How much does OC'ing help?

[S7EXEN]

Is the speed you gain from OC'ing your CPU something you'll notice a lot, or not really? Does it depend on what CPU and other parts you have?

Is OC'ing a must if you want to get the best bang for buck possible?

And, where can I find the easiest guides for not-too-hardcore OC'ing?

 

[Capt Caveman]

Search is your friend.

 

[Ika]

C2Ds scale fairly linearly, so a 20% overclock might get you a 20% performance boost. It's up to you whether or not you deem that noticeable or not. An E6400 at 3.3ghz is much faster than a stock E6400 at 2.13ghz.

If you're interested, you can read this AT article.

 

[S7EXEN]

Would it be easy enough for me to OC if I made good selections on parts so that it would make up for buying better cooling devices? Never OC'd before... don't really know anything about it. I'm your common gamer. I just want to play Crysis and UT3 without any lag or stuttering and with nice resolution.

 

[Borealis7]

Originally posted by: S7EXEN
Is the speed you gain from OC'ing your CPU something you'll notice a lot, or not really? Does it depend on what CPU and other parts you have?

Is OC'ing a must if you want to get the best bang for buck possible?

And, where can I find the easiest guides for not-too-hardcore OC'ing?

Is a Bear chunky?

 

[TheNewbie]

Originally posted by: S7EXEN
Would it be easy enough for me to OC if I made good selections on parts so that it would make up for buying better cooling devices? Never OC'd before... don't really know anything about it. I'm your common gamer. I just want to play Crysis and UT3 without any lag or stuttering and with nice resolution.

To answer your original question (if OC is good/worthwhile for you), then it's completly up to you to say. If all you're doing on your pc is surf the internet and use office applications etc. then the answer is most likely no. But if you use your system for tasks which are heavier, such as video editing, encoding, gaming, precise math calculations (need to be careful with that and OC) etc. then OC will probably benefit you anywhere from little to alot.

As for OC'ing (theoretically) you can't expect to get the best OC out of your system without having any knowledge no matter how good your hardware is (and yes, hardware does matter, a lot.).
You have to do some reading, and keep asking questions in forums like this.
You might want to consider however, the fact that some motherboard manufacturers ship their motherboards with utilities that allow you to OC safely without the need to have any prior knowledge. I know Gigabyte has a killer app. for that (EasyTune), also MSI has a program called dual core center, though many people reported problems with that app.
Couple that with apps. like RivaTuner or ATI tool, and you can manage a vary decent OC for "free". However in most cases it'll still not be as good as you could've get for diving into the BIOS yourself.

Bottom line, start doing some more reading. Good luck!

Edit: not to mock or anything, but you're definitely NOT a common gamer.

 

[Nathelion]

In addition to the above, it depends a lot on how much time you have. An OCd rig is always a job in progress. Suddenly there's just a teeny weeny litlle bit too much dust in the heat sink so your cpu gets pushed above its stable temperature. Or any of a bunch of similar scenarios. An OCd computer is never as reliable as a non-OCd computer in that sense. Also, you WILL end up spending time on it, because you'll always want to push the system just a couple of MHz further. There's also the lack of warranty. If you do have the time, however, OCing can bring you considerable performance benefits. Right now is an especially good time to be OCing considering the overclockability of the Core 2 Duos.
As to just OCing "a little", it is unlikely to work, because once you enter down that path... you'll want to bring it to its logical conclusion, which is high-quality cooling and some pretty arcane vocabulary of chipset straps, mem dividers, and a whole array of assorted trivia.
In conclusion, I think OCing would probably be a good idea for you, but only if you really have the time.

 

[Pooptacular]

I have a 3600 x2 brisbane that I'm running at 3 ghz, thats up from 1.9 ghz and believe me the difference in even just playing WoW is night and day.

 

[rchiu]

sorry to disagree with everyone, but if you are worry about games and you haven't done any oc before, I would recommend you to get a nice video card.

OC is not hard with the right hardware and software. But today's CPU, assuming you are spending more than $100 on the cpu, don't really limit your gaming experience, video card plays a much bigger role. So OC may not help you too much in gaming, especially if you are not going to do too much OC.

If you want best bang for the buck, yeah OC will definitely give you that. You can get a $68 cpu and OC it like a $300 buck cpu, but that's only if you have the right mobo, memory, and cpu cooling. In the end, the time you spent may not worth the saving, but for people like me, that's just something fun to get the max out of the system. But again, from a system point of view, your PC performance is determined by a combination of factors, and CPU itself will not determine all your system performance, and in gaming, video is a much bigger factor. (you can OC video card as well)

So I'd say OC is a hobbit, and I would recommend it if you enjoy messing with your system and doing lots of reading and research. If you don't, spend the money and get it over with.

 

[AllGamer]

Originally posted by: S7EXEN
Is the speed you gain from OC'ing your CPU something you'll notice a lot, or not really? Does it depend on what CPU and other parts you have?

Is OC'ing a must if you want to get the best bang for buck possible?

And, where can I find the easiest guides for not-too-hardcore OC'ing?

It really depends.

OC-ing does not always mean faster performance, instead it might be worse.

The key to OC-ing be it AMD or Intel CPU is to keep the RAM and CPU on a 1:1 ratio

that's where the Chi flows perfectly in harmony to archive the best performance without drag.

see my test table here as an example
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...erthread=y&STARTPAGE=3

So by having faster CPU oc-ing does not automatically means faster performance.

Lower CPU speed, can yield out better results than those of faster CPU

just check the MadOnion Orb database you can see much more examples there.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

I run my RAM at 1:1.25 divider. It's faster than 1:1 across ALL real-world tests...like file compression, DVD re-authoring, etc....

 

[AllGamer]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
I run my RAM at 1:1.25 divider. It's faster than 1:1 across ALL real-world tests...like file compression, DVD re-authoring, etc....

How did you get 1.25? what did you set in the BIOS ?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Abit IP35-E has 1:1.25 ratio option in BIOS. There's also a 1:1.20 setting. See my review in MB section. FSB speed @ 384MHz. RAM speed @ 480MHz (5-4-4-9-2T-30 DDR2 800 Kingston ValueRAM).

 

[Diogenes2]

Originally posted by: AllGamer....

Lower CPU speed, can yield out better results than those of faster CPU
.....

I would like to see a real world example, such as media encoding,where this is true ..


I think the OP is asking about realistic expectations when bumping the CPU speed ~20% or more ; not about a 1 second better time in SuperPi or a few FPS in a game that is already performing at an acceptable level...


The bottom line is, it makes sense to take a ~$300 CPU and match performance to a $1,000 part..

If you don't want to bother with over-clocking, then you settle for less performance or pay more money ..

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: S7EXEN
Would it be easy enough for me to OC if I made good selections on parts so that it would make up for buying better cooling devices? Never OC'd before... don't really know anything about it. I'm your common gamer. I just want to play Crysis and UT3 without any lag or stuttering and with nice resolution.

I think it really depends on a person's temperament and needs (and perhaps budget) for this kind of stuff as to whether or not its worth making things more complicated for oneself than necessary.

Overclocking itself is pretty easy, but takes a lot of patience and putting up with a few braincramps (especially in the beginning) reading how-to threads, and researching components and their user experiences, asking questions, as well as researching prices and deals. It requires a favorable cpu, motherboard, ram, cooling, and power supply selection to get results that will make up for the additional time and effort put into it (and generally more money too.)

What you can get in return tho is a computer that performs far better than anything you can buy elsewhere for anywhere near the same price.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: rchiu
So I'd say OC is a hobbit,

ROFL - so that'd explain the hairy feet then :Q