Too overclock or not to overclock? And how to do it.

[smoothske]

Hello everyone, long time reader first time poster here.
Today after many years of low frame rates I built my first gaming pc. Ive played games in the past with shocking graphics and want my new pc which I put a lot of my hard earned money into making to give me the best experience possible.

Specs:
Intel i5-3570k quad core 3.4ghz (stock heatsink)
PSU 750W
Sapphire HD7950 Vapor-x 3gb
asrock z77 extreme4-m
corsair vengeance 16gb ram
western digital 2tb hdd

Now I will mainly be using it too play games (includ. BF3, Planetside 2, Guild Wars2 etc.) and some 3d work in Maya and Unity game engine. I want the peak performance this rig can achieve, so what im asking is should i overclock and how do i go about doing it. Is it safe to overclock the cpu with the stock heatsink?

 

[amateur1337]

yes overclock..just remember thaty overclocking voids your warranty..you can overclock a bit with stock cooler its all about ocing and watching temps...if its not too high no problem..

 

[06yfz450ridr]

overclocking may or may not void your warranty but how could they really tell after the chip is dead. they only way you can really kill the chip is by running to much voltage or killing the memory controller by running to high.


your cpu is a k series and is meant for overclocking. raise the fsb a bit and up the mutiplier and your basically all set. i would read up about OC tho. fsb boosting will also rasie your ram speed.

always check your temps, rasing the speed and vcore will raise your temps

 

[mcnumpty23]

i wouldnt push it too far with the stock heatsink

get a decent aftermarket cooler

and theres no fsb--its bclk

theres very limited bclk overclocking and it can cause problems in other areas raising it too high

i can get as high as 107.5mhz from 100mhz default

so its only for getting the last extreme out of it

just raise the multiplier to overclock