Overclocking- does it really make a difference if CPU not maxed?

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hertswenip

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I use an Athon X3 (unlocked to 4 cores) 3.4ghz I bought several years ago. My CPU never maxes out on any of the cores according to task manager.

Does overclocking make any difference, if your rig never or seldom ever maxes out any of its cores?

I mean even when doing video rendering, the cores never spike to 100% but rather hover around 40-60% usage, or when I am running a game, the highest cores ever seem to go up to is %80.

But I see OCing is so common. FOr those that OC'd their rigs, were their cores constantly being maxed out at 100% prior to the OC?

If they weren't ever maxed out, did OCing make any difference?

I'm having a hard time understanding that OCing a CPU would increase performance, if it was never maxed out on usage before the OC.
 
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Adroid


Well, processor speed determines how fast the given processor executes multiple processes. Let me try to give you an idea of how to look...
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326power

326power

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do some tests.
Render the same video without OC, check the time. Do it again with OC. compare the times.

It can be a bit hard to understand, but overclocking really makes difference even without 100% usage.
For example, 3DMark tests never load my CPU to the maximum, but OCing really increases performance in this tests.
 
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icraft

icraft

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It will. Many games/applications can not use all 4 cores, and stay on one. So if you have one single threaded application maxing out 1 core, but the rest are idle, you will see 25% usage. While you may not see much of an increase, it will be there.
 
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hertswenip

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Yup I'm aware of that- however the task manager shows each individual core use on individual graph charts. When I said "no cores are maxed out," I mean individual cores.
 
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hertswenip

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That seems to be the consensus- I'll take you guys' word for it. It does raise the question though- what's the fundamental reason it's causing an increase in performance if the CPU's resources weren't fully utlized? When playing around with various OS's on an old athlon 900mhz, the CPU was constantly maxing out at 100% usage even though there was plenty of free ram. What is it about modern CPU's that limits them from being fully utilized?
 
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Adroid

Adroid

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Well, processor speed determines how fast the given processor executes multiple processes. Let me try to give you an idea of how to look at it:

There are alot of cars (processes) on your computer's highway.
Processor speed, measured in GHZ, is how fast your cars are going.
RAM is how big your highway is from the CPU to the other components (4 lane highway, 8 lane highway, etc)
FSB is how fast your cars go from your RAM to your CPU to other components
Regardless of if your highway is full or not, your cars only travel at a maximum speed, determined by the CPU, FSB, and RAM.

Not all processors are equal, so GHZ is not the only factor in technology, but within the same technology IE CPU, it does make a difference relative to your individual chip.

Hope that helps a little :)
 
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