GTX 680 and i5 2500k

stock

OMG, these bottlenecking questions...

I5 2500k is a beast gaming cpu. I have 2 680s in SLI with the i5 2500k. At i5 stock speeds the only bottleneck that is seen is framerates over 170fps when benchmarking. So gaming at 60fps or even 120fps there is no bottleneck.

I know what you mean, I think I worded my question wrong..

More what I'm interested in is at what point will increasing cpu clock speeds stop making any difference to game performance. I'm aware the i5 2500k isn't going to cause any real bottlenecking issues I was more interested in the nuances of overclocking it.

Yes it increases the top FPS from 170fps to 211fps when i5 2500k OC @ 4.8GHz. No difference in real world gaming framerate.

Thats a really nice increase  

good question. I doubt anyone would really know for sure.

Some research will have to be done and thoroughly benchmark the 680 and also 7970 on an highly overclocked cpu.

My experience long ago i had a geforce 3 ti500. There was a huge leap from the old pentium 3 600mhz to p4 1.6. Although not much difference gained from then on to a p4 2ghz. So guess the 1.6 was the sweat spot.

Sweat spot for the 680gtx might well be over 5ghz somewhere. dunno  

But a meaningless one...

If playing a much more intensive game (say it kept fps below 60 on the 680) would a cpu overclock increase fps even if it is minimally?

@henry07
Don't worry too much about CPU bottleneck, the GPU itself could be a bottleneck in some game titles @ 1080P. So the question is what resolution are you running?

Some Overclockers her in the forum reported no difference between 4.5 GHz and 5 GHz in gaming performance, (anyway you're not going to achieve that 5 Ghz easily)

Most reviewers out there OC the CPUs to 3.8 or 4.0 GHz and bench 2 and 3 way SLI, the recent article from Toms had the i7 3960x @4.2. Most members here have their 2500k @ 4.5. So with eith 4.0 or 4.5 you're getting the most out from the CPU no need to worry.

depends on game. i can find you games were you would gain over stock



some games would benefit from an overclock



again an overclock will help in some games.



what game are you talking about and does it thoroughly represent all games out there?

its tradition, always has been. i would say yes.

But of course i have no evidence how much.

ohh right, no difference at all with the gtx 680, that answers my question, cheers.

Would there ever be noticable difference between say the 3.8 stock clock and the common overclock of 4.5?

Dude u must not read to well. How many people have to tell u. NO DIFFERENCE

First, no need to be a cono...

Second, half of people are saying it would make noticeable differences depending on the game and other factors. I'm simply interested in finding out what kind of difference that is.

The i5 2500k is stocked @ 3.3, max turbo frequency is 3.7 and yes there would be difference from 3.7/3.8 & 4.5, the more clock speed the faster the speed & calculations...

^ I give up........

2500k is a powerful chip.stock speed is enough but overclocking will boost your performance.

Maybe ask how many people have both a 680 & a i5 2500k and test the actual benchmarks and ask them. Not all the other people on here that just speculate.
Like @ ilysami that gave the lecture on faster calculations. But if he would read the entire post u ask about GPU intense games at 60fps. Faster CPU calculations show their higher headroom in higher FPS, in the i5 case it's above 170fps.

Well i'm looking for the whole story not just your part of it. From my understanding, cpu overclock of the i5 2500k will not affect most games as their framerates are already well above the 60 threshold and the gpu is the limiting factor.

However, while playing some games that are much more cpu heavy (common example is civilizations V) an overclock can increase game performance.

To sum it up before the thread is closed by a moderator, OCing will help you boost your performance as said above, when you OC to 4.0 GHz or 4.5 GHz you're getting the most out of the CPU, beyond 4.5 GHz you're not gonna notice any improvements.

OCing will help in CPU intensive games that depend more on CPU power like Skyrim.

Best answer selected by henry07.

your like a kid that says he's right because he said so. you gave a half fact in the form of fps but did not give the game title nor did you state any other games that you have played.



this is the same guy that said that the 680 would be 80% faster then the 580. hes gullible and his rig as of when he built it was overclocked as well.

...why is everyone treating cpu bottlecking like a binary situation? You don't either have a cpu bottleneck or not.

GPU is responsible mainly for parallel tasks while the cpu tackles situations that can't be done in parallel. Physics for example is hard for a gpu to compute, but it can apply aa very well since the image can be broken down and each part can be calculated independently of the others.

Every game is programmed differently and your cpu to gpu power ratio will have various effects. A weak cpu with a strong gpu may lag when too many objects are on screen but will still be able to handle loads of aa.

A computer is "bottlenecked" by whatever component is making the game wait before it can render another frame. This is entirely dependant on the game and individual settings. Your computer can always use more gpu power as it will allow you to crank up certain settings regardless of the cpu. Theoretically, can always use more cpu power as well though most games don't let you play with the heaviest cpu powered settings.

To the op's question, stock to 4.5Ghz will show very little difference in most games. Some will be affected though. Starcraft for one, especially custom games. It's hard to test but I think bf3 online may also make use of a higher clock speed.

^very good points slicedtoad..

For the OP, you should look for CPU Benchmarks and OC benchmarks of that same CPU, with the exact same GPU....Or just test it out yourself and see...

Don't look for GPU benchies cuz they won't really say much...

check this out...

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-2500k-and-core-i7...