Question i7-9700k to OC or not to OC?

[NickelPlate]

Hello All,

I just recently upgraded my mobo/cpu/ram from an i5-3570k to an i7-9700k. Even though I know it's not the latest and greatest, I'm really happy with the performance difference and price I got from Microcenter this past black friday on one of their combo deals. My question is how much benefit I would get from overclocking the CPU whilst gaming? It seems to me there's not a lot to be gained because the stock boost clocks are already pushing 5.0Ghz which seems to be everyone's magic goal. According to the below wiki article a single core will boost to 4.9Ghz under load with frequency drops as more cores are loaded down to 4.6Ghz. Not quite 5Ghz but still not too shabby.

Thanks in advance,

NP

Core i7-9700K - Intel - WikiChip

Core i7-9700K is a 64-bit octa-core high-end performance x86 desktop microprocessor introduced by Intel in late 2018. This processor, which is based on the Coffee Lake microarchitecture, is manufactured on Intel's 3rd generation enhanced 14nm++ process. The i7-9700K operates at a 3.6 GHz with a...

en.wikichip.org

 

[scannall]

Hello All,

I just recently upgraded my mobo/cpu/ram from an i5-3570k to an i7-9700k. Even though I know it's not the latest and greatest, I'm really happy with the performance difference and price I got from Microcenter this past black friday on one of their combo deals. My question is how much benefit I would get from overclocking the CPU whilst gaming? It seems to me there's not a lot to be gained because the stock boost clocks are already pushing 5.0Ghz which seems to be everyone's magic goal. According to the below wiki article a single core will boost to 4.9Ghz under load with frequency drops as more cores are loaded down to 4.6Ghz. Not quite 5Ghz but still not too shabby.

Thanks in advance,

NP

Core i7-9700K - Intel - WikiChip

Core i7-9700K is a 64-bit octa-core high-end performance x86 desktop microprocessor introduced by Intel in late 2018. This processor, which is based on the Coffee Lake microarchitecture, is manufactured on Intel's 3rd generation enhanced 14nm++ process. The i7-9700K operates at a 3.6 GHz with a...

en.wikichip.org

Unless you run a top end video card, playing at 1080p you won't notice any difference in day to day use. And if you are, the difference is probably not enough to actually see either. Save a little money, save a little electricity and leave it alone. ;-)

 

[ondma]

Scannall is probably right, in that you will not need the extra performance of overclocking.
Just be aware though, that unless you overclock or at least up the power limits, you may not be able to sustain the "all core" turbo of 4.6 without exceeding the power limits.
You could run something like Cinebench and use HWMonitor to check the frequency under 100% load on all cores.