Do I need to overclock my CPU?

[83y]

Apparently my CPU is limiting my GPU's potential, heres the previous thread, is this true?

So I made this thread. If I did need to overclock it, where would the best place go to overclock a Ryzen 5 3600 

[Mark Kaine]

2 minutes ago, 83y said:

Apparently my CPU is limiting my GPU's potential, heres the previous thread, is this true?

So I made this thread. If I did need to overclock it, where would the best place go to overclock a Ryzen 5 3600 

Nope, shouldn't really bottleneck anything, I have a 3600 and a 3070 and so far the only "bottleneck" ive encountered was the GPU...

 

Also Ryzen overclocking is difficult and the benefits are at least questionable.

 

[Doug_Dangger]

Overclocking isn't really worth it IMO.

300-400mhz overclock is not noticeable.

Most people buy them for flexing.

That way they can tell their friends that they have a K processor, high end Z motherboard and a tri fan liquid cooling system.

 

Same with gpus.  GPUs today have built in boosting features that does a good job.  I have an old 1070 and it auto boosts to about 1,750mhz.

I've been able to overclock it at a stable 2050mhz and I don't notice a big difference in performance.  What I do see is 83C @ 2050mhz and 68C @ 1750mhz

[Mister Woof]

9 minutes ago, Doug_Dangger said:

Overclocking isn't really worth it IMO.

300-400mhz overclock is not noticeable.

Most people buy them for flexing.

That way they can tell their friends that they have a K processor, high end Z motherboard and a tri fan liquid cooling system.

 

Same with gpus.  GPUs today have built in boosting features that does a good job.  I have an old 1070 and it auto boosts to about 1,750mhz.

I've been able to overclock it at a stable 2050mhz and I don't notice a big difference in performance.  What I do see is 83C @ 2050mhz and 68C @ 1750mhz

Half the time is efficiency. Often, an overclocked system will run at higher frequency with less voltage and heat than stock.

 

Of course you can do that with just undervolting, but still.
 

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, Doug_Dangger said:

Same with gpus.

The overclocking thing sometimes gets pretty bizarre too *buys 3090 and "overclocks the shit out of it"* 

 

 "like why... lol"

 

Me, I undervolted my card and "accidentally" also upped the frequency a litte, so its now boosting higher, with lower temps and less power usage (although Im not quite sure how that works, power consumption is about 270w with or without undervolt, I think thats just the power limit kicking in, but then again GPUz never says power limit with the undervolt, I think it could do a lot more if it wasnt for the pesky power limit therefore, but if that'd help is another question…)

[Mister Woof]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

The overclocking thing sometimes gets pretty bizarre too *buys 3090 and "overclocks the shit out of it"* 

 

 "like why... lol"

 

Me, I undervolted my card and "accidentally" also upped the frequency a litte, so its now boosting higher, with lower temps and less power usage (although Im not quite sure how that works, power consumption is about 270w with or without undervolt, I think thats just the power limit kicking in, but then again GPUz never says power limit with the undervolt, I think it could do a lot more if it wasnt for the pesky power limit therefore, but if that'd help is another question…)

You're getting more frequency for longer with the same power when you undervolt.

 

If you want to reduce overall power usage you need to reduce the power limit, or underclock it. Or both.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

10 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

You're getting more frequency for longer with the same power when you undervolt.

 

If you want to reduce overall power usage you need to reduce the power limit, or underclock it. Or both.

 

 

Oh, I see, yeah, I figured that.

But wasnt sure, because with my undervolt there are no perf limits in gpuz whatsoever, only idle obviously, but at stock i get them *all* vrel, pwr...

So I thought its maybe just more efficient with the undervolt...

But its still using above 270w sometimes, so...  

[Mister Woof]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

Oh, I see, yeah, I figured that.

But wasnt sure, because with my undervolt there are no perf limits in gpuz whatsoever, only idle obviously, but at stock i get them all vrel, pwr...

So I thought its maybe just more efficient with the undervolt...

But its still using above 270w sometimes, so...  

it will boost as high and as long as it can until it hits the power limit - if you need .9v to get 2000mhz instead of 1v to get 2000mhz, you'll run out of power budget at 1v/2000mhz sooner and it will throttle. In both cases you'll run to the power limit. So if you want to reduce power usage you need to reduce power limit, which will stop it sooner, or you reduce frequency, which will naturally put a cap on how much power is drawn when it hits that frequency 

 

 

[freeagent]

You don’t need to overclock. Especially just to play a game.. modern hardware is pretty strong. Especially if you are buying at or near flagship levels. And even then midrange stuff is pretty decent too. People used to buy cheaper hardware to oc to or beyond flagship levels. Now it seems it’s just to brag, because lots of overclockers are not posting at hwbot, only in forums..

 

Just an observation :D

[Mister Woof]

1 minute ago, freeagent said:

You don’t need to overclock. Especially just to play a game.. modern hardware is pretty strong. Especially if you are buying at or near flagship levels. And even then midrange stuff is pretty decent too. People used to buy cheaper hardware to oc to or beyond flagship levels. Now it seems it’s just to brag, because lots of overclockers are not posting at hwbot, only in forums..

 

Just an observation

It's definitely a component. Mostly harmless though, as long as you are trying to be helpful. It's just like cars, guns, whatever. Enthusiasts are just that way.

[Mark Kaine]

1 minute ago, Mister Woof said:

it will boost as high and as long as it can until it hits the power limit - if you need .9v to get 2000mhz instead of 1v to get 2000mhz, you'll run out of power budget at 1v/2000mhz sooner and it will throttle. In both cases you'll run to the power limit. So if you want to reduce power usage you need to reduce power limit, which will stop it sooner, or you reduce frequency, which will naturally put a cap on how much power is drawn when it hits that frequency 

 

 

yeah, right , i should , but i dont - i think maybe thats just another bug in gpuz etc maybe? Because it goes to say ~277w it should say "power limit" or something. Or are you saying it doesnt because the power limit is actually higher in that case - but I think thats a hard limit in BIOS (officially 270w)?

[Mister Woof]

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

yeah, right , i should , but i dont - i think maybe thats just another bug in gpuz etc maybe? Because it goes to say ~277w it should say "power limit" or something. Or are you saying it doesnt because the power limit is actually higher in that case - but I think thats a hard limit in BIOS (officially 270w)?

could be listed as power limit or reliability voltage 

[freeagent]

2 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

It's definitely a component. Mostly harmless though, as long as you are trying to be helpful. It's just like cars, guns, whatever. Enthusiasts are just that way.

For sure, I run the shit out of my system and mostly just post at forums lol.. I do game sometimes and I do like to bench when the mood strikes. But even on my rig stock is perfectly fine.. old habits die hard 

[Mark Kaine]

2 minutes ago, freeagent said:

You don’t need to overclock. Especially just to play a game.. modern hardware is pretty strong. Especially if you are buying at or near flagship levels. And even then midrange stuff is pretty decent too. People used to buy cheaper hardware to oc to or beyond flagship levels. Now it seems it’s just to brag, because lots of overclockers are not posting at hwbot, only in forums..

 

Just an observation

The problem is OP seems to run into some occasional "cpu bottleneck" but the question is why, whats running in background etc? And also would a 100-200mhz (realistically) OC actually do anything in these cases?

 

Imo probably some system optimization would make more sense. Probably!?

[Mister Woof]

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

The problem is OP seems to run into some occasional "cpu bottleneck" but the question is why, whats running in background etc? And also would a 100-200mhz (realistically) OC actually do anything in these cases?

 

Imo probably some system optimization would make more sense. Probably!?

Depends on the game. If it's MMOs - there will certainly be times when GPU is just chillin' and a CPU overclock can help. Or at least a faster CPU, which in the case of Ryzen, usually is the case.

[freeagent]

I haven’t had a gpu strong enough for my cpu to bottleneck it for a very long time.. if ever

[Mark Kaine]

3 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

Depends on the game. If it's MMOs - there will certainly be times when GPU is just chillin' and a CPU overclock can help. Or at least a faster CPU, which in the case of Ryzen, usually is the case.

I dunno check the other thread, looks like FPS shooter and minecraft to me, but i dont play those.

[Mister Woof]

21 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I dunno check the other thread, looks like FPS shooter and minecraft to me, but i dont play those.

I can see it helping competitive FPS gains

[Mark Kaine]

4 hours ago, freeagent said:

because lots of overclockers are not posting at hwbot, only in forums..

Hear me out... the solution is undervolting… who gets the highest frequencies with the lowest volt…  the true heroes of hour time! 

 

Like for example I get 1380mhz at 0.756v  with my 3070* (i think it goes a lot higher though actually, like 1850, but cant find a reference for this right now)

 

*I also really suck at oc cpus, my thing are gpus

 

4 hours ago, Mister Woof said:

I can see it helping competitive FPS gains

Maybe but with FPS' FPS the problem is they all play unlocked, so he oc and gets 5FPS more - great!  - but hes still going to run into that exact same "1core maxed bottleneck" its a battle you cannot win, imo..

[Mister Woof]

2 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Hear me out... the solution is undervolting… who gets the highest frequencies with the lowest volt…  the true heroes of hour time! 

 

Like for example I get 1380mhz at 0.756v  with my 3070* (i think it goes a lot higher though actually, like 1850, but cant find a reference for this right now)

 

*I also really suck at oc cpus, my thing are gpus

 

Maybe but with FPS' FPS the problem is they all play unlocked, so he oc and gets 5FPS more - great!  - but hes still going to run into that exact same "1core maxed bottleneck" its a battle you cannot win, imo..

Overclocking components yields gains that vary, for sure. I've found that in MMO games it makes a difference, and it can probably squeeze a few frames out of competitive FPS as well. Although a lot of this depends on how conservatively CPUs were to begin with.

 

I think as time goes by, overclocking itself is not as profitable in modern parts. There's little to gain on either 11th gen or 4th gen CPUs, because these chips are plenty fast out of the box. But there's still some gains, and there's still some tweaks that the user can make to improve performance and make things work the way they want them to.

 

What is important is that usually by overclocking, users learn a a lot about how their systems work. That knowledge has value.

 

If people just set it and forget it, they might not learn as much as they could about their machines.

 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

3 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

But there's still some gains, and there's still some tweaks that the user can make to improve performance and make things work the way they want them to.

 

What is important is that usually by overclocking, users learn a a lot about how their systems work. That knowledge has value.

 

If people just set it and forget it, they might not learn as much as they could about their machines.

yes, sure and i know, but my point was a bit of overclocking wont get rid of the perceived "bottleneck" - idk if there is a bottleneck but in that screenshot one core is definitely hopelessly maxed out, you see, its still going to be like that, just a few seconds later perhaps.

 

But if theres something going on in the background like recording, eliminating that *could* maybe free up 20% or more thus getting rid of the bottleneck - maybe.

 

Can do both of course , hah.

 

[Mister Woof]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

yes, sure and i know, but my point was a bit of overclocking wont get rid of the perceived "bottleneck" - idk if there is a bottleneck but in that screenshot one core is definitely hopelessly maxed out, you see, its still going to be like that, just a few seconds later perhaps.

 

But if theres something going on in the background like recording, eliminating that *could* maybe free up 20% or more thus getting rid of the bottleneck - maybe.

 

Can do both of course , hah.

 

But it improves it. I've seen it. It depends on what you're starting off with. I noticed significant improvement on my Ryzen 5 1600 when comparing stock to overclocked, especially in MMOs.

 

But that's more to the fact at stock values, the 1600 would operate at around 3.3ghz. With the overclock, it was 4ghz. That's a 700mhz improvement.

 

Saw a good improvement from my 8700k at 4.3ghz --> 5ghz. Again, 700mhz.

 

My i9-10900KF? 4.9ghz to 5.1ghz isn't nearly as significant. 200mhz won't make or break anything.

 

The problem you're presenting is that if it doesn't 100% solve the problem it's not worth it - and I believe that's an error in thought process.

 

No, you probably won't gain 20% over stock. But that's not realistic to start with. Gain 10-15%? Yeah, that's more reasonable and within the realm of possibility. Instead of your GPU capping out in the 70% utilization range, maybe you're in the 80s or touching 90. That's a worthy improvement for almost no cost to you.

 

10% gain doesn't seem like a lot....maybe it isn't. But then again, the RTX 3090 is only 10-15% better than an RTX 3080 - and the same goes for a 6800XT -> 6900XT. 

If you can overclock any one of your components to become 10% better than it was, that difference is enough of a performance increase to parallel the performance increase in going up an entire tier of product.

[freeagent]

46 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

*I also really suck at oc cpus, my thing are gpus

Ahh don't say that. If you can OC a GPU, you can OC the rest of the system, its basically the same thing.. mostly.. sorta..

 

I have not tried to undervolt this CPU, but I can run it at 4650 @ 1.25v before turning on PBO, my FIT is 1.243v . So that suits me just fine. I don't mind losing that little bit on top for what I gain everywhere else.. Temps are quite manageable, cooler, and using less power than if I let it do its own thing.. 

 

OCing makes an efficient ( or inefficient) system better, faster, leaner.. snappier.. I am a big proponent for it.

 

I have a 5900 in my cart right now, but am being a big chicken just incase I cant cool it lol..

[Mark Kaine]

4 hours ago, freeagent said:

Ahh don't say that. If you can OC a GPU, you can OC the rest of the system, its basically the same thing.. mostly.. sorta.

yeah, but there are to many parameters, GPU is just a few sliders and maybe draw a "curve"

Also i cant get RM to work at all, which would probably make it easier, I recently updated my bios, they added some stuff like "AMD overclocking" maybe that fixes it...  but until now whenever i tried to do *anything* not apply anything, just. .anything like move the cursor, RM would send  my mobo in a never ending boot loop lol

[freeagent]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

yeah, but there are to many parameters, GPU is just a few sliders and maybe draw a "curve"

Also i cant get RM to work at all, which would probably make it easier, I recently updated my bios, they added some stuff like "AMD overclocking" maybe that fixes it...  but until now whenever i tried to do *anything* not apply anything, just. .anything like move the cursor, RM would send  my mobo in a never ending boot loop lol

Well, its not overly complicated. But it is tough learning on your own.. its ok to ask for help 

 

Ahh you don't need RM. I used it once or twice when I first got into AM4.. I just do everything in UEFI. I have a weird thing against overclocking in windows.. same with tuning fans lol.. I just do it in bios. And less bloat is good.

 

With a hardware experience like that I don't blame you, that's a bit of a rocky start!