Is it worth it to overclock

Jakeowar

Honorable
Nov 15, 2014
160
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10,680
Hello i'm getting my first gaming PC for Christmas. And i'm getting the Intel core i7-4790K 4.0 GHz 8MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1150. And i'm wondering if i should overclock. Like i said this is my first gaming PC so everything is new. I don't know how to overclock but I've heard it shortens the life span of the CPU. so is it worth it i'm planning on only gaming and browsing the web but do i need more GHZ to game? Here are more of my specs

Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H60 120mm Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ Copper Cold Plate (Single Standard 120MM Fan)

Motherboard: ASUS MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX w/ Intel GbLAN, 3 PCIe x16, 3 PCIe x1, 1x M.2, 8x SATA 6Gb/s

Power supply: 600 Watts - Corsair CX600M CX Series Modular 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

GPU: EVGA Superclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card
 
Solution
Only additional voltage (plus excessive heat) will shorten the life of a CPU. The i7-4790k is a binned sample that is already clocked very high. By default it will boost to as high as 4.4Ghz as long as temperature allows. Adding an aftermarket heatsink to it it should be more then enough. Most people can achieve a continuous overclock of between 4.6 and 4.7Ghz with air cooling. Which is a fairly small improvement over stock.

Overclocking the i5-4690k and i5-4670k are basically necessary to reach high clocks. Same with the i7-4770k. The i7-4790k is basically already done for you.

It may be worth doing just to gain the experience though.

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
Only additional voltage (plus excessive heat) will shorten the life of a CPU. The i7-4790k is a binned sample that is already clocked very high. By default it will boost to as high as 4.4Ghz as long as temperature allows. Adding an aftermarket heatsink to it it should be more then enough. Most people can achieve a continuous overclock of between 4.6 and 4.7Ghz with air cooling. Which is a fairly small improvement over stock.

Overclocking the i5-4690k and i5-4670k are basically necessary to reach high clocks. Same with the i7-4770k. The i7-4790k is basically already done for you.

It may be worth doing just to gain the experience though.
 
Solution
'only gaming' is what uses very nearly the most power, but you'll be fine with that CPU.
you don't appear to have a GPU so you won't be doing a lot of gaming and the i7 will be wasted.
don't get the cx PSU, it's not very good.
Can you post full system specs (if you have anything yet) and a budget (or remaining budget) and we'll give you a build.