Is it worth overclocking my CPU?

[Mot666]

Hi there! First post. I'm looking for an in game performance boost. I was going to upgrade to an FX8370, but then I thought "What if I overclock?" I was looking at getting the CM Hyper 212x regardless of overclock or not, I hate the stock fan, its louder than the sound in game sometimes.
Or is the graphics card where I should be focusing?

AMD FX6300 Black Ed.
Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P Motherboard (rev. 1.0)
Sapphire Radeon R7 265 Dual-X 2GB
8GB DDR3 G.Skill Ripjaws
Corsair Force Series LX 256GB SSD
Thermaltake 650W Toughpower Gold
Coolermaster N400 Mid Tower Case

Cheers

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I wouldn't push past 4GHz with your CPU/motherboard combo, but an overclock would definitely get you a performance boost.
I also wouldn't run an FX octo core on that board.

There's also a lot to be gained from a better graphics card here.

 

[Mot666]

So graphics card it is then. What motherboard would be better for running an octo fx and oc'ing? Or should I jump ship and buy a cheaper Intel if I'm gonna buy a new m/b? Sorry, I find trawling the internet for info on these things trying at best, and am a little overwhelmed by the numbers of options these days...

 

[Mr.Scott]

New GPU first.
If you intend to upgrade anything other than that, switch to Intel.

 

[M@rk]

New GPU first.
If you intend to upgrade anything other than that, switch to Intel.

+1
Wait for the RX480 if you want a good and pretty cheap GPU.
Also if you buy the hyper 212 you can use it with a skylake mobo too.

 

[Mot666]

point taken on the rx didnt know that was even coming. so which intel would i buy to upgrade? it used to be easy to work out what to buy...
also, say i oc my fx6300 in the mean time, how is overclocking to 4ghz going to be a boost when it spends a lot of its time turbo-ed to 4.1 stock?

 

[Mr.Scott]

To be perfectly honest, overclocking a CPU will only net you a couple FPS at best case scenario. IMO, not worth the effort. Smarter move is to buy the best GPU you can afford and OC that if you can.

i5 or i7 is the gamers choice right now.

 

[Mot666]

i did see that most oc'ed cpus were only a few fps faster during my research today, i was a little confused i thought overclocking would give more of a boost. thanks for the input guys, much appreciated. i'm in oddstralia so i'll probably be ordering my rx from overseas. apparently they're not going to be 300 of our dollars like the conversion rate implies they would be. oh well.

 

[M@rk]

i did see that most oc'ed cpus were only a few fps faster during my research today, i was a little confused i thought overclocking would give more of a boost. thanks for the input guys, much appreciated. i'm in oddstralia so i'll probably be ordering my rx from overseas. apparently they're not going to be 300 of our dollars like the conversion rate implies they would be. oh well.

Good luck!

I would buy a core i5 6500, its good enough for todays gaming and will serve you even better when dx12 games will be the majority of the game market.

 

[chrisjames61]

A good overclock can give a massive boost in a cpu bound scenario. My 8320 stock is 3.5 GHZ. I have it clocked to 4.7 GHz. The math alone should show you how substantial the gains can be.

 

[Mr.Scott]

A good overclock can give a massive boost in a cpu bound scenario. My 8320 stock is 3.5 GHZ. I have it clocked to 4.7 GHz. The math alone should show you how substantial the gains can be.

Normally I agree with you most times, but in a gaming situation there are more variables. Your overclock will yield only about 3 FPS increase in an average scenario. Hardly worth the effort and stress on the system when a better GPU even bottlenecked will get you much more FPS.

 

[EarthDog]

Normally I agree with you most times, but in a gaming situation there are more variables. Your overclock will yield only about 3 FPS increase in an average scenario. Hardly worth the effort and stress on the system when a better GPU even bottlenecked will get you much more FPS.

Depends on the title... and particularly with AMD processors. Intel its a different story (as you are saying).

Go check out a few game reviews at techspot and you will see many more games respond to overclocking AMD CPUs than Intel CPUs. Or it gets the AMD CPU to Intel levels.

Still I would get a GPU and overclock existing AMD CPU though.

Quick example: http://www.techspot.com/review/1096-star-wars-battlefront-benchmarks/page3.html

 

[Mr.Scott]

Depends on the title... and particularly with AMD processors. Intel its a different story.

Go check out a few game reviews at techspot and you will see many more games respond to overclocking AMD CPUs than Intel CPUs. Or it gets the AMD CPU to Intel levels.

Still I would get a GPU and overclock existing AMD CPU though.


Quick example: http://www.techspot.com/review/1096-star-wars-battlefront-benchmarks/page3.html

Variables.
For the most part I do agree with you though.
In the OP's case though, just overclocking the CPU will not yield as many FPS as he's wanting/expecting. It now becomes an effort vs. reward thing.

 

[EarthDog]

I guess the point I was contending was this one:

Your overclock will yield only about 3 FPS increase in an average scenario.

Being an AMD processor, in many titles it yields a lot more than that. Still, go GPU (AND overclock the CPU), but, it's more than that (and I hate FPS versus % mentions - 3 FPS from 30 means a lot more than 3 FPS from 100, 10% versus 3% gains).

My apologies to you Mr S for being my way too literal self this morning, LOL!

 

[Mr.Scott]

I guess the point I was contending was this one:
Being an AMD processor, in many titles it yields a lot more than that. Still, go GPU (AND overclock the CPU), but, it's more than that (and I hate FPS versus % mentions - 3 FPS from 30 means a lot more than 3 FPS from 100, 10% versus 3% gains).

My apologies to you Mr S for being my way too literal self this morning, LOL!

No apology necessary. I knew exactly what you were getting at.