Benefits of Overclocking for Games?

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Troof2Troof

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Sep 9, 2013
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Hi All,

I have my cpu OC'd to 4.5@1.2v (constant voltage). When I play most games (Borderlands, Bioshock Infinite) the CPU is always at 100% (stock and OC) but I don't really notice much of a difference in games.

1. Should the CPU always run at 100% while gaming?
2. Does an OC make any difference in single player offline games?
 
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InvalidError

InvalidError

Titan
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May 18, 2007
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If you have vsync off, many games will simply compute frames that will get mostly dropped and that would indeed end up flooring at least one core or core-equivalent to 100% no matter what else you do.

Some people claim they can notice a difference in responsiveness from doing that. But if you aren't a "twitch gamer", you probably aren't one of those people who would notice... and neither am I. For normal people, it does not really matter.
 
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-Fran-

-Fran-

Illustrious
May 3, 2007
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1.-
If your CPU is running at 100%, it probably means that the GPU is not doing everything it can (CPU bottleneck) or the game engine is very well optimized for that CPU (multi-threading at its finest).

2.-
In regards to OC, when you have the 100% usage scenario, you should really see a boost directly tied to the increase in Mhz. Specially in minimum FPSes. Other way to say it is you'll notice the game running smoother, but maybe not bigger FPS numbers. This is independent of Single player / offline or multi player when under the 100% usage scenario.

Cheers!
 
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T

Troof2Troof

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Sep 9, 2013
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Could it really be possible my 4770k @4.5 is bottlenecking my gtx780? That doesn't seem right...
 
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Troof2Troof

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I always leave V-Sync ON in the Nvidia control panel and turn it off in the game menus
 
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-Fran-

-Fran-

Illustrious
May 3, 2007
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Why not? If the game or quality settings are not that demanding for the 780, then the CPU will take most of the performance hit.

Anyway, I do get what you mean, since a post-Sandy at 4.5Ghz should be plenty for pretty much anything in the market now.

Are you 100% sure the CPU is being saturated by the game only?

Cheers!
 
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Troof2Troof

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Sep 9, 2013
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Well, I play al my games on Ultra so it's taxing the GPU for sure. The only things I run while gaming are the game, HWMonitor and CPU-Z... so I'm not sure what else would be taxing it. I don't have any problems with heat or anything, I was just curious if the OC is even worth it for gaming
 
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InvalidError

InvalidError

Titan
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Try setting the driver to application-default and turning vsync on in the game itself. With vsync off in the game, the game engine might be wasting tons of CPU and GPU time calculating and rendering frames that never get put on-screen.

Since most of the extra frames you get from overclocking simply get discarded, most of the performance improvement is invisible.
 
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Troof2Troof

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I'll have to try that when I get home but non of my other games suffer from this.
 
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