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does overclocking actually make a difference in games?

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J

Jotolicious

I am not JoT
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Joined
Oct 25, 2003
i'm posting this in "Games" cuz this is related to games, although technical question...

ok so i read this thread about "Why you overclock", and i noticed that some said that overclocking has negligible effects on gaming.

is this true!? :confused:

ok i'll give you a real world example: if i OC a 3000+ from 1.8ghz to 2.2ghz what effect will that have in FPS on HL2?

and don't say like 3, cuz holy cow then i'm never going to OC ever :D

thanks :cool:
 
Really depends on the game... What is it that's holding up your framerate? I noticed a BIG speedup when drop-kicking my 2.4C into 3.4ghz speeds. My framerate in FarCry also received a decent speedup when abusing my 3.0ghz with 3.7ghz...

And of course, with higher FSB speeds you can also obtain higher memory speeds (depending on your ram) which can also alter how your games perform. If your game is memory bandwidth limited, that too can help quite noticeably. Same thing goes with overclocking your video card: FarCry immediately became playable at 1600x1200x32 at 4xAA and 8xAF after I unlocked my X800Pro Vivo to the full 16 pipes and ramped the clockspeed up from the stock 475/450 (I think...) speeds to 570/583.

But it all depends on where your bottleneck lies. If you're running Doom3 at 1920x1440 on a GeForce 3 and expect a huge speedup from overclocking your CPU, you'll be sorely disappointed. If you're running HL2 at 512x384x16 on an X850XTPE and expect a huge bump from overclocking your CPU, you will again likely be sorely disappointed.

Know your bottleneck, and you know where to overclock :)
 
interesting...

so let's say system is as follows

3000+
vnf4 ultra
512mb PC3200
6600GT

1.8ghz ---> 2.2ghz ... guess FPS difference in HL2 @ 1280x1024?
 
Blanket statements like "OCing won't make a difference in games" are rarely true. The fact of the matter is it depends on the situation. For example, an area like 'canals' in HL2 is more GPU intensive than CPU. So an overclocked CPU won't help at all if the vid card is choking. On the other hand, the striders are more CPU intensive so OCing will have a positive effect on your fps in scenes with them, unless it's totally overwhelmed to begin with.

That said, in general you should see performance increases in-line with how good of an OC you get. If you take a system and OC the cpu by 30% and you push the fsb by 25% and you say maybe flash a 6800NU from 8 pipes to 16 then you're going to see a world of difference. It'll be completely obvious how much an OC like this would help. I would expect at least a 20% gain in performance in this hypothetical scenario.

Keep in mind that a PC is only as fast as it's slowest part, so OCing any one part may not help if the system is falling short someplace else. But to answer your question yes OCing can definitely help in games, but it doesn't make a difference in every case.
 
Jotolicious said:
interesting...

so let's say system is as follows

3000+
vnf4 ultra
512mb PC3200
6600GT

1.8ghz ---> 2.2ghz ... guess FPS difference in HL2 @ 1280x1024?
Click to expand...

I would say the max difference would be maybe 10% more fps.
 
Jotolicious said:
1.8ghz ---> 2.2ghz ... guess FPS difference in HL2 @ 1280x1024?
Click to expand...

Very hard to estimate. Maybe 10%, maybe 20%, it depends on the rest of your system, your OS and more. Try and benchmark for yourself to find out.
 
Remember that most people overclock their video cards as well. Back in the day, I doubled my FPS in Return to Castle Wolfenstein simply by a 200mhz boost on the CPU and a 200%+ boost on the GPU/MEM clocks on my GF2MX.
 
cool thanks. i guess i'll just have to try and see if i can notice anything. :)
 
Well It some games its a pretty large and others its not. HL2, far Cry, UT2k4 all can see nice gains in FPS. O/Cing is worth it, just find a nice 24/7 stable clock and leave it at that. do not push for more.
 
Like I've always said, it depends on the person. In the past year I've managed to get sme pretty sweet deals on used hardware from client's that were upgrading, at various times. Kinda funny that it all seems to be the same person upgrading though (thanks Mark!). Anywho. Previous to these upgrades I was running with the bargain basement hardware. Celly 900@1200 and a Radeon 9100 64meg, was my gaming system. The gains, gaming wise for me were next to nothing. I could probably go back to the old system, and with about an hour of getting used to it again, play the same as I always have. Some people will get a huge gain wiht a performance increase, whereas others like myself won't notice all that much of a difference.
 
With my XP Mobile 2600+ at stock, FarCry would default to medium settings. When I upped it to 2.6ghz, FarCry then defaulted to high settings, this with using all the other same hardware. So it can make a difference for you too :)
 
i've got one heck of a gaming system (when it isn't acting up...look at my profile)....

I can OC the hell out of my video card, and gain tremendous boosts in 3dmark. But when it comes to real-world games, it just doesn't make much of a difference unless it is a game released within the past 6 or so months. All games before about mid 2004 just don't see much jump in FPS or anything on my rig. They run flat out in the 100+FPS range.

The only games that I have seen benefit really from OC's is Doom3, HL2, and Vampire: Bloodlines. They are the only ones that I have seen, FPS wise, take a good bump from a video card oc.

Example: HL2 (play it all the time)

at stock, I get right around 60FPS in the game. With full pipe and Vertex Unlock (from 12x5 to 16x6) and a full overclock in the range of 400/810, my FPS shoots through the roof to over 120FPS.

However, on previous games that i love to death, say, Dungeon Siege, i start out at max settings at over 130FPS, and a boost in OC takes me up to maybe 150 or 160... not near as large a jump, and totally unnoticable to my eye.
 
cool :cool:

hmm somewhat not related, but how important are "Pixel Pipelines"? i'm debating between 6600GT and X800XL, and i'm wondering how important they are in the long run, longevity wise.
 
Think of it as a highway. If you have a 8 lane highway and a 16 lane, thats a huge increse of number of cars that can be on the road. If you can afford the XL get it. While the 6600GT is a good card, it does not hold a candle to the XL800/6800GT
 
the 6800 is also not a bad card... :sn: its what i have. most of them are great overclockers, and sometimes you can get lucky (like i did) and get an early core that lets you unlock pipelines and vertex
 
Jotolicious said:
cool :cool:

hmm somewhat not related, but how important are "Pixel Pipelines"? i'm debating between 6600GT and X800XL, and i'm wondering how important they are in the long run, longevity wise.
Click to expand...

pixel pipelines determine framerates when AA is enabled and at high res.if it wasnt for the higher number of pipes (and vertex shaders for that matter) in the latest cards an X850XTPE would only be marginally faster than a 9800XT!16 pipelines is recommended if you want doom3, AA enabled and a decent framerate at the same time.even my 12 pipe card begins to chug at anything over 1024res when AA is enabled.8 pipes and 128mb of onboard memory generally cripples framerate when anything resembling eye candy is enabled in the latest games.imagine not being able to get a decent framerate when quake4 is released? overclocking greatly improves performance at high and low res (and i should know! , see sig) particularly in the latest titles but does little when AA is enabled.so i couldnt recommend the 6600gt over the X800XL in good conscience, considering the small price difference, massive performance difference that will only widen as more demanding applications are released and the fact that the X800XL will be viable performance/longevity wise for around 2 years longer than the 6600gt.you should see the X800XL review and compare it with the X700pro and X850XTPE to see what i mean.
 
Last edited:
"does overclocking actually make a difference in games?"

Does giving your car extra power make it accelerate faster?
 
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