No longer motivated to OC

[Collider]

I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore overclocker since I never ventured into water cooling and always went with high-end air cooling kits but I would still consider myself an enthusiast level since I have been overclocking all my systems for the last 8 years (both Intel & AMD) and even modded my cases as far as dremeling out additional fan holes to improve airflow in order to squeeze every last possible MHz.

But as the title suggests I seem to have lost all motivation to OC with this current build I have been using as my primary machine for the past 6 months (specs listed in signature). As you could see all parts are performance components and have been carefully picked with an intention of a respectable OC of at least 25%-35%.

But this far this machine just destroys every single game I throw at it, perhaps with Crysis being the only title that can leave me wishing for a few more FPS but other than that I run all the new titles at their max GFX settings. And with X-25M being my OS/App drive every day windows performance is just amazing and any web dev/photoshop/office work that I do on this box is just a breeze.

And at this point I really question myself whether I want to spend the time to OC this machine any time in near future, somehow stability became more valuable to me. And I'm not saying that OCed machines can't be 24/7 stable, as I mentioned above most of my previous PCs were OCed and were kept running most of their life span. But I just can't get myself motivated enough to spend a weekend or two OCing and benching this box when the performance I'm getting running it stock is more than satisfying.

So I'd like to hear some thoughts from others regarding this dilemma.

Am I the only one that feels this way or can OCing be a thing of the past (as a trend) in the near future as CPUs/GPUs grow in core counts and provide more commuting power then we can consume?

Are others also thinking the same thing while being content with their PC running @ stock speeds or am I just not demanding enough?

(And of course I am talking about home application/use here, if you're running earthquake modeling software or doing any serious number crunching you still get a clear benefit out of every possible MHz)

Thanks for your thoughts in advance

 

[richierich1212]

For gaming, encoding OCing works well. In other scenarios I hardly notice any difference. That's why I leave on Cool 'N Quiet, and lower my OC to 3.9GHz w/ 1.375vcore for less power consumption.

 

[poohbear]

in encoding video/audio files, opening applications, loading windows vista, and overall system speed i def notice a difference between my comps 2.8 default and 3.6 overclocked. In RTS games, which are my fav, the difference is also very significant (20fps in some cases). If u play FPS games above a certain resolution its all about the gpu, but if we're talking overall system performance, in that case yes i definitely notice the 800mhz overclock for my cpu.

The thing is u have the best cpu on the market, for the rest of us that have C2D or PhenomIIs or even i3/i5 cpus, every mhz counts. i imagine w/ future OS releases and especially w/ the release of next gen consoles (when hardware requirements for games skyrocket due to latest tech in next gen consoles), that cpu overclocking will be important at every tier cpus on the market, not just low/mid range, but high end as well.

 

[VirtualLarry]

i've overclocked nearly every system that i've ever had. It's kind of like a long-term addiction to me. If it can be overclocked, I will. (With the exception of laptops, they already are at their thermal maximums usually.)

But I've contemplated getting some AMD hex-cores, and just leaveing them at stock, and allowing their generous turbo boost to take care of the overclocking for me.

 

[taltamir]

@OP, I am exactly in the same position as you
I would say, if you are not motivated to, then don't do it. You can always OC later when you actually feel like it.

 

[ehume]

When the 32nm quads come out, overclocking by 50% will be much easier, cooler-wise. But even at stock, a quad can process all my spam in a second or so - while doing something else like a virus scan. That was a huge performance boost.

But as you point out, the SSD is what makes the biggest impression.

Still, it's a lot of fun for me, soldering wires, crimping terminals, putting in lights - more than simply overclocking.

 

[Zap]

I still overclock - will probably do that forever - but I no longer go for the last possible MHz. I used to be all about that, BITD. I would seriously find the last MHz possible, going with outrageous fans and using a razor blade for TIM application when I discovered AS3. These days I find some reasonable overclock and just get on with using it. No need to waste several days tweaking. I've got better things to do.

 

[taltamir]

I still overclock - will probably do that forever - but I no longer go for the last possible MHz. I used to be all about that, BITD. I would seriously find the last MHz possible, going with outrageous fans and using a razor blade for TIM application when I discovered AS3. These days I find some reasonable overclock and just get on with using it. No need to waste several days tweaking. I've got better things to do.

forever is a very long time... i was in the "just find a reasonable OC and get on with it" phase for some time before I just couldn't get myself motivated enough to bother. I have the parts, I have the knowledge, I just don't wanna spend my time on it when I can be doing other things.

Probably will get motivated next time I come across something that really needs the extra power though.

 

[nyker96]

I would suggest you at least considering OC on your default voltage that will increase Perf/Watt for you, so you actually make your machine work better. If not only for the added speed.

 

[taltamir]

I would suggest you at least considering OC on your default voltage that will increase Perf/Watt for you, so you actually make your machine work better. If not only for the added speed.

1. this still requires stability testing, etc.
2. this will most likely WORSEN perf/watt. Increasing the clockspeed without increasing voltage still increases power consumption, and does so faster than the performance increase seen for it.
If you want to increase your perf/watt you need to undervolt.

 

[aphorism]

2. this will most likely WORSEN perf/watt. Increasing the clockspeed without increasing voltage still increases power consumption, and does so faster than the performance increase seen for it.

i would say that depends on the chip. dynamic power increases linearly with respect to frequency. static power does not change with frequency. modern high perf chips have a fair amount of static power. if you make frequency the largest portion of power consumption you will increase efficiency.

 

[n7]

I can definitely understand where you are coming from.

I personally still do OC, but i certainly do spend less time now on tweaking & fine tuning things like RAM or OCing my GPU like i used to, & i am lazier about getting around to it, etc.

I think when you have close to the best hardware, the benefits becomes less noticeable unless you are running something really need the extra MHz.

SSDs are a huge factor as well IMHO...they have really made general computing so much more pleasant.

 

[A_Dying_Wren]

1. this still requires stability testing, etc.
2. this will most likely WORSEN perf/watt. Increasing the clockspeed without increasing voltage still increases power consumption, and does so faster than the performance increase seen for it.
If you want to increase your perf/watt you need to undervolt.

If I'm not mistaken, Tom's Hardware regularly pits performance against power consumption when overclocking a few select CPUs with and without a power increase. I don't know why they persist with it but it always seems that the highest clock you can attain without increasing the voltage is where the highest efficiency is.

But neither do they undervolt their CPUs unfortunately.

 

[Idontcare]

i would say that depends on the chip. dynamic power increases linearly with respect to frequency. static power does not change with frequency. modern high perf chips have a fair amount of static power. if you make frequency the largest portion of power consumption you will increase efficiency.

There was a pretty awesome article published by Intel and discussed here about 6-9 months ago where they deliberately chased performance/watt on a voltage-optimized shmoo plot with a modern processor and unsuprisingly they found the best performance/W was around 300 MHz IIRC.

It was actually a pretty cool study and result if you dig that kind of applied electrical engineering.

But the moral of the story is that adjusting voltage changes both static and dynamic power-consumption whereas adjusting frequency only changes dynamic power-consumption (to 1st order).

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=27459192&postcount=20

 

[blackangst1]

OP: Im the in the same boat as you with my newest build: i930 and MSIX58 mobo, and an SSD for OS/programs. I game, and do a fair amount of audio and video encoding/ripping, and honestly I feel its snappy enough for my tastes. My setup prior to this was an e6600 OC to 3.1.

Youre not alone.

 

[Fayd]

I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore overclocker since I never ventured into water cooling and always went with high-end air cooling kits but I would still consider myself an enthusiast level since I have been overclocking all my systems for the last 8 years (both Intel & AMD) and even modded my cases as far as dremeling out additional fan holes to improve airflow in order to squeeze every last possible MHz.

But as the title suggests I seem to have lost all motivation to OC with this current build I have been using as my primary machine for the past 6 months (specs listed in signature). As you could see all parts are performance components and have been carefully picked with an intention of a respectable OC of at least 25%-35%.

But this far this machine just destroys every single game I throw at it, perhaps with Crysis being the only title that can leave me wishing for a few more FPS but other than that I run all the new titles at their max GFX settings. And with X-25M being my OS/App drive every day windows performance is just amazing and any web dev/photoshop/office work that I do on this box is just a breeze.

And at this point I really question myself whether I want to spend the time to OC this machine any time in near future, somehow stability became more valuable to me. And I'm not saying that OCed machines can't be 24/7 stable, as I mentioned above most of my previous PCs were OCed and were kept running most of their life span. But I just can't get myself motivated enough to spend a weekend or two OCing and benching this box when the performance I'm getting running it stock is more than satisfying.

So I'd like to hear some thoughts from others regarding this dilemma.

Am I the only one that feels this way or can OCing be a thing of the past (as a trend) in the near future as CPUs/GPUs grow in core counts and provide more commuting power then we can consume?

Are others also thinking the same thing while being content with their PC running @ stock speeds or am I just not demanding enough?

(And of course I am talking about home application/use here, if you're running earthquake modeling software or doing any serious number crunching you still get a clear benefit out of every possible MHz)

Thanks for your thoughts in advance

i OCed an e4400 to 2.7 ghz and kept it that way for like a year..

since i got my x4 945, i havent been motivated to overclock it at all. its performance is fine as is.

 

[MJinZ]

I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore overclocker since I never ventured into water cooling and always went with high-end air cooling kits but I would still consider myself an enthusiast level since I have been overclocking all my systems for the last 8 years (both Intel & AMD) and even modded my cases as far as dremeling out additional fan holes to improve airflow in order to squeeze every last possible MHz.

But as the title suggests I seem to have lost all motivation to OC with this current build I have been using as my primary machine for the past 6 months (specs listed in signature). As you could see all parts are performance components and have been carefully picked with an intention of a respectable OC of at least 25%-35%.

But this far this machine just destroys every single game I throw at it, perhaps with Crysis being the only title that can leave me wishing for a few more FPS but other than that I run all the new titles at their max GFX settings. And with X-25M being my OS/App drive every day windows performance is just amazing and any web dev/photoshop/office work that I do on this box is just a breeze.

And at this point I really question myself whether I want to spend the time to OC this machine any time in near future, somehow stability became more valuable to me. And I'm not saying that OCed machines can't be 24/7 stable, as I mentioned above most of my previous PCs were OCed and were kept running most of their life span. But I just can't get myself motivated enough to spend a weekend or two OCing and benching this box when the performance I'm getting running it stock is more than satisfying.

So I'd like to hear some thoughts from others regarding this dilemma.

Am I the only one that feels this way or can OCing be a thing of the past (as a trend) in the near future as CPUs/GPUs grow in core counts and provide more commuting power then we can consume?

Are others also thinking the same thing while being content with their PC running @ stock speeds or am I just not demanding enough?

(And of course I am talking about home application/use here, if you're running earthquake modeling software or doing any serious number crunching you still get a clear benefit out of every possible MHz)

Thanks for your thoughts in advance

Destroy everything you throw at it? That's a pretty big stretch, considering the weak 920s stock clocks.

My 920 @ 4.2 with a 5870 crossfire or GTX 480s can't even destroy Crysis @ max settings. 60FPS is a minimum here for FPSes.

 

[Markfw]

I have had to put one box back to stock, and another down to almost stock due to long term instability. Both boxes were rock solid, but after years, by x3350 (Q9450) just has to go back to stock for a while. and my 1090T is down to 3.6 (but at stock vcore)

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I can't find the motivation anymore. Got a slightly factory overclocked evga 470 so I get a boost and I don't have to mess with it. Use to be big into overclocking but I put my i7 930 at stock speed and my 1600 MHz ram is running at 1066mhz and I won't even go into bios and put the ram to xmp mode. Not worth the stability testing and possible OS corruption anymore.

 

[BD231]

If you're lazy enough to think the alteration of a few bios settings is to tedious to even bother you've got issue's overclocking. Clearly you have trouble finding stable settings while overclocking which can be bothersome I know, but if you know the limits of your chip it's really quite simple.

Overclocking is not a lost cause and in my opinion it never will be until tech changes so drastically that it would simply not be possible to do so, or tangible gains were no longer present.

Maybe you'll be back?

Or maybe you'll just make another post about how satisfied you are with your expensive hardware on the next purchase .... Personally I'm milking every last mhz out of more reasonably priced hardware to get the same performance you just paid for.

 

[aigomorla]

theres a reason why i only have EE processors as a choice.

Multiplier Overclocking for the Lazy = ABSOLUTE WIN!

 

[MagickMan]

I still overclock - will probably do that forever - but I no longer go for the last possible MHz. I used to be all about that, BITD. I would seriously find the last MHz possible, going with outrageous fans and using a razor blade for TIM application when I discovered AS3. These days I find some reasonable overclock and just get on with using it. No need to waste several days tweaking. I've got better things to do.

Me too. My Q9550 will do 4.2GHz all day, but I usually just run @ 3.8 at stock volts for power savings. Unless I'm benchmarking or doing serious encoding I can't tell much difference at all. I've been pondering a move to i7 but I can't really see much of a point, either.

 

[spinejam]

it's a hobby for me so i still enjoy it. i certainly don't spend the countless hours some of you do w/ stability testing though. 10x linX and 2 hours prime95 small / blend and then it's fun time for me.

 

[jjmIII]

I still overclock - will probably do that forever - but I no longer go for the last possible MHz. I used to be all about that, BITD. I would seriously find the last MHz possible, going with outrageous fans and using a razor blade for TIM application when I discovered AS3. These days I find some reasonable overclock and just get on with using it. No need to waste several days tweaking. I've got better things to do.

Sorta where I'm at right now. I bump to the next bus speed or setting where everything is OC'd but in sync.
I however look fondly back at my two 100% OC's (e2140, 1.6 Duron).

Modern hardware is so fast you forget to OC!

 

[jihe]

I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore overclocker since I never ventured into water cooling and always went with high-end air cooling kits but I would still consider myself an enthusiast level since I have been overclocking all my systems for the last 8 years (both Intel & AMD) and even modded my cases as far as dremeling out additional fan holes to improve airflow in order to squeeze every last possible MHz.

But as the title suggests I seem to have lost all motivation to OC with this current build I have been using as my primary machine for the past 6 months (specs listed in signature). As you could see all parts are performance components and have been carefully picked with an intention of a respectable OC of at least 25%-35%.

But this far this machine just destroys every single game I throw at it, perhaps with Crysis being the only title that can leave me wishing for a few more FPS but other than that I run all the new titles at their max GFX settings. And with X-25M being my OS/App drive every day windows performance is just amazing and any web dev/photoshop/office work that I do on this box is just a breeze.

And at this point I really question myself whether I want to spend the time to OC this machine any time in near future, somehow stability became more valuable to me. And I'm not saying that OCed machines can't be 24/7 stable, as I mentioned above most of my previous PCs were OCed and were kept running most of their life span. But I just can't get myself motivated enough to spend a weekend or two OCing and benching this box when the performance I'm getting running it stock is more than satisfying.

So I'd like to hear some thoughts from others regarding this dilemma.

Am I the only one that feels this way or can OCing be a thing of the past (as a trend) in the near future as CPUs/GPUs grow in core counts and provide more commuting power then we can consume?

Are others also thinking the same thing while being content with their PC running @ stock speeds or am I just not demanding enough?

(And of course I am talking about home application/use here, if you're running earthquake modeling software or doing any serious number crunching you still get a clear benefit out of every possible MHz)

Thanks for your thoughts in advance

Welcome, to the world of budget overclocking. Overclocking really lost its heart when you can just throw large amount of money at your PC. Go back to the old days when the point is to try to squeeze as much out of a cheap celeron as possible. I assure you you will gain more satisfaction out of overclocking a $40 E3300 combo with a piece-of-crap motherboard to 4Ghz, or unlocking 2 extra cores and 6mb L3 cache of your 5000+, than you will ever have from an expensive 1366 setup.

Or you could just run F@H, then you'll never have too many MHz.