Is overclocking worth it?

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rayonline

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#229081 6-Feb-2018 20:09

This is something I thought years ago but not something I really did. I watched a youtube video and across the board was a 7.6% improvement, - granted the person was using pretty high end stuff and the stuff that overclocked better.

One spends more on stuff that has a better overclocking ability, they need better heat management. Games had a few more frames. One could of just saved the money and put it on a cheaper motherboard, a better chip, better video card and run them at stock. Would one even notice those extra frames, or why not just save the money altogether. I don't game but just with me, even if I was not sure if it is worth it. I guess benchmarking software and bragging rights but what about from a practical point of view.

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#1952600 6-Feb-2018 20:20

Takes me way back. Way way back. I overlooked my CPU and graphics card. A long and fun process, a bit like hotting up your car and rarely driving it. Clock it, run stability tests, go a step more, until its flaky, then back off. Tedious but fun. These days gear is so cheap I wouldn't bother

xpd

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#1952604 6-Feb-2018 20:22

I OC'ed my G3258 from 3.2 stock to 4.2 on the standard HSF - did I noticed any difference ? Not really. Its is one of those enthusiast things.

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tdgeek

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#1952636 6-Feb-2018 20:32

xpd:

I OC'ed my G3258 from 3.2 stock to 4.2 on the standard HSF - did I noticed any difference ? Not really. Its is one of those enthusiast things.

Yep. Who cares about real life, the speed test was all I needed!

Once, actually many times I upgraded a mates PC. Just the usual board, CPU, video card. One popped round. I said do you want to check your PC? Yep. Wow, its a lot faster eh? (I hadn't yet upgraded it!)

timmmay

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#1952637 6-Feb-2018 20:32

The real world gains are low in most cases. Maybe if you're doing something really CPU intensive, and you have good cooling.

Batman

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#1952689 6-Feb-2018 23:25

OC-ed the 6700K CPU from 3.7x4 to 4.7GHz x4, sometimes runs at max 24hrs no issue, fan cooled

OC RAM (built in profile) from 2100-3200MHz

OCed the GTX 1060 GPU from 1600 to 2160 and ram from 8Ghz to 9Ghz, no issue

I'd like to think of it as free performance

hio77

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#1952693 6-Feb-2018 23:35

run my 3770K at 4.5ghz.

In general usage, no improvement.

When i'm rendering, encoding or heavily multitasking that extra horse is very helpful.

pulling ram upto XMP profiles is often just as noticeable. Do the right tasks and boy is it a difference!

My 3770K is starting to get to the edge of it's life where i need a little extra boot... 4 cores with HT just doesn't quite do it!

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richms

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#1952701 6-Feb-2018 23:52

tdgeek:

Takes me way back. Way way back. I overlooked my CPU and graphics card. A long and fun process, a bit like hotting up your car and rarely driving it. Clock it, run stability tests, go a step more, until its flaky, then back off. Tedious but fun. These days gear is so cheap I wouldn't bother

Says someone that has clearly not looked at graphics or ram pricing recently :(

Richard rich.ms

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#1952704 7-Feb-2018 00:14

For gaming, no

For everything else, maybe.

rayonline

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#1952706 7-Feb-2018 00:22

Batman:

I'd like to think of it as free performance

Wouldn't the RAM and the motherboard need to be more expensive with overclocking ability? That $150 motherboard might not cut it right.

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#1952742 7-Feb-2018 07:21

rayonline:

Batman:

I'd like to think of it as free performance

Wouldn't the RAM and the motherboard need to be more expensive with overclocking ability? That $150 motherboard might not cut it right.

I see what you mean. I guess I paid for the extra performance and I better make use of it?

But that means the answer is no, no need to buy OC-able stuff.

GPU OC is also not noticable. I don't think I gain that many FPS by OC-ing.

HOWEVER, i didn't realise this - if you set your GPU to anything other than MAX PERFORMANCE, photo editing with lightroom was sloooooooooow. I didn't even realise that.

geekiegeek

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#1952745 7-Feb-2018 07:28

overclocking GPU for crypto mining = $$$$

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tdgeek

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#1952746 7-Feb-2018 07:29

richms:

tdgeek:

Takes me way back. Way way back. I overlooked my CPU and graphics card. A long and fun process, a bit like hotting up your car and rarely driving it. Clock it, run stability tests, go a step more, until its flaky, then back off. Tedious but fun. These days gear is so cheap I wouldn't bother

Says someone that has clearly not looked at graphics or ram pricing recently :(

Oh! I used to upgrade every year, they were always $1k. I've heard mates kids get the latest at $500, but you're right, I dont look at that these days

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#1952764 7-Feb-2018 08:36

No. Not any more. The heat and power would not be worth it, and would be detrimental to the lifespan of your components.

However back in the day, totally.

I fondly recall overclocking my old Athlon 2500+, and 8800GT to get a solid 10%+ performance increase.

Nowadays, you'd be lucky to get a 5% increase, so it remains within the realm of bragging rights only really.

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#1954797 10-Feb-2018 13:32

I remember overclocking my 486 from 40MHz to 50MHz so Windows 95 would run better.

richms

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#1954804 10-Feb-2018 13:52

tdgeek:

Oh! I used to upgrade every year, they were always $1k. I've heard mates kids get the latest at $500, but you're right, I dont look at that these days

Ram virtually doubled since last year, gtx 1080s going for about double last year, if you can find any. Its not pretty. Thanks crypto miners for dooming me to playing at 720p for another year to get acceptable framerates.

Richard rich.ms

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