Will overclocking give me any noticable increase in performance?

dirtbikeryzz

dirtbikeryzz

New Member
Ok i just bought a new pc - i7 960 (3.20ghz), GTX 285 SLI, 6GB DDR3 RAM. I can max every game out aside from maybe 3-5 with my old duo core, 8800gtx, so i thought this new comp would just destroy everything. I see so many overclockers now that i don't no if i should do it. What it think will happen is instead of getting 120fps on a game a OC would give say 135fps which really isn't doing anything but cutting down my hardwares life span. Idea's/suggestions?
 
There's no point to overclocking a PC that powerful. I would overclock it in the future when you need the extra performance.
 
your eyes see 60..... why have 125????? and why overclock a i7? its expensive overclocking lowers the life of your CPu no matter how much you cool it. I overclocked my 3.16 e8500 which is a good CPU for the price to about 3.5 Ghz and for MW2 it maxs at 85 FPS so it didnt do anything and for crysis it got me from 45 to 50 on all enthusiast settings. So dont overclock you i7, 3.2 is WAYYY powerful for games so i say dont do it.

i like games at around 80 FPS therefore it keeps my CPU usage down, lower temps, and if it drops i wont see the difference since my eyes only see 60 and 30 FPS looks the same as 60 for most games so..... my opinions
 
starlitjoker said:
your eyes see 60..... why have 125????? and why overclock a i7? its expensive overclocking lowers the life of your CPu no matter how much you cool it. I overclocked my 3.16 e8500 which is a good CPU for the price to about 3.5 Ghz and for MW2 it maxs at 85 FPS so it didnt do anything and for crysis it got me from 45 to 50 on all enthusiast settings. So dont overclock you i7, 3.2 is WAYYY powerful for games so i say dont do it.
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Thanks for the info, my friend said he thinks i should OC my CPU because some games that don't support quad core might not run as well as they should and OCing would make the 2 cores its using faster. Make sense or is it still gonna slaughter games?
 
oh and quad core for gaming is useless as well :D its nice to have if you multitask alot but for gaming the computer doesnt utilize all 4 cores, unless you have like dual moniters(ido, i dont even have quad core), and your running like 6 programs then its useless and also overclocking a quadcore for gaming and home use is dumb aswell because of unstable temps. OCing dual cores is best, and thats all you need. But if your going i7 then why not go quad core :D if your spending the money spend it right!

dont get me wrong, quad core is great! but for the right reasons and for an i7, if you spent the money it was a good choice to go quad
 
starlitjoker said:
oh and quad core for gaming is useless as well :D its nice to have if you multitask alot but for gaming the computer doesnt utilize all 4 cores, unless you have like dual moniters(ido, i dont even have quad core), and your running like 6 programs then its useless and also overclocking a quadcore for gaming and home use is dumb aswell because of unstable temps. OCing dual cores is best, and thats all you need. But if your going i7 then why not go quad core :D if your spending the money spend it right!

dont get me wrong, quad core is great! but for the right reasons and for an i7, if you spent the money it was a good choice to go quad
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My 4 year old duo core held up great. It's 2.66ghz, 8800GTX, 3GB RAM, Vista 32 bit. To this day it maxes most games out. Runs crysis on high fine. I've yet to test this new comp on a lot of games so I'm not sure how it will perform. As for it being pointless for games i disagree. Maybe at this very moment but for all we know next week a game will come out supporting quad cores. At least im future proof.
 
One more thing, if most games i play only support two cores will the performance increase be small? I'm going from 2.66ghz to 3.20ghz.
 
It also depends on what you do with your machine.

In addition to gaming, I do a lot of programming, and simulations - which can use a lot of everything. (cores, ram, etc...)
I have a quad-core and an 8-core machine - both with a lot of ram... and I can definitely use more.
 
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starlitjoker said:
its expensive overclocking lowers the life of your CPu no matter how much you cool it.
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Id love to see some links on that.

So long as you stick within the safe voltage and keep it nice and chilled there isn't any issues or dangers to overclocking.
Its only when you go over the maximum voltage and let it get 60c+ that you run into issues.

Misinformation should not be spread around like that.



The I7 is fine as it is...I wouldn't overclock until you actually need it which wont be for a while. Your chip is also much faster then mine clock for clock :D
 
overclocking always gives more performance... but how noticeable it is depends on how much you overclock, and to a certain point you wont notice anything.

for instance, if you have a stock cpu at 2.6 and you overclock it to 3.2, you will notice a good boost. but if you overclock it again from 3.2 to 3.4, you wont notice much at all, except in benchmarks.

right now games dont fully utilize quadcores. i will admit that getting a phenom II after having a 3.4ghz amd 6400 dual core, i noticed a huge increase in performance. but thats because a) there were more cores to focus on background services and b) the newer processor had more cache, so even though my games dont use all 4 cores, even half of that was more powerful than my old processor

but in my opinion, the stock clock on your i7 is already nuts. you can gladly overclock it to 3.6 or higher, go nuts... but your games wont seem any different, and i highly doubt your computer can get any noticeable boost after that stock clock. but obviously, benchmarks will show the difference

btw i overclocked my old dual core from 3.2 to 3.4, didnt notice a difference. however, with my phenom II, i overclocked 2.8 to 3.6 (dropped to 3.55 to keep it more stable) and noticed a HUGE difference. games got much higher fps, and windows 7 was much smoother.

as far as the life of your computer goes after overclocking.... if you have a stable overclock, nothing extreme, expect to lose maybe 2 years of life on your motherboard or ram, not your cpu. but thats 2 years out of expected 10 or so, so come on.... if you still have that thing 8 years from now its going to be sitting in your closet, sold, or thrown away. if you still have 8 years of life in something you will replace in 2, why stress it?

also, ive never known anyone to fry a cpu overclocking. it can be done, but only if you are an idiot with your voltages. ive seen motherboards get fried from overvolting before the cpu did

(side note- if you have an unlocked multiplier, you can solely overclock the processor and leave everything else at stock speeds, so you can REALLY not stress the life of your computer)
 
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Twist86 said:
Id love to see some links on that.

So long as you stick within the safe voltage and keep it nice and chilled there isn't any issues or dangers to overclocking.
Its only when you go over the maximum voltage and let it get 60c+ that you run into issues.

Misinformation should not be spread around like that.



The I7 is fine as it is...I wouldn't overclock until you actually need it which wont be for a while. Your chip is also much faster then mine clock for clock :D
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im sorry :( I have been informed alot about overclocking and the consensus was that no matter what it decreases life. Thanks for letting me know :D

and also in pokes case
you running a server with 64 gb of RAM??? lol

and its not specific games that utilize 4 cores, its in general. So no, a quad-core will give great performance when playing a single game, but a dual core would do fine as well. So your quad core is fine as it is! :D


also Big steve is right, your quad core at 3.2 Ghz is pretty insane especially with a i7 so be happy! thats a extreme top line CPU got so let it be.

sorry for the misinformation
 
Extreme Voltage and High heat will kill off a CPU quicker. As long as your not going for the ultimate overclock with as much voltage and heat it can take, the CPUs usefulness in age will be long gone before it dies.
 
starlitjoker said:
and also in pokes case
you running a server with 64 gb of ram??? Lol
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:P

When I'm not using all of it, it's nice to let the OS buffer the entire boot drive and see all my games load in a flash.
(It's booting on a 64GB SSD that's only 80% filled. So it can easily fit the entire thing in ram.)

Though I've stopped gaming on it since I built my i7 rig.
 
starlitjoker said:
oh and quad core for gaming is useless as well :D its nice to have if you multitask alot but for gaming the computer doesnt utilize all 4 cores, unless you have like dual moniters(ido, i dont even have quad core), and your running like 6 programs then its useless and also overclocking a quadcore for gaming and home use is dumb aswell because of unstable temps. OCing dual cores is best, and thats all you need.
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Well not quite..
For older games. But games now, do, in fact utilize all cores. Why would they make games that only utilize one core when people use duos and quads?
Dual monitors won't change what utilizes the cores/how many. It all depends on the programs; some programs only use two, one..etc. (Usually the older ones) Most now days can use all cores. It depends on what you're doing; if you really need all four or just two.
Overclocking a quad core would be better, in most cases, than overclocking a duo.

You can quickly adjust the temps with a decent cooler. I lowered my temps 15C.
 
my god.... i have 4 gigs and im satisfied...

to the above:
yeah i said dual monitors to imply multi tasking ALOT. and i didnt know games were utilizing more than 2 cores now. Thats why i went with a dual core and not a quad core. Pooey
 
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