overclocking effectiveness

[bigKr33]

Why is it when you overclock your cpu such as a 3000 winnie for an example (i don't own one)500mhz over stock; why isn't full effective.

A bit more details. I have a 3700 sandy that was (not anymore) over clocked to 2.5ghz and when i ran benchmarks, and games, it made such a little difference that i pretty much felt it was pointless. The only programs that made a huge difference was aquamark 3 and super_pi, but benchmarks like 3dmark03 & 05 made hardly a difference. why is that?

And another question, when you overclock with the cpu voltage still stock with really good aftermarket air cooling how long will a cpu last. Does overclocking 300-500mhz overstock totally destroy the cpu in a matter of a year, or is it only bad when you have excessive voltage?

 

[o1die]

I believe you came to the right conclusion. Overclocking has it's limits. Performance gains are limited to certain benchmarks. Use the standard voltage settings and you should be ok. I only run a 10% overclock with my 3200, but it's stable and plenty fast.

 

[bobsmith1492]

3dmark depends almost entirely on your video card. As long as your CPU\RAM is fast enough to supply data to the video card at the rate it wants it, you can boost your CPU all you want but the video card can still only do so much. Most likely your video card isn't fast enough to see any benefits in games (or 3dmark) with a processor faster than your stock 3000 winnie. What kind of video card do you have?

 

[theMan]

its not mhz that hurts the cpu, or temps, its voltage. however, if you just have a 10% increase in voltage, the cpu will last as long as you need it.

 

[themusgrat]

Like the above post, benchmarks take the performance of certain components, or of all. Proc-only stuff will of course see big improvements, but your video card is prob the limiting factor in 3dmark. Overclocking does have limits, but they are loose. Speed is always great. The only limits on procs are the bit or instruction set kind. Moving to true 64 bit and getting stuff like SSE3 are the only real processor limits. All other things being equal, speed will make a good difference. Also, for long term stability, stay within 2 or 3% of stock voltage. The only things that will kill a CPU are volts and heat. After you get to increasing the voltage by 5%, I'd say you are starting to wear on the proc, given that you don't have extreme cooling. Any proc that stays within 2 or 3% of stock v will last at least 5 yrs, in my estimation. Anyone feel free to correct me, but I have never seen one exception to this rule.

 

[Unkno]

hmmm, so for dual cores (Amd X2), can overclocking 10% over stock voltage still allow at least 5 years of lifespan or is it 5% over stock according to the above post....

 

[Regalk]

Definitely video card/RAM speeds are limiting factor. I saw big increases in 3DMark01-->05 when ramping up speed in conjunction with RAM speeds. I run a modded/overclocked ATI XT800 GTO.
320X8.5 with RAM at 245 speeds - makes a big difference than running at say 220 and RAM at 220.
As long as you can stay less than 10% increase in core volt increase your cpu will be around for a long time (unless if you did a poor job at installing the HS). I have overclocked everything under the sun since the 300A (and still have it but with no MB) and never killed anything yet (that would be well over 7 years now). All o/c cpus are still alive and kicking as far as I know.
Now running
AMD64 3000+ at 320 X 8.5 as noted above
TWO XPM2400 at 3200+
Intel 2.533B at 3300 (3 years)

 

[The Green Bean]

Originally posted by: Unkno
hmmm, so for dual cores (Amd X2), can overclocking 10% over stock voltage still allow at least 5 years of lifespan or is it 5% over stock according to the above post....

should last 5 years easy 10% over.

 

[bigKr33]

Good info fellas. For the people that were talking about the type of ram and gpu i have, a bfg 7800gtx, and geil one S 2x512 (tccd) 1.5-2-2-5 stock. When i get back from vacation my plan was to overclock the cpu with a (10.5x250)=2.625ghz, w/the ram on a 9/10 divider (ddr450, w/ 2-2-2-5). And then if i felt i needed more power i would purchase a second bfg 7800gtx buy the time ut07 comes out.

So how much of a overclock is the following i just posted. And i most likely would keep the voltage stock.

 

[themusgrat]

Originally posted by: Unkno
hmmm, so for dual cores (Amd X2), can overclocking 10% over stock voltage still allow at least 5 years of lifespan or is it 5% over stock according to the above post....

I'd say that going from 1.35 to 1.4 or 1.45 wouldn't intrude too much on reliability. But after you start getting past 1.5 on a 1.35 proc, that will start the wearing. All procs should last 10+ years, and even if it lasts only 5 yrs., then it is still time for an upgrade. If it is not time for an upgrade after 5 yrs., then you are prob not a gamer and what is the point of OCing anyway?

 

[bigKr33]

So really having my cpu at a possible 2.8ghz with a slight voltage change wouldn't phase my comp. The highest temp i've had on my cpu is 46c under full load on my swiftech 6400-vx heatsink @ 2.7ghz.

I actually need to get a new metal backing plate because i accidently got arctic silver5 on it when i took the sticker off just before i installed the heatsink. I was forced to put the sticker back on to prevent a short which the sticker is probably limiting to a couple thousands of an inch from the cpu. And i might have to get a different psu because the seasonic s12 main power cable isn't long enough for me to have two cards, its already rubbing against my 7800. What do you think would be a good price to sell a seasonic s12 600watt?

 

[nyker96]

I think OC isn't what it used to be because the base speed of today's chip is already so high making any addition Mhz gained very tough to notice. Like you probably don't notice a difference between 10ms and 20ms even know that represents doubling of CPU power. But back in old days doing everything takes so long like say to zip some files will cost you 10 minutes, now if you get a faster CPU you will notice the time saved. Also another factor is that, I think in a system today the bottleneck tends to be elsewhere and not the processor. Like the HD speed etc. or g-card, RAM.

 

[themusgrat]

Originally posted by: nyker96
I think OC isn't what it used to be because the base speed of today's chip is already so high making any addition Mhz gained very tough to notice. Like you probably don't notice a difference between 10ms and 20ms even know that represents doubling of CPU power. But back in old days doing everything takes so long like say to zip some files will cost you 10 minutes, now if you get a faster CPU you will notice the time saved. Also another factor is that, I think in a system today the bottleneck tends to be elsewhere and not the processor. Like the HD speed etc. or g-card, RAM.

But what operation takes 20ms? Games are fast and sequential, so all those lost 10ms would make a huge difference. All other things meeting the specifications, like instruction sets and stuffs, CPU speed is directly related to CPU performance. We don't see so much of a difference today because so many things are video card limited, though some apps, like video or photo or audio-editing apps depend heavily on CPU speed. So while the above post is right, many apps see a huge difference in CPU speeds.

 

[bigKr33]

A little off topic, but does it matter what color slots i put my ram in?

Right now i think they're in the yellow slots on my dfi, but i could be wrong. I forgot sorry, I'm still on vacation and won't be back till new years. When i load optimized defaults on my comp the ram's timings show all auto, but when i checked my cpu-z the timings were specified as 2-3-3-6. If i'm correct, isn't the ram automatically suppose boot up as 1.5-2-2-5 when you load optimized defaults?

Oh well its nothing important.

 

[themusgrat]

I also want to know people's opinions on DDR slots on DFI boards. Even on DFI street, there are differing reports, though I use the orange slots. Go into the BIOS and manually set the timings. There should be a somewhat noticeable jump from 2-3-3-6 to 1.5-2-2-8, and I say 8 as the tras because Anand says that it gives the best bandwidth on nF4 boards.

 

[nealh]

Originally posted by: themusgrat
I also want to know people's opinions on DDR slots on DFI boards. Even on DFI street, there are differing reports, though I use the orange slots. Go into the BIOS and manually set the timings. There should be a somewhat noticeable jump from 2-3-3-6 to 1.5-2-2-8, and I say 8 as the tras because Anand says that it gives the best bandwidth on nF4 boards.

the guys at OCZ who test a ton of ram..recommend yellow slots as they found them best..but whatever works best for you..there is no performance difference

As for ram speeds it has been shown ad nausea that ram speed,bandwidth, Low latency makes very little performance differecnes with a few apps being the acception...CPU mhz is most important

But that said whatever makes you happy ....

Just avoid getting caught in the hype of faster and faster cpu,gpu, better soundcard, tighter ram timings..it really makes so little difference(I guess the videocard is really the only place where it is easy to see performance gains from a single generation..bump with cpu and ram really hard with how fast the processors are)

I wish I had just stayed with my venice and never went DC...with that said..I am like a moron considering getting a Opteron 170 to see if I can get back close to 2700 vs 2600...pretty stupid but the pyschology of this addiction is killing me...beside I want that sweet stepping to be in the "in crowd and lucky"...ha my luck sucks when comes to getting the magic chip.....

 

[RobsTV]

Many overclock to get a faster CPU at a lower price.
But it is better than that.
For example, a stock 3500+ is faster than a stock 3000+ (duh).
You might not notice the difference though.

Now if you take a 3000+ and run it at the same MHz clock speed as the stock 3500+ is running, it will be faster than the stock 3500+, because chances are it will be doing the same MHz at a higher FSB. The higher FSB at the same MHz is why overclocking is better than getting same MHz stock CPU. You still might not notice the difference though, but with an overclocked CPU, you will have a better chance of noticing speed difference because it is faster than stock at same MHz.

Stock $160 Opteron 144 runs 1.8GhZ
Stock $1000 Athlon 64 FX57 runs at 2.8GHz.
Overclock the 144 to 2.7GHz (300x9).
Now the Opteron at 2.7GHz will actually be "faster" then FX 57 at 2.8GHz, because Opteron will be running 300MHz FSB, compared to FX57 running 200MHz FSB.
I would call that great "overclocking effectiveness".