Any real point?

Ripjaw

Ripjaw

Ripjaw

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Im wondering for gaming (and gaming alone) is there any real point overclocking the cpu? From what i've read so far you dont really get anything extra for gaming. Mutlitasking and other things such as video encoding and the like benifit greatly (so i've read) id just like some clarification.
 
I'd be interested in some links to whatever you've been reading that says that there is no performance gains from overclocking the CPU when running games, is it actually evidence based or just someone saying so because they heard it from a mate who heard it from someone down the pub? Not technically a game but Microsoft's Flight Simulator X definitely scales with processor speed and I'd say the majority of folks seriously into FSX run overclocked systems because of this.
 
Arma 3 runs mostly on your CPU currently , so more CPU more fps .. So yes overclocking helps their.

And personally I find that my dual gtx780 sli gives me a big increase in fps and stablity of fps when I overclocked my CPU to 4.8ghz

So I'm In the " yes their is a point to overclocking for gaming" club :-)
 
http://www.giantbomb.com/pc/3045-94/forums/is-overclocking-your-cpu-worth-it-for-gaming-569190/

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/275008-29-overclock-gaming

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ASUSROG/

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1657748

I could go on, i mean i dont actually know hence asking but what most folk seem to be saying is 90% of games are GPU intensive and overclocking the cpu gets you a poxy 1/2/3 fps. So my school of thought is wtfs the point spening so much money on a OC optamised board, unlocked cpu and a beefy cooler for a couple of frames.

There are some games abviously that are heavily cpu intensive and they will get more of a gain from it.

I just want some clarification before i shell out 200quid on 'optimised for overclocking' parts when i needent bother.

It'll be for an i5 4670 btw
 
Sleepyluke said:
And personally I find that my dual gtx780 sli gives me a big increase in fps and stablity of fps when I overclocked my CPU to 4.8ghz
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In insances like this i can imagine overclocking would help as not to bottleneck, but for somone like me whos intrest is single gpu setups im guessing what i've read becomes more relevent?
 
What I got from reading the linked threads, from my own experience and from other posters on this thread was that, as long as your graphics card is not bottlenecking your system, overclocking should make a difference for gaming. Whether the difference is noticeable will depend on how much you are able to overclock and whether the particular game you are playing is able to make use of the extra CPU speed. Another consideration was the comments from people who believed that the additional performance gained by overclocking their CPU meant that they were able to postpone replacing their entire system. Of the negative posters only a few seemed to have any actual experience and this seemed to be for specific games that were known not to be coded to make full use of the CPU.

I'm not sure how realistic the extra £200 figure is. An OEM 4670K is an extra £12 over the retail non K, a decent mid range cooler (TS-140) is £35, and the difference between an H87 and a Z87 board can be around £30 depending on what specs you need but you might have been planning on a decent board anyhow in which case there may be no price difference. I'd suggest the most you'd *need* to spend would be an extra £100, which would potentially get you a quieter more efficient cooler, a better quality motherboard, increased performance in some games and a system that may not need replacing as quickly.

If you're still not sure I'd make a list of the games you play most often and then go to their specific forums to ask whether an overclocked system would make a noticeable difference.
 
I think its worth atleast setting up for overclocking an ill tell you why: :)

  • Overclocking the CPU will make it work with later GPU's (reducing bottleneck)
  • The components will have a higher resale value.
  • The stock cooler is ugly and loud, so an aftermarket cooler is almost nesecerry anyway
  • Boards you can overclock on (Z87) have a lot of oter useful features (more DIMM's, more SATA and USB3 ports)
  • You won't really know you have a bottleneck until you overclock :)
 
PieEater said:
If you're still not sure I'd make a list of the games you play most often and then go to their specific forums to ask whether an overclocked system would make a noticeable difference.
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Thats actually a really good idea thanks :)

Doomedspeed said:
I think its worth atleast setting up for overclocking an ill tell you why: :)

  • Overclocking the CPU will make it work with later GPU's (reducing bottleneck)
  • The components will have a higher resale value.
  • The stock cooler is ugly and loud, so an aftermarket cooler is almost nesecerry anyway
  • Boards you can overclock on (Z87) have a lot of oter useful features (more DIMM's, more SATA and USB3 ports)
  • You won't really know you have a bottleneck until you overclock :)
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Doom ever the wise one, just somthing my mate said to me last night got me all wound up and needing to know if there was actually much point but the points you made sence:cool:
 
I have just been playing around with my 4670k and tbh from stock and 4.6ghz/4.8ghz I do not see any real noticeable differences in game with a single 7970 @ 1200/1600 and 1080p 60Hz. Benchmarks show a few fps gains but nothing that I can see on screen in game.

But there is no way I'm running stock so 4.4Ghz is a good balance between pointless overclock and keeping my tinkering needs at bay. :D
 
Ripjaw said:
Im wondering for gaming (and gaming alone) is there any real point overclocking the cpu? From what i've read so far you dont really get anything extra for gaming. Mutlitasking and other things such as video encoding and the like benifit greatly (so i've read) id just like some clarification.
Click to expand...

It depends on the game and where your bottleneck is. If the game uses a lot of threads and tons of AI, then the faster the CPU the better. If your CPU is always waiting on a slow graphics card, then making the CPU faster just means it will get its work done more quickly and still spend the same time waiting on the CPU.

Games like Supreme Commander 1/2, Civilization 5, and Total War will probably benefit. Games like Torchlight 2 or Battlefield 3, not so much if you're already providing all the CPU power the game needs to be fast enough or to feed your graphics card so it can go at full speed.

So, if you're CPU bound, more CPU will help. If you're GPU bound, then you need a faster graphics card, and increasing the speed of the CPU won't solve that problem.

Other issues (such as slow level load) are more affected by the speed of you disk IO, and that where things like SSDs come in.
 
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