Overclocking, how much gain do you really get thread?

[Intel_fanboy81]

So I am actually not really a pro-overclocking person cause I often buy high-end hardware and then let it run at its normal specs.
But I am interested in personal experience of overclockers in how much gain they can get out of their system with it.
Like how much more performant is your rig at what cost!?
If you can provide numbers and stats that would be awesome.
I have an i9-7900x and a 3080TI all watercooled.
I am curious what overclocking would bring me and how far I could go.

If I overclock like 15% and only gain 5fps but my whole rig gets hotter by 10 degrees, I dont think it is worth it.

 

[trog100]

So I am actually not really a pro-overclocking person cause I often buy high-end hardware and then let it run at its normal specs.
But I am interested in personal experience of overclockers in how much gain they can get out of their system with it.
Like how much more performant is your rig at what cost!?
If you can provide numbers and stats that would be awesome.
I have an i9-7900x and a 3080TI all watercooled.
I am curious what overclocking would bring me and how far I could go.

If I overclock like 15% and only gain 5fps but my whole rig gets hotter by 10 degrees, I dont think it is worth it.

it isnt worth it unless you enjoy doing it..

trog

 

[ppn]

Take it as far as you can at default voltage and then dial back 100 Mhz for stability.
Clock speed is for free and linear. the power usage skyrockets only if you keep adding voltage.

 

[kala]

It really does depend what your workload is going to be. i.e. gaming, video editing, office productivity, internet, social media... And whether you are treating overclocking as a hobby and have the money.

Up until about 10 years ago, it was easily possible to make some huge performance gains with Intel CPU's such as the legendary Q6600 and i7-920-950. Nowadays CPU's are tightly binned and the overclock headroom is much tighter unless you are lucky and invested in kit to deal with the heat. I spent several years overclocking Nvidia graphic cards and eventually realised there is not a lot of point as the gains are not worth the additional heat and stress on the components. Gains look great in benchmarks but might not even be noticed in real life. Time taken to encoding video's would be a good example of a real life gain. Some games might benefit if they are on the cusp of being playable, but in that case the minimum frame rate is as important.

I try and get a balanced system by putting the right amount into each of the Case/Motherboard/Memory/CPU/GPU combination. I still apply some mild overclocking in conjunction with under-volting as I can't help myself, it's hardly worth the effort though. My current system sits in the living room and is water-cooled not so much to be fast but to be silent.

CPU's have been fast enough for most purposes for many years and not really necessary to go top end with the steep diminishing returns. Having purchased high end Nvidia GPU twice (one of which prematurely failed a couple of months out of warranty and Gigabyte told me to do one with their £50 out of warranty guarantee), I was able to replace it with a faster mid range model from the next generation at half the price.

 

[qubit]

There doesn't seem to be much advantage to regular overclocking nowadays unlike 10-15 years ago. One has to add water cooling to get anything really worthwhile, too. Those monster overclocking records are achieved by pro overclockers using LN2 which isn't practical for everyday usage.

The idea of overclocking a cheap CPU or GPU to the performance level of the next tier up are long gone. The mfrs got wise to that.

I'm saying this given the reviews I've read on here and elsewhere.

 

[silentbogo]

Nowadays the only thing that gives you immediate results, is GPU overclocking, but in case of 30-series w/ SKHynix memory I'd be careful with how far you push it. Especially 3080 or higher(with any memory vendor).
But there is one thing I wanted to mention: while overclocking is pointless in most cases, high-end hardware still makes total sense, since in most cases you will get things like faster I/O, better support for faster RAM, decent VRM, and at least few useful extra features. Watercooling(or hybrid cooling) GPUs used to be kinda meh, but nowadays it makes total sense, especially on 30-series cards which are absolutely temperature-dependent w/ boost clocks.

 

[GerKNG]

I think it's a waste to not overclock at least the CPU and GPU.

My 6800XT beats a 6900XT when i overclock it. (Or around 25% more performance than a reference card at stock clocks (guru3D review timespy GPU score compares to mine))

My 12600k gets 10-12% higher fps when overclocked.
That's a whole generation of hardware in some cases for free.

this is what you can get out of an already factory overclocked 6800XT (Aorus Master that runs stock at up to 2.5Ghz)

 

[Outback Bronze]

Not much these days. I still do love overclocking though. I mainly down clock these days for better efficiency and thermals.

Todays CPU's and GPU's pretty much boost clock to the max. The extra power and heat via overclocking is not worth it imo.

I think system memory can be very overclockable though. You can get some Hynix DDR5 4800mhz and take it over 6000Mhz easy. Just using DDR5 as an example but I'm sure all DDR would be similar.

 

[xtreemchaos]

i dont overclock anymore with today gpus and cpus thay run best at stock and even better with a undervolt but i do use XMP.

 

[trog100]

back in the day when overclocking made more sense it was really because most things came underclocked from the factory as part of the marketing process.. it wasnt really overclocking more like making things run at the speed they were capable of..

things are different now and the large easy to get gains are just not there..

oddly enough the fun i used to get from overclocking also isnt there for me..

trog

 

[P4-630]

Using XMP boost samsung profile timings(my sticks are hynix actually) for my DDR5 , GPU power limit to 111% when gaming and CPU @ stock.

 

[nguyen]

I overclock and undervolt my 3090 to get stock performance at much lower power usage (290W instead of 350W)

 

[xtreemchaos]

Woops i lied in my other post, my 7700k is overclock 5gz but by the mobo it has a no fuss 5gz setting in the bios but to be fair to myself it isnt real overclocking when one has to put so little input. i feel so much better now

 

[oobymach]

AMD cpu overclocking gets you better multi-threading and LOWER single threading than pbo. The point of locking in a manual voltage and clock on a Ryzen is to run the cpu Cooler than it does on auto which also often has the benefit of a better multi thread performance.

OC'ing a gpu these days is as simple as dragging a couple sliders around in Afterburner (you can usually oc the Vram enough to make it worth it like my 2080 has 14ghz GDDR6 which can OC to 16ghz), but as has been mentioned Undervolting is the new overclocking where you feed less voltage to your cpu/gpu in order to maintain boost clocks for longer. It's a little more involved but it has the benefit of running your cpu/gpu Cooler so it can boost at max clocks for longer.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I don't really see the need to "oc" cpu to game seeing I'm not watching the fps
Only thing I look for is fluid gaming

Only items I do for that is basically enabling performance power plan which pegs near cpu turbo clocks
Besides that system and gpu memory oc does more than any cpu oc'ing will.

Numbers I don't really keep track of I sure do not know what a 15% overclock even means 7900x could clock just on performance power plan 4.3 or 4.5 which is way over any game recommended spec's so why bother oc'ing it
Just enable xmp profile and work on memory timings which xmp profiles are usually shit anyway.

 

[P4-630]

A better CPU might be worth it if you need more power.

 

[BlaezaLite]

Only thing OC'd on my machine is ram and that was for a 7Zip benchmark in reality. I was trying to catch a 3700X with my 3600... Had about 20 people help me as well. Still no go. Can be addictive though.

 

[dirtyferret]

So I am actually not really a pro-overclocking person cause I often buy high-end hardware and then let it run at its normal specs.
But I am interested in personal experience of overclockers in how much gain they can get out of their system with it.

Ive overclocked most of my gaming CPUs from both Intel and AMD but in reality with Intel closing the IPC gap and taking the lead the previous generation, neither company can really leave performance on the table the way Intel used to with Sandy Bridge.

If I overclock like 15% and only gain 5fps but my whole rig gets hotter by 10 degrees, I dont think it is worth it.

It really comes down to the game and your system. If you are GPU bound, OC your CPU won't offer you anything and even a 15% increase in performance for 5 FPS won't be something you can really see (39 vs 45 FPS??, both are just as "playable" and neither one is something to brag about)

My 12600k gets 10-12% higher fps when overclocked.
That's a whole generation of hardware in some cases for free.

I have the same CPU but dediced not to OC my gaming CPU for the first time in a very long time. For me, I'm already GPU bound in most games and even if I wasn't, getting an extra 10% in FPS doesn't change anything for me. Either you are struggling at 20FPS vs 22FPS or you smooth sailing at 100FPS vs 110FPS. Maybe down the road when I'm no longer GPU bound but the reality is modern CPUs are so freaking fast and gaming has so little demand for modern CPU performance. As for other programs like MS office, my 2c/4t mobile processor even runs that with no issue.

A better CPU might be worth it if you need more power.

Better yet, mod a "reverse turbo" button the on the PC case and each time you press it the monitor displays

 

[agent_x007]

So I am actually not really a pro-overclocking person cause I often buy high-end hardware and then let it run at its normal specs.

If I overclock like 15% and only gain 5fps but my whole rig gets hotter by 10 degrees, I dont think it is worth it.

I usually just downvolt GPU by 0.1 or 0.2V, and CPU voltage by 0.1V.
First one usually require dropping max. frequency a bit, but I'm fine with that.

 

[Taraquin]

What I achieved on my setup:
Ram overclocking/tuning: Very much worth it, over 20% in certain games when cpu bound. Noticable!
Cpu overclock/curve optimizer: up to 5%, measurable.
Gpu overclock: up to 3%, measurable. For gpu undervolt is much better since it can affect temps and noise quite a bit.

 

[freeagent]

It depends..

If you are truly undervolted on the CPU, you probably wont see much. If you open the taps it could be hundreds of MHz, or many GFlops.
Memory OC is worth it, as much as you can get, the more the merrier

 

[Deleted member 185158]

So I am actually not really a pro-overclocking person cause I often buy high-end hardware and then let it run at its normal specs.
But I am interested in personal experience of overclockers in how much gain they can get out of their system with it.
Like how much more performant is your rig at what cost!?
If you can provide numbers and stats that would be awesome.
I have an i9-7900x and a 3080TI all watercooled.
I am curious what overclocking would bring me and how far I could go.

If I overclock like 15% and only gain 5fps but my whole rig gets hotter by 10 degrees, I dont think it is worth it.

Most people reading this are not "pro" overclockers. They simply wish to increase performance and it feels good to accomplish it.

Pro, well thats a different goal entirely. This does NOT matter the cooling type used as I seen mention, pro must be LN2. This is not the case.

In my opinion,
Pro is going to be someone that overclocks at the very edge of stability to complete a benchmark which would do nothing for real world performance. Be it Air, water, SS or Cascade, Dry Ice, LN2, or Helium. The cooling just doesn't matter. We can set up competition with any cooling type and hardware.

For you?? Set it and forget it. Single percent gains can sometimes be frustrating because there's a lot of stability testing going on. Costs time, time is money.

I'm into competitive overclocking myself. If you have questions in regards, feel free! I'd be glad to answer!!

 

[ir_cow]

@ShrimpBrime -retired 1+ on this.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

@ShrimpBrime -retired 1+ on this.

Avatar = LN2 pot (with glowing LN2) ✨️

 

[mama]

PBO2 was fun and got my Cinebench 23 score up.