gaming performance - how will overclocking my core i5 760 CPU increase my FPS

masoumi · Jun 17, 2014

Hi,
first let me give you some specs
.
.
main board P7P55D LE - ASUS (PCI-express 2 x16 for my GPU)
CPU core i5 760 intel 2.8 GHz - stock heat-sink and fan
GPU MSI Nvidia gtx 670 power edition OC ( overclocks as hell !)
8 Gig ram (4 & 2 &2) corsair XMS3 1600MHz
PSU 650W (newly bought)
windows 7 pro 64 bit (I have no problems with changing it, if it's recommended !? )

So here's the thing... I am a gamer and I'm satisfied with my current gaming raw power and I know that overclocking a CPU (unlike a GPU) is a very frustrating job... but,
when I hear that people have overclocked their i5 760 CPU's to 4.2 GHz and mine is working at merely 2.8 GHz I get the urge to unleash the rest of it's power. I've come to understand that I need an (at least) 20$ CPU-heat-sink for such purpose.

now the big question:
just about how much will overclocking my CPU to... say 4 GHz , Improve my frame rates ?
I know some games need CPU more than others and that's why I said "about how..."
I'd be very grateful if anyone would answer me

soullStream · Jun 17, 2014

By overclocking your CPU you increase its base speed (the GHz), so by OCing to 4ghz you're just making your CPU physically processes data at an increased rate. Its like supercharging an engine in a way, it adds more stress to your CPU but you get better performance. How it helps boost fps is it allows your CPU to processes more data faster, in turn then allowing a gain in fps.

How much it will improve your fps depends on your game, I haven't worked with your i5 before but I'm sure if you google a oc guide for your model you should find some results (I would but I'm on my phone)

Edit: Overclocking difficulty depends on your motherboard and if your CPU is an unlocked (once again I would look for you but its trouble some on my phone). And yes you would definitely need an aftermarket cooler, depending on your budget would then decide if you went air or an AIO water cooler.

Benevolence · Jun 17, 2014

Whatever you do, don't cheap out on an aftermarket cooler. Your CPU is an expensive investment worth protecting. Overclocking your cpu up to 3.5 will let your cpu send data to your video card faster, which results in faster framerates. Anything past about 3.8GHz and you will see less noticeable results in framerate increases, although it's worth it to push you system as long as you can manage the heat and reduced energy efficiency. You will see diminishing returns on an extreme overclock as you saturate the lanes between your video card and the CPU, also other components will bottleneck the performance at this level, such as the RAM and your hard disks. I watched a video on a 24SSD striped array that could play Crysis on max settings from a GTS210 since the cache and swap speed was so blazing fast!

masoumi · Jun 19, 2014

soullStream :

Benevolence :

thank you for the detailed answer but what I really wanted to know was that for CPU heavy games such as l watch dogs...
If I ,for example, set my graphics setting to get 35 FPS at full HD , How many frames will this 3.8 GHz add to 35 FPS??
I mean is it merely 1 -2 frames or can it be like 5-6 frames ? :-?

Benevolence · Jun 24, 2014

Lucky for you, that Asus board has plenty of quality components to support and protect your CPU during an OC. Your framerates should go up because your GPU is wasting clock cycles while waiting for the CPU to issue it a new set of instructions.
Because of the large variation in computer components, I'd say the best thing to do is to shoot for a 10-15% overclock then see what that does for your framerates. To measure the gains, use CineBench's free bench-marking software to "take the pulse" and get a baseline performance measurement. Then apply your 10-15% overclock, run Prime+95 and the IntelBurnTest to verify the stability of your OC, then run the benchmark. Your current bottleneck is how fast you can send data to the GPU to be processed, which is determined by your RAM's speed, and CPU speed (tied directly to motherboard's block speed). Given your GPU's performance, I'd say your bottleneck is likely with your RAM speed and CPU speed. A proper overclock will raise both.
Keep in mind that you DO NOT WANT TO OC ON A STOCK HEATSINK!!! Your energy efficiency will decrease as the heat and electrical current goes up. This puts stress on the PSU, uses more electricity and stressed the CPU. You can reduce system-wide stress by installing a proper heatsink to keep things cool.
To prolong the lifespan of your CPU in it's OC state, keep the full load temperatures well under 75C. Anything up to 99C will probably not damage the CPU but will dramatically shorten the lifespan over a long period of use.
I imagine going from 2.9 to 3.8 is perfectly doable, and should increase your framerates 5-8 FPS, but please do not attempt to do this with the stock cooler!
Keep in mind that every single CPU has uniquely minor manufacturing defects. You may be well above or well below the potential OC speed of whichever guide you chose to use, so do things sequentially and check your OC integrity at every step before going faster.

masoumi · Jul 9, 2014

Benevolence :

So I bought a 30$ after market cooler and overclocked my CPU to a stable 3.8 GHz with my temps bellow 75' C.
but when I ran Heaven benchmark my previous GPU clocks had become unstable so I had to lower core clock by 4 and memory clock 20 to get it to be stable again. and here's the funny part, after I ran the Unigine Heaven benchmark maxed out, the results were the same as before CPU OC . so the most I achieved was getting the same performance with lower GPU clocks ! where as I was expecting the opposite... that I would be able to increase GPU OC and get better frame rates. so what do you think is the problem?

Benevolence · Jul 21, 2014

Equal performance with lower GPU clocks means that your CPU(or RAM) or hard drive was the bottleneck. If your CPU overclock affected the stability of your GPU overclock, kick the CPU down a few notches (this counts as an unstable OC) and see if you can bring the GPU speed back up. Your GPU overclock will show you the best results vs CPU overclock, until you hit your bottleneck.
Additionally, check that you are getting a faster RAM frequency with your CPU overclock, sometimes overclocking your CPU will make your RAM clock in slower. For example, I'm running 1660 RAM at ~1333 because the next multiplier step up is 1900, which is too fast for my RAM. You may try lowering the block speeds to increase ram speed.
The benchmarks alone may not be enough to determine in-game effectiveness. Can you determine your in-game FPS?
Also what is your CPU usage while gaming? What percentage of your RAM are you using? What is the GPU usage during gaming? The part with the highest usage will show you where your bottleneck is.
Also what is your GPU's temperature? If it approaches 80C it will throttle, thus robbing you of FPS.

Here's a few discussion threads which may help you get an idea for what is going on:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2212798/fps-gain-overclocked-4670k.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2140815/overclock-cpu-fps-titanfall.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2047742/fps-gtx-770-dropped-overclocking-gpu-solutions-reverting-back-stock-speed.html

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gaming performance - how will overclocking my core i5 760 CPU increase my FPS

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