When to overclock?

[Drawbar]

Is there any benefit to overclocking your CPU for gaming when it keeps the GPU at 95%+ most all the time?

 

I've got two systems, one is a R7 1700/GTX 1070ti, the other is a R5 2600x/RTX 2080. Memory in both is at 3200mhz.

 

Crankin' up the CPU speed does almost nothing for Heaven benchmarks or cinebench open gl, big difference in cinebench cpu for the R7 tho.

 

Seems all I'm doing is makin' more heat, or am I missing something?

[nick name]

You're not missing anything.  If you're not running a FPS counter or benchmarks then you probably wouldn't notice a difference.  You'll certainly get more performance with an overclock -- it just won't be noticeable unless you measure it.  

[jones177]

I only overclock when needed. 

For example I played Assassin's Creed Odyssey on ultra at 4k. I like to keep the frame rate over 60fps. Since it is a CPU intensive game I can only stay over 60 with a 5hz overclock.  The overclock also keeps any CPU lows above 60fps so the experience is totally smooth. 

 

The only game I have tested over the years with different CPUs has been Skyrim. With a i7 2600k the CPU lows were in the 30s and an overclock did not bring the lows high enough not to feel them so my overclock was pointless for that game. With an i7 6700k the CPU lows were in the 40s and a slight overclock got it so you saw the lows on the counter but did not feel them in the game. The overclock was a success. With an i7 8700k Skyrim was totally smooth without an overclock. So my overclock was needed for other games.

 

My overclocks now are to feed the RTX 2080 tis. In some games and benches the 2080 tis can't reach their power limit without a 5ghz all core overclock. I did not have this issue with the GTX 1080 ti so this was new to me. My i7 8700k was not a good overclocker and could not reach 5ghz so it severely bottlenecked the 2080 ti. I even thought the 2080 ti was defective but when I put it in my 5ghz i7 8086k rig it ran perfectly.

 

There are only a few hard to run games that I actually need the CPU overclocks but since my computers are running cool I leave them on.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[.Apex.]

1 hour ago, Drawbar said:

Heaven benchmarks or cinebench open gl

Both of those are very very light on the CPU, they almost exclusively only utilize the GPU
 

1 hour ago, Drawbar said:

Seems all I'm doing is makin' more heat, or am I missing something?

If you're already achieving 95%+ on the GPU, then overclocking the CPU does nothing, it's only when the GPU is under utilized that a CPU overclock would benefit it