Will overclocking give me a noticeable boost in gaming?

[Medellon]

Right now I have an Athlon 2100+ overclocked to about 2600+ paired with a Radeon 9800 Pro. I am considering getting a Mobile Athlon 2600+ to overclock. Since I have a decent video card will I see my FPS increase noticeably in games? I don't want tp spend the 90 or so bucks if my improvement will be a couple FPS.

 

[byosys]

It really depends on how much of an OC you can get. If you can only get 100MHz, then no, you won't see any increase. If you get closer to 400-500 MHz OC, then yea, you will see an increase.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If you can get 2.4-2.5ghz out of it, then combined with the bigger cache it should make a nice upgrade. You could also sell your 2100+ and recoupe around half the money invested too

 

[Medellon]

I am running 11x190 right now and can't seem to get it much higher. I can up the multiplier but I have to lower the FSB to get it stable and I have found these settings to perform the best. I have Kingston HyperX PC-3000 ram and that seems to be holding me back a bit. Also my 2100+ doesn't seem to be a real good overclocker as I have a pretty good HSF combo. I'm figuring I can get an increase of about 300 MHz with the new chip. Also, since this new chip is an XP whereas my old one isn't, this should help the performance slightly.

 

[Avalon]

If you're resident in the US, don't even bother with a mobile 2600+. Get a 35w 2400+ mobile instead, as those are the most consistent overclockers and are cheaper than a 2600+.

 

[FlameDeer]

Getting a mobile 2400+ and pushing it to 2.4-2.5GHz, will give your system a boost with reasonable price.

 

[Optimummind]

As someone mentioned before, you won't see a noticeable and "feelable" difference unless your OC jump is relatively high.

When it comes to gaming, however, your CPU isn't everything. If you have a narrow FSB pathway, a slow HDD with only 2mb of cache, a slow GPU, etec, then even the CPU OC won't have much impact. Also, adding more RAM can have a larger impact than increasing your CPU speed.

It's all about the balance between all components.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

It depends on what games you play. If you play a CPU-dependent game, then you will definitely see a nice increase on your FRAPS average from your cpu overclock.