Wondering is OC'ing is worth it.

[douce00]

Hello, I'm just wondering about overclocking. I've been reading around for a while now and see that my particular cpu, X4 970 BE gets up to about 4.0mhz stable for most people. I'm just wondering if I would see a worthwhile difference in performance in my system if I OC to 4.0 from 3.5. I definitely see the gain in some intel chips going from 3.4 to 4.5+.
I just use my pc for browsing, gaming and watching movies. So would it be worth it to do it? I guess I would have to try it to know if it would. But I'd like to hear some opinions on it.

 

[apache_lives]

gaming - depends on the video card you have and wether your cpu will limit it at stock

i say if its safe and easy WHY THE HELL NOT (not applicable to servers - DO NOT OVERCLOCK)

realistically you probably wont actually see the results anywhere but benchmarks but still free performance is free performance.

 

[Toxxyc]

Yeah 4GHz is more or less the sweet-spot nowadays. For budget users (<80% of the market) you won't notice anything in games after reaching 4GHz. Without a big graphics card you won't even use the full 4GHz potential anyhow (not in gaming, anyway). These people going 5GHz is doing it only for two reasons: Show and synthetic benchmarks. Both of which is totally epic, but useless for everyday application. Leave it at 4GHz (if it's quiet, cool and stable) and forget about it, you won't be sorry!

 

[chriskrum]

It's a BE so there's not reason not to up the multiplier and see what it will do. You won't see a difference in gaming though. Essentially, unless you are running multiple monitors and graphics cards anything over 3GHz (in gaming) is all that is perceivable. At 3.5 you're good (there's nothing wrong with being conservative and leaving it alone if you want).

You can detect differences with synthetic benchmarks but you will not see a difference.

(The reason is that once you are above 3GHz you really need some monster graphics cards to outstrip the CPU and they have to be running at resolutions where they're bottlenecked by the CPU and pulled under 60fps. Then you might, just maybe, see something. Usually you run into other issues first--bandwidth, memory speed, disk read speeds, internet speed, etc. that effect performance first.)

 

[purple stain]

I see no point in overclocking from your standpoint.If you mostly just surf and watch movies theirs no point,and causal gaming doesn't really call for an O.C. either.The only improvement you would see is in games and that depends on how CPU demanding they are.Watching movies and surfing relys mostly on RAM.If you wanted to see things open faster and surf faster try O.C.ing the NorthBridge.Just remember when you O.C. any componet you reduce the life span of that compoent.Since you seem like a light user I don't see the point in wareing it down.

If you do,however,decide to O.C. then you must be mindful of your temps and to be sure you have a good aftermarket cooler.Read up on "How to O.C. using a B.E." in the Overclocking section.

 

[douce00]

Well, I have an Antec 1200 case with a fan for the graphics card and a Corsair H70, Crosshair IV formula mobo and right now just some cheap Kingstion value ram (but going switch to corsair dominator ram probably in June) and 2 Asus eah6850hds running both a 16x .
So heat is not to much of an issue, I have pretty good air flow in the case, I never get my gpus above 55 degrees running at 1920 x 1080 high detail settings in every game I've played so far.

I usually play games 2-4 hours a night most days of the week. Bad company 2 and CS source mostly. BC2 puts my processor at 99% in game most of the time, never below 90%. Running at about 110 fps average on fraps.

In your guys opinion would I see some improvement going to 4.0? I've heard from another thread that my processor is bottlenecking my gpus, which I don't know is true or not. I've seen test results on reviews from the official pages using a 1000.00 980x and not seeing a significant gain in performance from what I have in my setup.
I guess when I get some new ram I'll try to hit 4.0 and see what that does.

 

[purple stain]

BFBC2 likes fast quad cores so if you did O.C. you would see an improvemnt in it but if your already getting 100FPS average than I don't really see a point in O.C.ing.

No your processor is not bottlenecking the 6850's.

It's really up to you.If you want to O.C. you can but I don't see a point to it.Your already maxing out any game you can throw at it.All O.C.ing would do is just reduce the life span of the CPU with minimal results.

 

[chriskrum]

No. You will not see any improvement. The game is maxed out. There is no bottleneck.

Anything above 60fps is just statistics and benchmarking--wasted frames. Your refresh rate is 60hz (50hz in Europe), that's the cap. At 110 fps the you might want to play with vertical sync and/or triple buffering which will lock the frame rate at 60 (still produces 100+ but selectively drops the unused frames, buffering options can effect which frames are dropped and rendered) this can smooth things out.

 

[chriskrum]

As far as overclocking, there's no great reason not too, especially with your setup. It's free performance. You really don't risk shortening the life of the CPU much if you don't increase the voltage. You can be conservative--just overclock to 3.8, and leave it. No damage will occur and it should be perfectly stable.

 

[douce00]

I'm totally satisfied with the performance on BFBC2 at the moment, especially since I played it on Xbox at 30 fps which was like running through quick sand compared to pc.
I think I'll probably hold off on O.C.ing for now. Maybe if I start to use my pc for rendering or anything like that I'll reconsider but sounds like for gaming I wouldn't see a worthwhile performance gain. Which would have been my main reason for it. Everything else seems really really quick with a ssd for my os and main progams and a W/d black for games and storage.
Thank you guys for the replies.

 

[xx_pemdas_xx]

Hello, I'm just wondering about overclocking. I've been reading around for a while now and see that my particular cpu, X4 970 BE gets up to about 4.0mhz stable for most people. I'm just wondering if I would see a worthwhile difference in performance in my system if I OC to 4.0 from 3.5. I definitely see the gain in some intel chips going from 3.4 to 4.5+.
I just use my pc for browsing, gaming and watching movies. So would it be worth it to do it? I guess I would have to try it to know if it would. But I'd like to hear some opinions on it.

It is completely worth it to overclock, it gives new life to old parts ( x4 970 BE is not old..yet) I overclock my computers when there is a new game that I can't play on max settings or when my parts are getting old. I have a x3 Athlon II thats norm 2.7 ghz and its running 3.25ghz as i type (stock cooler). when i first built my computer it was super fast and i could max out all my games. but I now have new games that can't be maxed out unless i overclock. There is a risk involved when overclocking. so i say weigh your risk, is it worth risking your newer parts to get a 30% increase in performance? And anotherfactor is your motherboard able to handle overclocking can you change your multiplier in the bios or FSB is your motherboard made for overclocking? if your motherboards not made for overclocking its going to be a lot harder to overclock and you won't get as high of a overclock. If your motherboard is made for overclocking then you are waisting your money by not overclocking.
--xX_PEMDAS_Xx

 

[douce00]

It is completely worth it to overclock, it gives new life to old parts ( x4 970 BE is not old..yet) I overclock my computers when there is a new game that I can't play on max settings or when my parts are getting old. I have a x3 Athlon II thats norm 2.7 ghz and its running 3.25ghz as i type (stock cooler). when i first built my computer it was super fast and i could max out all my games. but I now have new games that can't be maxed out unless i overclock. There is a risk involved when overclocking. so i say weigh your risk, is it worth risking your newer parts to get a 30% increase in performance? And anotherfactor is your motherboard able to handle overclocking can you change your multiplier in the bios or FSB is your motherboard made for overclocking? if your motherboards not made for overclocking its going to be a lot harder to overclock and you won't get as high of a overclock. If your motherboard is made for overclocking then you are waisting your money by not overclocking.
--xX_PEMDAS_Xx

Yeah my motherboard is able to handle overclocking. I have the Asus Crosshair IV Formula. It has built in settings to do it in windows. It even has an easy mode to let me raise the multiplier and it will adjust everything else accordingly. At least it looks that way. I haven't played around to much with it.

 

[xx_pemdas_xx]

Yeah my motherboard is able to handle overclocking. I have the Asus Crosshair IV Formula. It has built in settings to do it in windows. It even has an easy mode to let me raise the multiplier and it will adjust everything else accordingly. At least it looks that way. I haven't played around to much with it.

I think i gave you an answer then... OVERCLOCK IT! why buy the IV and not overclock... waist of money.