Going to buy new graphics card, should I also overclock my CPU?

[your evil twin]

At the moment I have an Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 "MaxCore" by BFG, 896MBytes. My processor is an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550, 2.83ghz. My motherboard is a P43Twins 1600. I've gotan 850W power supply. I used to have 2 x 2GB of 800mhz DDR2 RAM, I just replaced that with 2 x 4GB of DDR3 RAM. I'm not sure if that's actually working with the right timings or latency or whatever but at least my system recognises I've got 8GB of RAM.

I have got limited money to spend... well really I have no money but screw it I want a better system. So I was thinking of taking advantage of the special offer and getting the OcUK GeForce GTX 560Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-175-OK

Now if go ahead and get that card, should I notice a big improvement in games performance and be able to put things on higher settings, or will I be held back by my 2.83ghz processor? Do you think that overlocking my processor will get me a noticeable improvement?

When I bought my system 3 years ago from Wired2Fire the processor came already overlocked up to 3.1ghz. They might have also overclocked the grahpics card a bit, I'm not sure. But it seems that wasn't quite stable, as in a few games I would get some artifacts after playing for a while. And when Red Fation Guerrilla came out I found that a certain area of the game kept crashing. One time it crashed so hard that when the computer restarted, somehow all the overlocking had gone! My startup screen said 2.83ghz instead of 3.1! But that fixed the crashing problem I had in that game, and got rid of the artificats I had in a couple of other games, so I never bothered trying to overclock it again.

Now while 3.1 seemed to have a few issues, presumably I should be able to overclock it up to 2.9ghz or maybe 3.0 ghz, but is it worth it?

 

[j.col]

you will need to get the overclock around 3.4ghz to see a benifit imo.
here is a few fellow 9550 owners with a 560ti
http://www.overclock.net/t/1138625/evga-gtx-560-ti-bottleneck

so give it a try yourself

this is a very basic explanation of overclocking

its basic maths. your Q9550 is rated at 1333mhz. you always divide this number by 4 so 1333/4= 333, this is your fsb. (or cpu frequency)
then your processor (cpu) has a multiplier of 8.5 (or cpu ratio)
so 333 x 8.5 = 2830mhz or 2.8GHz, your stock speed

if you download cpu-z, this will give you all this info,

boot into bios, and disable C1est, and any other power saving features.

unlink your ram, using the ram divider, so it stays at stock speeds, you can overclock the ram later.
this means leave it at 667mhz or 800mhz or 1066 or whatever your ram is rated at.

raise the vcore to 1.2v.(cpu voltage) the max voltage is 1.36v, so you are well within the safe zone.

then raise the fsb. yours is now 333. try rising it to 360
boot into windows
download realtemp and coretemp (google them)
install and run them
then download intel burn test (ibt) and run it.
have a look in task manager and notice how much free ram is listed.

in ibt set threads to 4 (for 4 cores) and then click on custom ram and enter an amount just below the free amount.
eg. i have 2520mb free ram. so i enter 2500 into the custom ram.
run the test for 10 passes. for now,(keep an eye on temps)
and then at final speed you want, run for 50 passes
keep an eye on temps (do not let it go over 70.c)

or download prime95 and run the torture test/large fft's

if test runs fine, go back into bios, and change frequency (fsb) to 380 and repeat the tests.
keep doing this in 20mhz steps until windows will not boot. then just go back a step (remove 20 from the fsb) to the last stable frequency,
or
just raise the cpu voltage a couple of levels. (try 1.25v) it should now boot.
its a balancing act, higher voltages will get you higher fsb, but it will also give you higher temps.



the trick is to do this step by step, just take your time.

also it may help to drop the multi to x 8, so 400 (fsb) x 8 = 3.2

Oh and make sure you have a proper cooler for the cpu, you shouldn't really overclock with the stock cooler

 

[koooowweeee]

You could sell your cpu for 90 mobo 30

Add some more cash

get a used 2500k for 140 and a cheap mobo for 40-50 and use your ram.

Or i7 920 go for around same price are your chip would sell for.


But if you have a good cooler get that chip clocked. Them chips clock to 4ghz easy.

Cpu power is important with gaming its not all about the gpu but you do need a new gpu for modern games

 

[SlugForAButt]

That is a perfectly good processor for gaming, don't waste your cash upgrading to a new cpu/mobo.
Buy the 560ti, overclock your 9550 to near 4Ghz and enjoy! You should be able to overclock nicely with a P43 chipset I think.

Do as j.col says and all will be well. Your CPU and a 2Gb 560ti will slay anything you want to throw at it at cracking settings.
I'm running a Q9650 @ 4.2 (similar) and an ATI 6950 2Gb (similar) on a 23" monitor and it beasts it's way through everything.

EDIT: start a new thread here if you aren't confident with overclocking, you'll get plenty help here I think.