Overclocking noob

[Tyler21]

I just overclocked my 2500k to 4.5Ghz to fix the bottleneck I was told it had with my new 1070. This was my first time overclocking, and now it has me wanting to OC the 1070 too. I have a few questions about it, though.

 

1. Is it worth it? Will the CPU just bottleneck the OC'd GPU?

2. I have GPU Tweak II. Assuming this is fine to use, is the default OC mode better to use than the default gaming mode? Should I just switch to OC mode and leave it like that?

3. If I make a custom OC profile, can I be maxing everything out? Is there a cookie cutter setting people are running for this? Again, is this worth it/will it be noticeable?

4. Bonus question: I bought the Cooler Master Hyper Evo 212 for my CPU. Can I push higher than 4.5Ghz with this heat sink? 

[DarkBlade2117]

It'll benefit in some games, though your i5 will bottleneck is games that like 60/40 to CPU/GPU dependence. In games like Shadow of Mordor it'll benefit, in GTA V not so much.

[Tyler21]

I mainly play World of Warcraft. I also play Overwatch (but I think I already get 100+ frames fully maxed) and some GTA and Forza Motorsport. My main goal is to get my frames a little higher in some of the new Legion zones. Other than that, my setup is performing really well.

[AdamBGames]

5 minutes ago, Tyler21 said:

I just overclocked my 2500k to 4.5Ghz to fix the bottleneck I was told it had with my new 1070. This was my first time overclocking, and now it has me wanting to OC the 1070 too. I have a few questions about it, though.

 

1. Is it worth it? Will the CPU just bottleneck the OC'd GPU?

2. I have GPU Tweak II. Assuming this is fine to use, is the default OC mode better to use than the default gaming mode? Should I just switch to OC mode and leave it like that?

3. If I make a custom OC profile, can I be maxing everything out? Is there a cookie cutter setting people are running for this? Again, is this worth it/will it be noticeable?

4. Bonus question: I bought the Cooler Master Hyper Evo 212 for my CPU. Can I push higher than 4.5Ghz with this heat sink? 

The CPU will be a bottleneck anyway so i would hold off overclocking until you upgrade your cpu, there isnt much point using more power if it cant be utilized

[WoodenMarker]

1 minute ago, AdamBGames said:

The CPU will be a bottleneck anyway so i would hold off overclocking until you upgrade your cpu, there isnt much point using more power if it cant be utilized

Oc'ing the cpu would lower any bottleneck if there was one. If the voltage and temps are reasonable, it'd be silly to not oc if the performance can be used.

 

The 2500k is still solid today at 4.5ghz. You shouldn't encounter any major bottlenecks if any at all.

If you find that oc'ing the graphics card doesn't net any performance gains, you can always revert the settings.

GPU Tweak is fine and yes, OC mode is slightly faster than Gaming mode.

Custom oc'ing can allow for higher clocks. You can start with the same settings at oc mode and push higher from there. How much more your can achieve with your oc depends on your luck.

As long as your temps and voltage are in check, you can oc as far as you can. Under 1.4v and 80-90c at load are good guidelines. 

 

[Nord]

1.) your CPU will, still bottleneck the GPU even OC'd. However the bottleneck will only be noticable to you when you

a.) play games that are CPU heavy, for example: GTA5, Total War series or City Skylines.

b.) try to target 144FPS gaming or simular

Bottleneck is loose term that people use, in your case there will be some games where you would see noticable improvements by just having a quad CPU or a newer one.

This video illustrates fairly good the differences from CPU gen to gen in a variety of games:

Edit: The higher resolution you play on (1440p or even 4k) the less any CPU bottleneck will be noticable.

 

2.) From what I've seen (and I may be wrong here) some manufactureres now have own OC tools for the 10xx series GPU's they sell, so either use the one from the manufacturer or use MSI-Afterburner. Afterburner even has tons of guides online on how to do it properly manualy. OC'ing a GPU is easyer & faster than OC'ing a CPU btw.

 

3.) if by "custom" you mean doing a manual OC, with some time and effort you can push your card to its maximum.

If you mean by "maxing out" to just take a slider and put it to the highest it lets you, you COULD do that if you are really bent on trying to destroy your GPU.

 

4.) you can push as high as cooling allows you. Set a overclock, run a stresstest (Prime95 / Aida64 for example), check the temps. If temps are still fine, overclock again slightly and do the same over and over again until your CPU either gets instable and crashes or gets too hot.

80°C~ is what people would generally say is perfectly ok for any modern intel CPU. 85°C~ is still fine too but once you reach close to 90°C I would stop, as usualy even intel themself states that 90°C is around the max. any CPU should get. Plus running something at its maximum tolerable heat is not exactly good in the long therm either.

[WoodenMarker]

5 minutes ago, Nord said:

If you mean by "maxing out" to just take a slider and put it to the highest it lets you, you COULD do that if you are really bent on trying to destroy your GPU.

It's usually fine if the slider is dragged all the way to the right. Whether it'll work or not depends on luck of the draw.

Dragging the slider all the way to the right is only dangerous after unlocking the values. 

[Tyler21]

Thanks for the replies. I'll probably leave the GPU alone for now since the benefit to power ratio is low, but now I know what to do if I upgrade my CPU/monitor eventually.