How do I overclock my FX8320?

BrandonCSLC · Aug 8, 2014

My rig:

FX 8320
ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0
Corsair H60 hydro series
Gskill 1600Mhz (16gb)
GPU 1: Gigabyte Windforce GTX770 4gb
GPU 2: same
SAMSUNG 840 PRO SSD 256GB
SEAGATE 1TB HDD
Corsair CX850W

I play on 3 monitors at 1080p and have v sync on because my monitors are 60hz. I can play any game at 60fps but have noticed a drop in performance on a couple games (Watch Dogs and Mechwarrior Online). These two games play in the 30 fps or lower range. I was wondering if overclocking my CPU would help. Currently I have the performance option selected in UEFI BIOS. This keeps my CPU at a solid 3.8Ghz. I would like to try to get it up to a constant 4.0-4.2.
I haven't over clocked a CPU before. I've always been hesitant because I hear it voids the warranty. However, I play MWO all the time and I just bought Watch Dogs. I am kind of at the end of my rope with the performance I'm getting on these two games. So I thought maybe I could squeeze a little more muscle out of the CPU and get these games to play at a decent frame rate.

Anyone familiar with Asus Bios and know how to safely get those clock speeds?

Deus Gladiorum · Aug 8, 2014

I'll tell you right now that overclocking won't prevent the drops to 30 fps -- not unless you overclock to around 5.5 GHz (which isn't going to happen unless you're willing to damage your CPU). Before I tell you about overclocking, I'll give you another suggestion:

Right click on your desktop > select "Nvidia Control Panel" > Go to "Manage 3D Settings" > Click the "program settings" tab > click the drop down and select Watch Dogs > Scroll down all the way to the bottom and you'll see VSync. On the VSync section, put the setting to "Adaptive".

This will stop the drops to 30 fps, but you will get more screen tearing. The reason Watch Dogs (and I assume the other game) drops to 30 fps is because it only offers double buffered V-Sync. Double Buffered V-Sync, unlike Triple Buffered V-Sync, drops your frame rate when it falls below your refresh rate. So if your refresh rate is 60 Hz, but your GPU can only render, for example, 57 fps, then you'll drop to 30 fps. If you can only render 29 fps, your frame rate will drop to 20 fps, and so on in factors of 60. By turning on Adaptive V-Sync, anytime you drop below 60 fps, V-Sync will turn off. Once you can render 60 fps or more again, V-Sync will automatically turn back on. So you'll get more screen tearing, but at least now you won't have terrible drops.

P.S. Ignore the "triple buffering" setting in the Nvidia Control Panel. It only works for OpenGL based games, not DirectX. There are 3rd party programs to force triple buffering in DirectX games though, in case you're interested.

Darkbreeze · Aug 11, 2014

Deus Gladiorum :

I'll tell you right now that overclocking won't prevent the drops to 30 fps -- not unless you overclock to around 5.5 GHz (which isn't going to happen unless you're willing to damage your CPU). Before I tell you about overclocking, I'll give you another suggestion:

Right click on your desktop > select "Nvidia Control Panel" > Go to "Manage 3D Settings" > Click the "program settings" tab > click the drop down and select Watch Dogs > Scroll down all the way to the bottom and you'll see VSync. On the VSync section, put the setting to "Adaptive".

This will stop the drops to 30 fps, but you will get more screen tearing. The reason Watch Dogs (and I assume the other game) drops to 30 fps is because it only offers double buffered V-Sync. Double Buffered V-Sync, unlike Triple Buffered V-Sync, drops your frame rate when it falls below your refresh rate. So if your refresh rate is 60 Hz, but your GPU can only render, for example, 57 fps, then you'll drop to 30 fps. If you can only render 29 fps, your frame rate will drop to 20 fps, and so on in factors of 60. By turning on Adaptive V-Sync, anytime you drop below 60 fps, V-Sync will turn off. Once you can render 60 fps or more again, V-Sync will automatically turn back on. So you'll get more screen tearing, but at least now you won't have terrible drops.

P.S. Ignore the "triple buffering" setting in the Nvidia Control Panel. It only works for OpenGL based games, not DirectX. There are 3rd party programs to force triple buffering in DirectX games though, in case you're interested.

I didn't even realize that. Thanks for that tidbit. It will I'm sure come in handy.

Darkbreeze · Aug 11, 2014

BrandonCSLC :

Aside from what Gladorium said, unless you have an aftermarket tower or liquid cooling solution, you don't even want to start trying to OC past stock speeds or you'll end up with a coaster for a cpu. If you do have a good cooling solution beyond what came with the cpu, let me know and we can talk about bumping it up a little. Like he said, it won't help your fps but since it's basically an 8350 anyhow, might as well get at least 4 out of it.

Deus Gladiorum · Aug 11, 2014

Overclocking will definitely increase your fps, but don't expect even a 1 GHz overclock to get over 60. It'll certainly help, though. I don't know about watch dogs or if it's properly multithreaded (though considering the cries of the lack of optimization, I assume it pumps 1 core full of algorithms and then on occasion asks a 2nd core what 2 + 2 is) but in single threaded or lightly multi-threaded games like Borderlands 2 or the Morrowind overhaul, overclocking my old FX-6300 from 3.5 to 4.5 GHz got me between 7 - 10 more fps on my minimums and around 8 more fps on my average (for Morrowind, anyway).

Deus Gladiorum · Aug 11, 2014

So if you still want to overclock I recommend you try youtube and google. That's pretty much what most people on this forum will tell you (I'm not sure why but it's become tradition to tell people that in regards to overclocking, most likely due to all the new concepts you might have to learn). I don't remember everything about my FX-6300 OC except that I did had to disable a lot of my power saving features, though maybe I did that unnecessarily. Once you've got the basic understandings of overclocking concepts and such down, I recommend you try a dirty overclock. For Piledriver, that would mean trying 1.4 V on the VCore at 4.5 GHz, and seeing if you're stable there.

Darkbreeze · Aug 11, 2014

The difference in fps you would achieve would probably not be detectable to your eye. That being said. Going forward is always better than going backward. Unless something very large and scary is coming towards you. Heh.

Deus Gladiorum · Aug 11, 2014

Maybe, but it depends on the person. I can notice the difference between 60 and 52 as clear as day.

Darkbreeze · Aug 11, 2014

I won't argue that, however most professionals in the field would say that was unlikely. But if you can, you can. Like I said, it couldn't hurt to go forward by all means.

Deus Gladiorum · Aug 11, 2014

I can blind test the difference between 50 and 60 for the most part, but when I drop in game it's really the lack of consistency that makes me see the difference. Also, I'm sure that frame variance also increases when I drop below 60, so I'm sure that's part of it. But anyway, yeah, OP I just recommend you google around. Here's just what I found from a cursory google search:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZPy6xMhtso

I haven't watched it yet, but just from views and likes it seems reliable. Anyway, I'll watch it and let you know if it's reliable OP (which it probably is).

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How do I overclock my FX8320?

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