but I would like to keep it above 60fps if possible. I ran a 3D Benchmark 11 and I think my score was only about 6000 something. I just feel that this should be much higher. Any advice or tips will be greatly appreciated!!
 

From what you have listed, it doesn't sound like you have any bottleneck in your system.  Just make sure that you have a solid PSU and plenty of air flow/cooling.  As for your CPU OC, depending on what cooling you have, you can probably get that up to about a 4.5 for a daily stable use.  As for the GPU - get Afterburner or EVGA's tool to OC your card.  Just follow the same general logic as with the CPU - take it in (small) steps, test it and keep stepping it up until you are getting errors - then start stepping it down. 

Harddrive or ssd?

Doesn't look bottlenecked with one card.........oh, isn't afterburner EVGAs tool?

It's an SSD for the OS and a 1 TB caviar black 7200rpm for my games. I have plenty of air cooling(for now) when I get home I'm going to run some benchmarks and post my scores to see if anyone thinks they should be higher. I plan on running SLI in the future. Anything I should be aware of before I do?

On the SLI, just that you have a good PSU.  With the rest of your rig, you should be perfectly fine to have loads of fun in an SLI setup. 

Delirious


Doesn't look bottlenecked with one card.........oh, isn't afterburner EVGAs tool?

Good point! 

Only you can really tell if any bottlenecking matters, it isn't just software versus hardware, it is a preference issue; thus totally your perspective.
 
In general:

• Evidence of CPU bottlenecking occurs when you either upgrade or overclock your graphics and overall performance remains unchanged.
  • most often happens when trying to force max details with a stock or old CPU, which many of us gamers encounter. 
  • Also, if you have a CPU-heavy program, upgrading the wrong part will result in a CPU-bottleneck.  Some games like RTS or third-person or flight sim are do better with better CPUs, but not to the point of not needing a better graphics card.
• Evidence of GPU bottlenecking occurs when you either upgrade or overclock the processor and overall performance remains unchanged.
  • Gamers that can afford more than midrange graphics don't usually encounter this. 
  • It commonly happens with newer CPU-heavy games on older graphics where the CPU is still good enough.  
  • For example, I have this game called World in Conflict and I've played it max detail, DX9c because I had WinXP with my GTX260, the frame rates are always in the 50's no matter what frequency I set the CPU to.  If I wanted more frame rates, I'd need better graphics cards or more GTX260's.
• Evidence of a resolution bottleneck can affect even if your system had the perfect balance of CPU and GPU.
  • Low-resolution can force CPU-intensive and shift the problem to the CPU, where type of graphics card is less revelant.
  • high-resolution can force GPU-intensive where the CPU type and frequency doesn't matter so much, but graphics does.
• Of course there are internet bandwidth and RAM bandwidth bottlenecks, etc. you can figure it out.   The idea is something is slowing the potential of something else.  Bottonline, the CPU runs everything in your computer and tells everything (including graphics cards) what to do.  There is no independent scaling of changing one part and performance only varies on that part.
• Preference is always an issue.  For instance, my example with World in Conflict, because my minimum requirement of comfortable frame rates is 40, I don't need to overclock or buy more graphics cards to get more frame rates that I don't need.  I get 50-55 FPS max detail, while still GPU bottlenecked, but it doesn't bother me.  You might be having a bottleneck in something but you're perfectly fine.  The point where there is bottleneck changes per game, per hardware, so you have to make a call because there is no one-size-fits-all obvious.
• You could also do an analysis of your games, changing frequencies by every 200MHz in CPU or 50MHz per graphics, and make a graph or plot of your frame rates.  If you see any leveling out, that is evidence of a bottleneck; because in a perfect world, performance should keep going up as we increase frequency-- of course, that should be a big hint about getting rid of bottlenecks:  You can't.