Is my CPU holding me back?

[nsiderTalon]

Here's my rig:

Intel C2D E4600 @ stock (2.40GHz)
Gigabyte EP45-UD3R
ATI HD 4830
Patriot 4GB RAM
Seagate 250GB HDD
Creative X-Fi Xtrememusic

I dabbled into overclocking on my GPU today for the first time, which was fairly easy, so I'm considering overclocking my CPU. Will it increase my gaming performance by a noticeable amount though? Thanks for any help!

 

[OCGuy]

What size is your monitor?

 

[nsiderTalon]

22"

I game at 1680 * 1060

 

[TurtleCrusher]

It really depends upon your games. If its based on the Source engine or anything by valve, OC'ing you CPU will produce great performance increases. OCing in games where your GPU is realy being stressed will now wield such performance increases.

In DOD:S and TF2, itsa bit of a tricky thing. With my GFX on high with no HDR, 2xaa and 16x AF, i got approximately 80-100fps. Ocing my CPU got me 95-130fps. Enabling mat_queue_mode 2 gets my 150-250fps. So yeah, if its valve, OC the CPU. I'm still GPU limited in dirt and crysis, so much of an overclock gets me 1-10% gains at the most.

 

[angry hampster]

An E4600 on a P45 board should easily be able to do 3.2GHz or so without much voltage increase. Why not bump it up a notch just to try? If your temps get high or it's unstable, just back it down. Today's boards and chips are pretty failsafe against killing them through BIOS-level overclocking.

 

[nsiderTalon]

EDIT: Nevermind. I'm just going to mess around and look at some overclocking guides. Maybe I'll bump this up later with my results...

 

[dflynchimp]

what cooling are you using? not that you need good cooling with the e4xxx series, but if you're OCing it never hurts to have an after market cooler.

 

[nsiderTalon]

I have an OCZ Vanquisher (I believe that was the name). It looks pretty much identical to an AC7

On stock speeds, Coretemp says that I idle at 30C and go up to 53C on load.

Does anyone have a good guide to overclocking? I understand about the multiplier, frequency, and stuff concerning the CPU, but should I change any other settings?

 

[dflynchimp]

not unless you have to, no. hitting 2.8GHz at the very least should be a safe goal for you. 53C load temp at stock is a little high for my tastes, but these chips are designed to handle heat up to 70-80 degrees, so I suppose it's not impossible to push for 3.0+GHz. You do risk drastically cutting into your chip's lifespan tho.

 

[nsiderTalon]

I should mention that I just upgraded my mobo and applied new Ceramique. Doesn't it take a while to get broken in?

What should be my Vcore be set at to try 2.8? That would be 12 * 233, right?

 

[aigomorla]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2057083&enterthread=y

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: nsiderTalon
I should mention that I just upgraded my mobo and applied new Ceramique. Doesn't it take a while to get broken in?

What should be my Vcore be set at to try 2.8? That would be 12 * 233, right?

Ceramique does not have a break-in period. You are probably confusing it with AS5 which does have a break-in period per the manufacturer.

 

[nsiderTalon]

Alright, I seem to have it stable at 2.8 GHz. Highest it ever got was 56C and it increased my 3DMark06 score from 9700 to 10700.