To overclock or not to overclock

[ZachTheMiscreant]

ok so i have a xeon x3470 (spare me the bullshit i know its old) and i can get it to a stable 3.6ghz overclock but i was curious if it would be better to leave it stock and just let it turbo on its on instead of using a static overclock would it be faster? would it stutter more if i use turbo mode? ive always overclocked and never left a cpu stock just curious about your guys opinions on the matter

[Windows7ge]

Overclocking a chip beyond stock (beyond base/turbo) you are making it faster than it otherwise would be. There isn't a magic sauce that would make the stock turbo "better (faster)" where you gain is stability. If you can make your own OC 100% stable and it's well in excess of the stock turbo then you have a much faster chip.

[ZachTheMiscreant]

wow this forum must be poppin you replied fast thanks for the advice i think ill take the time to overclock again

 

[UrbanFreestyle]

I used to overclock a lot and chase the mhz but now i tend to use stock with turbo for ease and power consideration.

[Fasauceome]

15 minutes ago, ZachTheMiscreant said:

spare me the bullshit i know its old

We got plenty of forum users repping some old tech

 

[ZachTheMiscreant]

only problem i have with leaving it stock is its an old ass cpu and i think it would be best to get the most out of it considering im guna be playing RDR2 when it releases on pc next month

[Princess Luna]

7 minutes ago, ZachTheMiscreant said:

only problem i have with leaving it stock is its an old ass cpu and i think it would be best to get the most out of it considering im guna be playing RDR2 when it releases on pc next month

You will not be able to play Red Dear Redemption 2 on this processor regardless of overclocking it or not either ways.

 

The absolute minimum CPU requirement for the game is listed as the i5 2500K which is a 3.7ghz 4 cores processor on the 32nm architecture.

 

What you have is a 3.6ghz 4 cores processor on the 45nm architecture.

 

Not meeting the minimum CPU requirement on this known to be *very* demanding game is a pretty bad start.

[ZachTheMiscreant]

that wont stop me from going to pirate bay and giving it a shot lol

[Zando_]

16 minutes ago, ZachTheMiscreant said:

only problem i have with leaving it stock is its an old ass cpu and i think it would be best to get the most out of it considering im guna be playing RDR2 when it releases on pc next month

You'll defo get much better perf with a manual OC. Though stock turbo is 3.6GHz (I don't know if that's one or all cores though), you can probably push it a good bit higher. Most of this older stuff clocks well AFAIK. Though I've mostly ran HEDT stuff. On my HEDT stuff I usually can push far, far beyond stock boost. My X5670 (32nm 6c/12t on Westmere-EP) I got to 4.54Ghz, almost 4.74 but I didn't get that 100% stable before I moved to X99. The stock boost on that CPU is 2.93Ghz IIRC, so that's over 1.5GHz on top of the stock boost. Boost on my 5820K is 3.6GHz IIRC, I run that at 4.6Ghz daily, so a full 1Ghz boost over stock. 

Here's your CPU: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/42932/intel-xeon-processor-x3470-8m-cache-2-93-ghz.html

@Fasauceome It's LGA1156, IDK the chipsets for that but X58/5520 is built off the LGA1366 socket. This is still a 45nm chip though, I assume it'd perform similarly to the 45nm i7s on X58. I just don't know how to OC on the LGA1156 platform or if it changed at all from X58. 

4 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

You will not be able to play Red Dear Redemption 2 on this processor regardless of overclocking it or not either ways.

 

The absolute minimum CPU requirement for the game is listed as the i5 2500K which is a 3.7ghz 4 cores processor on the 32nm architecture.

 

What you have is a 3.6ghz 4 cores processor on the 45nm architecture.

 

Not meeting the minimum CPU requirement on this known to be *very* demanding game is a pretty bad start.

Can still try it, and you can probably push these CPUs to around 4Ghz if they're anything like the HEDT versions, maybe 4.2. 

1 minute ago, ZachTheMiscreant said:

that wont stop me from going to pirate bay and giving it a shot lol

You do you, but I wouldn't advise pirating. If you like a game then buy it to at least support the devs building it (even if you don't like the company, they're still the ones employing developers). If you don't like it enough to pay for it then you don't need it. 

[ZachTheMiscreant]

trust me if i could afford to support the devs but i cant also im using a budget air cooler and i had a static clock of 3.6ghz running stable but when i would run the cpuz stress test the temps would be around 80c max if i go any higher of a clock i might fry my cpu then ill be back to using my i5 750 maybe one of theses days ill get one of those noctua coolers and get to 4ghz clock but not anytime soon and what do you guys think the highest temps i could go on this cpu would be within reason

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, ZachTheMiscreant said:

trust me if i could afford to support the devs but i cant also im using a budget air cooler and i had a static clock of 3.6ghz running stable but when i would run the cpuz stress test the temps would be around 80c max if i go any higher of a clock i might fry my cpu then ill be back to using my i5 750 maybe one of theses days ill get one of those noctua coolers and get to 4ghz clock but not anytime soon and what do you guys think the highest temps i could go on this cpu would be within reason

You're on 45nm, again if they're anything like the HEDT lads then they're basically tanks. You can feed them up to 1.4-1.425v, even Intel's own spec says you can give them up to 1.5v (again this is HEDT but I assume it's similar on this platform). Ofc your cooler won't handle that, but the point is they don't really cook easily. As for safe temps, I'd say up to 95C is fine. That's very hot, but not throttling/damaging the CPU hot. Also that's in stress testing, games usually don't push the CPU as hard. 

[ZachTheMiscreant]

man thats really hard to believe everywhere else ive read said that 80c is pushing it but if your right i could probably get to 3.8ghz stable i was just really worried about temps like i said i dont want to fry my new old cpu is there any proof you could give me that would show i could run my cpu in the 90c range?

[Zando_]

10 minutes ago, ZachTheMiscreant said:

man thats really hard to believe everywhere else ive read said that 80c is pushing it but if your right i could probably get to 3.8ghz stable i was just really worried about temps like i said i dont want to fry my new old cpu

They throttle at 100C, which is the unsafe temp for most Intel chips. The 90s are darned hot but not going to kill your CPU (heck, even laptop CPUs run at 93-98 under 100% load and keep kicking for years). If you're pushing above 90C in games I'd bring it back down a bit, but in stress tests that's fine. 

[ZachTheMiscreant]

alright well ill give it a shot later thanks for the info man i really appreciate it

 

[ZachTheMiscreant]

well i got my cpu to 4ghz and i was getting temps as you described but my cpu died and i had to go back to my i5 750 so now i have to buy another xeon :(

[ZachTheMiscreant]

well fuck you too