Possible to overclock an i5 2500?

[Sonikku]

I'm a 1080p gamer but my i5 2500 is getting kind of long in the tooth for gaming so I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible to take it a little beyond stock speed despite the locked multipliers. (Though it does run Turbo already) I know practically nothing about overclocking however outside of letting some apps/utilities do it so any advice would be appreciated it. I run Windows 7 64 on a H77M motherboard.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/h77m/

Currently paired with 8gb 1066 ram, Crucial SSD, Radeon 7770 (1060 en route for next week)

 

[Ken g6]

You can get 4 bins of overclocking on a Z-series motherboard. On an H-series you can't overclock, beyond a little FSB tweaking that isn't worth the potential problems.

 

[Sonikku]

Ah. Turbo it is then I suppose. How much of a bottleneck would I be looking at with a 1060?

 

[poofyhairguy]

If you game at 60hz than it should be fine with a 1060. Any better GPU would need a CPU upgrade though.

And as a personal note I am rooting for your upgrade given your long road to get there. A 1060 would be a sweet bump.

 

[Sonikku]

Thank you. :thumbsup: In hindsight I wish I had got a 290x for $250 in 2014 and mined all this time but I was not looking back then. By the time I did start looking, last year, everyone was like "wait eight more months for new gpus". By the time I waited eight more months they were never in stock. This was starting to drive me crazy. :'( In the end I had to use instocknow plus settle for the bad guy brand just to have it over and done with already. Though had I known about all the tricks and apps a little sooner I probably would have nabbed an XFX reference 480 for $200 at launch, unlocked to 8gb vram and gotten into mining. Ah well. You live and you learn, right?

 

[Sheep221]

get 3770K used they are dirt cheap and will boost your performance by a huge margin if you overclock

 

[Sonikku]

It doesn't sound like my board can OC much in any event. I guess it won't be an issue for 1080p 60hz gaming anyhow.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Thank you. :thumbsup: In hindsight I wish I had got a 290x for $250 in 2014 and mined all this time but I was not looking back then. By the time I did start looking, last year, everyone was like "wait eight more months for new gpus". By the time I waited eight more months they were never in stock. This was starting to drive me crazy. :'( In the end I had to use instocknow plus settle for the bad guy brand just to have it over and done with already. Though had I known about all the tricks and apps a little sooner I probably would have nabbed an XFX reference 480 for $200 at launch, unlocked to 8gb vram and gotten into mining. Ah well. You live and you learn, right?

I feel you. I could have bought a 8GB 290X for less than what my 970 cost when I got the 970. I went with green because up until that point I was a Nvidia fanboy (I will admit it) for over a decade and I didn't have the best experience with my 7850. Then later we learned about async and how poorly Maxwell does in Directx 12 and I felt like I had bought a ticket on the titanic. I lost about $70 worth of value dumping that 970 and getting a 390x instead.

It's hard to know sometimes what is the best choice to make, all we can do is the best we can based on the information we have at the time.