Should I bother CPU overclocking?

almoststew1990 · 4 Jun 2011 at 22:14

It sounds like a no brainer but will I see any benfit in my system? I mostly use my computer for gaming, internet browsing and playing Transport Tycoon (because that's where the party's at).

When I am gaming (Mafia II, GTA IV, Witcher 2 and Deus Ex 3, BFBC 3 in the future) I think my aging ATI 4890 (overclocked up 70/65MHz from Stock of 850/975MHz) is the bottleneck / limiting my performance. Will Overclocking my CPU bring my any benefit here?

What about browsing the internet and using small apps like WMP, Messenger and Chrome? Will overclocking bring any noticable increase in speed and responsiveness?

If there is any benefit in either of these situations, will it be worth the added pressure on my CPU?

ASUS P7P55D Evo
i7 860 2.8GHz, aiming at 3.6Ghz on a CM Hyper 212 Plus cooler
4GB 1600MHz RAM
ATI 4890
2x HDDs

Cheers!

ScratchFive · 4 Jun 2011 at 23:13

well, I think the question you should be asking is "will I notice an increase in speed and responsiveness" because if you overclock (and its stable) your CPU (or whatever you overclocked) will execute more instructions per second and will be "faster"

if you don't notice any problems running the games/applications you run (problems like poor framerate or taking excessive time to perform a task) then it is unlikely you will see any improvement from overclocking....

if you do notice these things then the only thing you can do is try, there is no way of telling you how much of a performance increase you will get, it depends on whether you are lucky with the chip you got and so may other factors.

as to whether it is worth the extra strain, again there is no way of telling how long a CPU will last at a certain voltage/load, or in fact what performance increase you will be able to get at any given voltage.

I have the same CPU as you, with a GTX 460 hawk and I overclock it because I enjoy overclocking... but it is more than powerful enough for me at stock.

hope this helps and sorry for rambling

=XDC=FluphyBunny · 5 Jun 2011 at 19:23

I would think theres always going to be something that will benefit though you are right in that your GPU is going to bottleneck in some games. To be honest an overclock to me is like a free upgrade, it would be rude not to

Blue160 · 5 Jun 2011 at 20:29

Yes, because it's fun

bonehead666 · 5 Jun 2011 at 20:40

Even if you dont need to overclock you learn loads about how your hardware works and that has to be a good thing.

PhillyDee · 5 Jun 2011 at 20:43

Transport tycoon is awesome! I even had it installed on my Nokia 5800!

You should overclock because it is fun! You CPU will more than likely not make much difference, but why not get a free upgrade! It does end up like a drug however, you want higher and faster than everyone else!