Is it worth overclocking?

[sKERAS]

Hello everyone, so I have and AMD A8-5600K processor which is factory clocked to 3.6gHz.
I have a stock cooler but I'm thinking to buy a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO which costs about 30$.
So is it worth upgrading my cooler and overclocking this processor? Right now I'm playing Battalion 1944 which is running fine but the CPU is bottle-necking a bit.
So i though maybe an overclock could help me a bit?
My spec's are -
GPU - GTX 1050
CPU - AMD A8-5600K
RAM - 8GB BALLISTIX DD3
MB - ASUS A88XM-PLUS
PSU - Corsair CX430 430W

 

[Nebulous]

Welcome to OCF!

There are some limiting factors with your system and an overclock. First off that CX430w psu might not be up to the task. Second that ASUS A88XM-PLUS board is low budget and might not have the capability for an overclock.
I can't seem to find any type of review of it with bios pictures to see.

In short; I would doubt you'll be able to get any type of overclock from that system. You might try lowering the graphics card settings in the game to see if it will raise up your framerates.

I'm sure someone with more of AMD experience will chime in with better info as I haven't messed with an AMD system since my s939 days.

 

[EarthDog]

PSU should be. Its an APU (100W) and a GTX 1050 (75W).

Mobo is 6-phase... not sure what they are, likely cheap, but, it should still handle a minor overclock at least.

 

[Nebulous]

PSU should be. Its an APU (100W) and a GTX 1050 (75W).

Mobo is 6-phase... not sure what they are, likely cheap, but, it should still handle a minor overclock at least.

Hmm..I must be losing my touch, lol.

 

[trents]

I would give it a try. Should be no problem with the PSU since the GTX 1060 GPU is pretty power efficient and you won't be overclocking it. And if the CPU is only causing a little throttle as you say then some overclock could fix that. But you will need better cooling than the stock HSF. The motherboard has a heat sink on the VRM so that's a plus.

That CPUs in that series were not great overclockers but you should be able to get it to 4.3 or so anyway: https://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/amd_a8_5600k_trinity_review,5.html

What is the frequency of your DDR3 memory?

 

[sKERAS]

I'm not sure but I think it's 1600mHz

 

[trents]

You can run the free program CPU-z and it will tell you about your memory in the "Memory" and the "SPD" tab. You will need that program if you are overclocking anyway.

 

[sKERAS]

https://gyazo.com/ada004ac79a79174aa28b75fa5416ccd

https://gyazo.com/c9d42d2750329596e3589b5e4bc47f71

 

[trents]

Yes, 1600 mhz. The CPU-z memory tab reports what appears to be half the memory speed but it is reporting the memory bus speed not the DDR (Double Data Rate) so whatever it says just double. The SPD tab will give you more information about the memory with regard to factory voltages and timings.

By the way, we would prefer you directly attach pics to your posts rather than link them. This is easy to do. First, use Windows Snipping Tool to crop and save the pics. Then click on the "Go Advanced" button in the lower right corner of any new post window. That will take you to a built in forum tool for locating and attaching pics to your posts.

 

[sKERAS]

ty for the advice, so what's your opinion, should I try oc'ing it?

 

[trents]

Like I said in post #5, I would give it a try. You have nothing to lose and the potential for some gain. You'll need to gather some software tools.

One issue with that AMD CPU series is that the temp monitoring software we typically use (CPUid "HWMonitor") doesn't report the CPU core/package temps accurately.

I would suggest downloading and installing AMDOverdrive which correctly monitors temps and also has a built in stress tester. You can also use AMDOD to overclock the CPU from within Windows. Not something we normally recommend doing but it may be a good place to start for you. Then you can transfer the overclock settings to the bios if you want to or just tell AMDOD to load those values when Windows starts up.