Setup:

Processor AMD FX?-4100 Quad-Core Processor, 3600 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

System Type x64-based PC

MB - System Model GA-970A-UD3

Video Card - ATI HD Radeon 6850

Hard Drive - SSD OCZ

This is my custom computer I built about 2 months ago.

I'm trying to max out my gaming experience, but I'm wondering how to tell if something is holding back my system while playing.

I can play on Ultra high on everything and get pretty good frame rate (40-60fps), but I'm wondering exactly if something is bottle necking my system.

The only time I drop hugely down in FPS is when I jack the Anisotropic Filtering past 4 samples, same with the Anti-aliasing at around 4 samples.

I haven't overclocked my 3.6 ghz processor yet, but I'm wondering if that will even help, or if its just my video card being maxed out.

Any tips would be appreciated. I'm not the most tech savy.

"If it ain't broken, don't fix it."

I still dont get the thing about getting all super HD, but...

This helps to improve the performance while playing:
Turn off all other programs, check for those wich run in the background too. That should free some CPU and RAM.

Also, having AA on or off isn't much of a difference. It just smooths the borders of the pixels to make it look nice. I always recommend to have it disabled.

Try SkyBoost, it fixes some bottlenecks in the .exe, wich inproves the performance. Though I dont know if they released the 1.4 version yet.

The engine always seemed to have a problem with HDR+AA enabled since Oblivion times. Now..since we can't really turn off HDR anymore we can only go with turning AA and AF off.

Gambit,
If you are running everyting on Ultra and getting 40-60 Fps that is awsome!!! I wont change a thing. On the other hand what I have done is run the gane on Medium settings and then increase shadows/textures and the distance under the advanced tab. These settings also work fairly well with the HD DLC pack.
Hope this helps or at least gives you some idea's to play with.

Lower shadow quality to medium, use 2xAA and 16xAF, and use a mod called Skyboost, and you should stay at 50-55

Okay, I just didn't know how much it affects game play. I'm going to just turn off the AA and AF so I can maybe boost my fps so I don't get those spikes I get when I turn around too fast.

AF has barely any performance hit, and makes things much prettier, try it out without AA first.