Stable, but mixed performance results

I successfully ran Johnny Lee's SP2004 ORTHOS overnight without any problem. Before I retired to bed, I observed the motherboard temperature peaking at 34C/93C, the CPU peaking at 56C/133F (with PECI enabled*), and both CPU cores peaking at 74C/165F. This is close to the temperature readings when Nighthawk was overclocked to 3.0 GHz.

* I have observed a difference of 10C in the CPU temperature when PECI is enabled (lower) and disabled (higher).

I also ran 2 instances of SuperPi Mod1.5 XS. At the end of the 20th loop of the 32M calculation, the motherboard temperature was +4C higher than @ 3.0 GHz overclock, the CPU temperature was +7C higher than @3.0 GHz overclock, and both CPU cores were +5C higher than @ 3.0 GHz overclock.

The system definitely runs hotter overclocked at 3.2 GHz in comparison with a 3.0 GHz overclock, but still well within the operating range of the CPU and motherboard.

Both instances of SuperPi at 3.2 GHz overclock completed faster than at 3.0 GHz overclock by 1 minute 35.924 seconds and 1 minute 45.766 seconds.

I don't know how much of this can be attributed to the increase in CPU speed and how much can be attributed to the new RAID 0 setup of the disk.

I would suspect that most of the improvement in SuperPi performance is attributable to the increase in CPU speed.

My final benchmark this evening was 3DMark06. Nighthawk overclocked to 3.2 GHz scored 8384 3DMarks versus 8772 3DMarks @ 3.0 GHz overclock, a decrease of 388 3DMarks! CPU score increased by 152 Marks, but the SM2.0 and SM3.0 scores decreased by 349 and 148 Marks respectively. Here's the 3DMark06 comparison.

I was not expecting this kind of result. Is the increased speed of the Core 2 Duo E6700 processor at 3.2 GHz overwhelming the BFG 8800GTS graphics card and causing it to slow down?

I'm baffled. I will forge ahead for now and continue overclocking the CPU, but I am now seriously considering overclocking the BFG 8800GTS as well. I have heard that the Nvidia 8800GTS graphics card overclocks almost as well as the Intel Core 2 Duo processors.