how much does overclocking help?

[MKSanic]

how much does overclocking the cpu and gpu help in terms of fps?

[Nena Trinity]

If CPU bound quite a bit, if GPU bound not nothing at all?

[Haro]

There are a lot more things than "overclocking"

What cpu ? 

What board ? 

What overclocking?

[Stahlmann]

While completely GPU bound the max stable overclock with air cooling on my GPU increases FPS by 5-10% depending on the game. CPU overclocking can vary a lot depending on the CPU and if you're talking about AMD or Intel. With AMD in gaming you're not getting much if anything at all. With Intel you can get big jumps because they have a lot of OC potential (basically each K-CPU of 10th gen will perform equal to the 9900K when overclocked).

 

My general opinion: On AMD not worth the hassle, on Intel definetly worth it. With GPUs it's very easy (just a few mouse clicks for simple OC) and because of that definetly worth it too.

[NineEyeRon]

It might help you get a bit more out of a better GPU but nothing life changing.

CPU bound games I have found it helps a lot but so does the stock boost these days.

 

[D13H4RD]

For CPUs, it depends on the platform. 

 

On AMD Ryzen, manual overclocking is largely pointless. There is a performance boost sure but it's largely confined to single digit gains and mostly in benchmarks. You're better off switching on Precision Boost Overdrive if you want that little extra, and even then, the boost is quite minimal. You actually get a more significant boost with faster IF clocks (also as a result of fast memory) with tuned timings. 

 

On Intel, because they have a large headroom for overclocking at the expense of thermals and power budget, assuming you've got the cooler to handle it, you can actually push it quite far whilst maintaining stability. 

 

For GPUs, I can't really comment on Radeon but I have not really found a point to overclocking on an NVIDIA GPU as of late, mostly because GPU Boost has largely taken care of that. 

[Chris Pratt]

It depends on a ton of factors: the silicone lottery, quality of board and VRMs, etc. However, currently it's probably not going to do much for you. AMD’s Zen2 doesn't have much OC overhead. You might eek out an extra 100-150MHz, but that's about it. It also generally works against you, somewhat, at least with things that still depend on single core performance like gaming. For example, you could probably all-core OC a 3700x to 4.2-4.3, but a single core may boost on it's own to 4.4 or 4.5. By all-core overclocking, you're actually worsening your single core performance. On the Intel side, the 10th gen 14++++++++++++++++ (is that enough pluses?) are so micro-optimized already, you also don't get much from OC any more.

 

As far as the graphics card goes, you *may* get something there. Some of the higher end cards still seem to OC really well. In the mid-range, though, they've pretty much all been artificially hobbled with power limits and such to keep them from getting too close to their more expensive siblings. The 5600 XT and 2060 KO for example neither will OC at all - maybe 30-50MHz max.

 

The simple fact is that the heady days of glorious OCs are probably behind us. CPUs and GPUs to a lesser extent are all so highly optimized and effectively do their own overclocking, smartly, based on conditions. It's almost better to just let them do their thing, and not worry about it. You may be able to do better manually, but it's going to likely require significant time and effort that probably won't be worth more than bragging rights.

[marti23]

Usually its around 5-10% I would say, but it depends on the cpu and gpu. Not gonna go more into it, because are better explanations from the other people