I5 2500K options

[felixthemaster1]

I still have this CPU from my first build. Will a dual 290x bottleneck it? if so I might start overclocking but I don't know if people keep it overclocked 24/7 since that drastically reduces the life

 

Or should I just replace my mobo and CPU for a current gen one (I have been meaning to convert my colour scheme to red anyways)

[Freaky_spider]

nope

[Archangel1994]

I still have this CPU from my first build. Will a dual 290x bottleneck it? if so I might start overclocking but I don't know if people keep it overclocked 24/7 since that drastically reduces the life

 

Or should I just replace my mobo and CPU for a current gen one (I have been meaning to convert my colour scheme to red anyways)

Overclocking a CPU does not necessarily mean a drastically lower life expectancy. Keeping your voltages in check will barely affect the life expectancy of your CPU.

 

Also I doubt it will bottleneck dual R9 290X. Maybe in CPU heavy games like but other than that not really. I suggest a mild overclock and then you are good to go.

[patrickjp93]

I still have this CPU from my first build. Will a dual 290x bottleneck it? if so I might start overclocking but I don't know if people keep it overclocked 24/7 since that drastically reduces the life

Or should I just replace my mobo and CPU for a current gen one (I have been meaning to convert my colour scheme to red anyways)

Don't go for more than a .3GHz overclock and life won't be a problem. As long as temps are under mid-80s and volts under 1.4 ish there should be almost no impact. I'm a stickler for every last degree, but that's the overclocker and physicist in me saying high temps=bad and entropy destroys all things so heat definitely = bad, but the truth is it will last 7+ years just fine as long as you control temps and voltage.

As per bottlenecking a dual 290X, you're on the edge if we're talking more than 1080p gaming, in which case I defer to more seasoned hands. There are a few ways of alleviating bottlenecks. One is to get rid of your page file and invest in low-latency RAM (and more of it if you have less than 16GB, preferably with 1 stick per channel to eliminate bank-switching). The second is overclocking the CPU. The third is overclock the GPU to make it squeeze out calculations a little faster even though it is technically waiting a couple more cycles between fills, artificially deflating the effect of the bottleneck in gaming. The final way is turning down settings like AA which are annoyingly heavy on CPU bandwidth use (thank you Nvidia for moving to including an ARM chip aboard to eliminate some back-and forth on the Volta architecture).

Past that you will have to upgrade your CPU.

Edit: it sounds like everyone here believes you won't have a bottleneck, but if you feel you have one, just follow my advice to alleviate what you can short of a CPU upgrade. If you're trying to do 4K gaming, well, at that point you will. If you're on CPU-heavy MMOs like GW2, then you're in for some pain. A 3820 and GTX 660 still only gets 12 fps on maxed 1080p settings when a lot of people get on screen. It's not a graphics-intense game either.

[felixthemaster1]

Don't go for more than a .3GHz overclock and life won't be a problem. As long as temps are under mid-80s and volts under 1.4 ish there should be almost no impact. I'm a stickler for every last degree, but that's the overclocker and physicist in me saying high temps=bad and entropy destroys all things so heat definitely = bad, but the truth is it will last 7+ years just fine as long as you control temps and voltage.

As per bottlenecking a dual 290X, you're on the edge if we're talking more than 1080p gaming, in which case I defer to more seasoned hands. There are a few ways of alleviating bottlenecks. One is to get rid of your page file and invest in low-latency RAM (and more of it if you have less than 16GB, preferably with 1 stick per channel to eliminate bank-switching). The second is overclocking the CPU. The third is overclock the GPU to make it squeeze out calculations a little faster even though it is technically waiting a couple more cycles between fills, artificially deflating the effect of the bottleneck in gaming. The final way is turning down settings like AA which are annoyingly heavy on CPU bandwidth use (thank you Nvidia for moving to including an ARM chip aboard to eliminate some back-and forth on the Volta architecture).

Past that you will have to upgrade your CPU.

Edit: it sounds like everyone here believes you won't have a bottleneck, but if you feel you have one, just follow my advice to alleviate what you can short of a CPU upgrade. If you're trying to do 4K gaming, well, at that point you will. If you're on CPU-heavy MMOs like GW2, then you're in for some pain. A 3820 and GTX 660 still only gets 12 fps on maxed 1080p settings when a lot of people get on screen. It's not a graphics-intense game either.

I was thinking of just pressing the OC button on my mobo (OC genie II)

[patrickjp93]

I was thinking of just pressing the OC button on my mobo (OC genie II)

Never done the auto ones personally. See what you get on CPUz when you do that, and if the voltage is above 1.4, record all the figures, go into BIOS, and back it down until you are.

[felixthemaster1]

Never done the auto ones personally. See what you get on CPUz when you do that, and if the voltage is above 1.4, record all the figures, go into BIOS, and back it down until you are.

Thanks

[harrynowl]

Regarding overclocking if all you can do is 0.3GHz with 1.4v it's not worth doing

 

1.4v is 4.8ghz territory on those 2500ks