Can I Overclock?

[DummyHeadGamer]

I have a MSI 970-G46 motherboard with an AMD fx-6300. I was thinking of overclocking my CPU, but some people were telling me my motherboard isn't very good for overclocking. My friend also is building a pc and I was wondering what in the motherboard specifications lets you know if it is good for overclocking? Also, does it just mean CPU overclocking, or GPU overclocking as well?

[DSD27]

The board is fine. You can easily get 4.5 GHz on that board.

[Freaky_spider]

there is nothing that can predict your CPU's overclocking potential, you gotta 'go out' there and try it yourself

[harrynowl]

Well it's not ideal, just try bumping up the multiplier until it isn't stable. I wouldn't touch voltage with that board.

[LawrenceBarnes2013]

just do it but i say don't go too far

[aidenrelkoff]

every cpu is different, my cpu i have added 400 MHz with no extra voltage and i run just fine. however once i added only 20 MHz with no extra voltage to my gpu and my system crashed lol.

 

you have gotta go and try it your self. if i put a H100i on my cpu i could probably easily get this thing to 5.4GHz, considering its only 25* while typing this lol

[DummyHeadGamer]

I was asking how everyone knows how much voltage a motherboard can handle? When I go shopping for a motherboard, I wanted to know how I can tell which will be good for overclocking

[Leonius]

really you dont have to be worried. cpu overclocking with that board ist fairly possible, i am not familiar with amd voltages but i am sure you can push those a little bit too, just keep a look for your cpu and mainboard temperatures! Also gpu overclocking is a completely different thing. Get msi afterburner and overclock the gpu, that is fine as well because for gpu overclocking the motherboard really plays a minor role.

[Leonius]

I was asking how everyone knows how much voltage a motherboard can handle? When I go shopping for a motherboard, I wanted to know how I can tell which will be good for overclocking

It depends on the platform. on the intel side the chipset tells you weather you can overclock or not and ususally all modern motherboards have some headroom with voltages and amps taken by the cpu...

[DummyHeadGamer]

Well I have already overclocked my HIS Radeon HD 7870 Ghz edition to 1100/1350 with stock voltage. I'll overclock a little more later when I have time. I didn't know if with a better motherboard I could push more voltage to the cpu or gpu

[DummyHeadGamer]

The reason I was asking is because people tell me "The VRAM (or something like that) aren't very good on that motherboard so there wont be a lot of headroom on cpu overclocking"

[DummyHeadGamer]

Why tho? What spec in it makes it not very good for overclocking? I want to know this so when I shop for motherboards I know which one will be best for overclocking

[-iSynthesis]

VRM's look decent. You'll easily hit about 4.5GHz with it.

[Leonius]

Why tho? What spec in it makes it not very good for overclocking? I want to know this so when I shop for motherboards I know which one will be best for overclocking

there is no specifictaion for vrams or drams and power delivery components there is just manufacturers that use higher qualitiy components. These are made for durability and rated on operation at a certain temperature, for example 20 000 hours at 105 degrees Celsius. Thing is that the components will, or at least should, never reach such temperatures. If you overclock the cpu really badly and up the voltage more than 0.2 or 0.3 millivolts or something high quality components, like gigabytes "ultra durable" msi's " sfc caps" or asus hight quality components (dont know what they call it) could come in handy. for normal overclocks though hight quality components might slightly improve the life time of the board and maybe make the oc more stayble...

 

Edit: To answer the question choose a motherboard that is more than about 120 to 150 bucks from either msi, asus, or gigabyte, those should  all befine and even if they fail, ususally they have warranty on them even if you run overclocks!