Frustrated Noob needs help with benchmarking :(

[Smoky]

I've been trying for the last several in-game days to reach a benchmark score of 4991 so i've upgraded the processor to the Intel core i7-6700K and the GPU to the Shean GeForce GTX 980 GAMER XL (as well as added extra sticks of RAM because a forum said that more sticks = better), but the problem is that's only giving me a benchmark score in the 4200s but these are the highest quality parts I currently have access to (at lvl 6). I don't know what else to do to increase the score and I'm in terrible debt XD. Pls help ;_; even if the mission fails in a few in-game days.

[spelljammer]

First of all: Have you tried overclocking? As you have a K-type CPU this processor can be overclocked by entering the BIOS at start. If you run into bluescreens when benchmarking you need to increase the CPU's core voltage. A better cooling solution would also help.
If the GPU Tuner utility is available in the shop you can also purchase it to overclock your GPU.
Installing more RAM modules is always a good way to start. Usually the customer's system arrive with only one module, so the memory runs only in single channel mode. Adding another module (of exactly the same type, since others are incompatible) you will have two modules running in dual channel mode with in itself has a nice positive impact on your benchmark scores.

[WildCard65 the Waifu Card]

Ok, I ran a quick free-build benchmark on the configuration you used (Assuming non of the Skylake boards support CPU overclocking) , you need a stronger GPU than the SHEAN 980 which there should be based on my guess being NVidia 980TI or the R9 390

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2456347865

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2456347764

This system and these parts are all available to you at level 6 and reaches a 3dmark score of 6769, which is quite a bit over your target and might be too much budget for the job. But it's just something I threw together to give you an idea of what's possible. Also I loaded XMP for the ram in the bios for this system to get this score, remember to always do that. There are likely other parts that could be cheaper and meet your target score. For one I know I used a 600W power supply and these parts only used about 350W. I don't have time right now today to get this down precisely close to what you need so I just picked something that would at least meet your objective. Once you get an idea of what parts I combined together then you can pick other parts.

You can pretty much ignore the suggestions by other people above about overclocking anything. At level 6 you don't have access to any way to overclock any parts at all, not ram speed, not cpu, and not video cards. Overclocking is later in the game for you.

Just a note for you: The overall 3dmark score is weighted so that the video card performance accounts for 85% of the overall score and the cpu + system ram gives the other 15%. Therefore often times you can combine two video cards and get a significantly higher 3dmark score without even changing much or anything to do with the CPU/RAM.