Do I really need to overclock my CPU?

[IAEInferno]

Is it really a requirement when gaming to overclock the CPU? I don't want extra temperature nor do I want to consume more energy. Is overclocking the CPU really the worth it when playing games?

 

Assuming I'm using an i7-6700k and a gtx 1080

[klh2000]

Overclocking is never required, it is mostly something that people do for fun or benchmarks. The 6700k is a great CPU at stock speeds, so you won't notice a difference in games.

[Blackhole890]

1 minute ago, IAEInferno said:

Is it really a requirement when gaming to overclock the CPU? I don't want extra temperature nor do I want to consume more energy. Is overclocking the CPU really the worth it when playing games?

 

Assuming I'm using an i7-6700k and a gtx 1080

lol, if you bought a intel with K version means that you are going to overclock on it, and no, it's not a requirement unless if you wanted 5-10 fps more on every game overheating and consuming a bit more than usual

[aisle9]

Not at all. I know several people who buy K chips and run them at stock for a couple of years, then start dialing in an overclock when they need to squeeze a little more performance out of them later on in the CPU's life cycle.

[imreloadin]

4 minutes ago, IAEInferno said:

Is it really a requirement when gaming to overclock the CPU? I don't want extra temperature nor do I want to consume more energy. Is overclocking the CPU really the worth it when playing games?

 

Assuming I'm using an i7-6700k and a gtx 1080

If you're not going to over clock then save your money and just get the i7-6700, the non-K SKU.

[ThinkWithPortals]

5 minutes ago, IAEInferno said:

Is it really a requirement when gaming to overclock the CPU? I don't want extra temperature nor do I want to consume more energy. Is overclocking the CPU really the worth it when playing games?

 

Assuming I'm using an i7-6700k and a gtx 1080

It doesn't boost framerates much in games. It's mainly for shits and giggles, whilst getting a little bit of performance.

[paprikman]

Unless you need more horsepower right now, don't do this at all, until you find that it lacks some performance.

[IAEInferno]

42 minutes ago, Blackhole890 said:

lol, if you bought a intel with K version means that you are going to overclock on it, and no, it's not a requirement unless if you wanted 5-10 fps more on every game overheating and consuming a bit more than usual

 

Where's the funny?

[Imakuni]

48 minutes ago, IAEInferno said:

Is it really a requirement when gaming to overclock the CPU? I don't want extra temperature nor do I want to consume more energy. Is overclocking the CPU really the worth it when playing games?

 

Assuming I'm using an i7-6700k and a gtx 1080

Let's see... you've payed extra for a CPU geared for overclocking. You've also payed extra for a mobo that allows such feature. And you've also payed even more extra for an aftermarket cooler (given that the 6700k doesn't come with a stock one).

 

So yeah, OCing is a requirement in your case. Or would you rather feel like you're throwing money away?

 

 

That aside, OCing can help you increase your frames. Especially if you do other stuff at the same time you game, such as streaming or listening to music, perhaps voice chatting with friends or having someone else's stream in the background..

[IAEInferno]

Just now, Imakuni said:

Let's see... you've payed extra for a CPU geared for overclocking. You've also payed extra for a mobo that allows such feature. And you've also payed even more extra for an aftermarket cooler (given that the 6700k doesn't come with a stock one).

 

So yeah, OCing is a requirement in your case. Or would you rather feel like you're throwing money away?

 

 

That aside, OCing can help you increase your frames. Especially if you do other stuff at the same time you game, such as streaming or listening to music, perhaps voice chatting with friends or having someone else's stream in the background..

 

Throwing my money away? I can just overclock it anytime if I need to, that's money well spent and that's none of your business how much money I spend. Telling me and assuming that I payed even more extra for a lot of things is just downright wrong and you have no right to tell me how to spend my money.

[ThinkWithPortals]

6 minutes ago, Imakuni said:

So yeah, OCing is a requirement in your case. Or would you rather feel like you're throwing money away?

Is overclocking advised in this case? If OP wants even more power, yes. Is it a requirement, as you say? No, of course not.

[Imakuni]

1 minute ago, IAEInferno said:

Telling me and assuming that I payed even more extra for a lot of things is just downright wrong

If you've bough a 6700k, you've payed extra over a regular 6700. Plain maths, a 6700k costs more than a 6700 non k.

 

And for your question "do I really need to OC" to even make sense, you must have a Z170, as otherwise it wouldn't be possible to OC. And again, Z170 costs more than non-Z170 mobos, so you are paying extra money there.

 

Last, the cooler. Same story: 6700 non-k comes with a stock cooler, 6700k does not. So you'd have to, at the very least, pay some extra cash to get a stock cooler, and even more if you've went for an aftermarket one. Now, I don't know if you've opted for a 100$ watercooler or a 20$ cheaper air cooler, that much I don't know; I do, however, know that you have to pay a bit more for a cooler.

 

So yeah, tell me where was I wrong in assuming you did not pay extra money?

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

You don't need to overclock and depending on how much of a jump you're coming from, overclocking wouldn't really add anything appreciable. 4.8GHz looks like the common high-end of a i7-6700K, which is a ~14% increase in clock speed. In programs that are CPU bound, you do see a 14% increase. However, that same picture doesn't apply to games if you're already maxing out the GPU load and you aren't giving the CPU enough to do. As a data point: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9533/intel-i7-6700k-overclocking-4-8-ghz/8. And anything lower end runs so freakin' fast on stock anyway that there's just no point.

 

Also to other people, you have to understand something, there is a reason to get a K version over a non-K one if you're not overclocking: the clock speeds of the i7-6700 are 3.4/4.0GHz, whereas the i7-6700K is 4.0/4.2GHz. Also the i7-6700 is an aggressive throttler, mine simply refuses to push itself any harder if it's going about 60-65C. I'm pretty sure the i7-6700K isn't. So you're buying more than just an unlocked multiplier.

 

EDIT: and for the record, I put on a 95W TDP cooler on it, the i7-6700 is a 65W TDP part. I'm pretty sure it's doing a fine job of cooling it. It's just the i7-6700 doesn't want to get hot.

[IAEInferno]

Are you just assuming obvious things like the price? All your other assumptions are wrong, and in case you have read my question properly without jumping to conclusions then you would have known that I haven't bought any hardware yet. Furthermore, overclocking is not a requirement, it's just something you want to happen and for the money I would spend on a non-k and k the price difference would be only $20 here so yes, I would rather go with the i7-6700k than a non-k which would be more useful for me later. In addition, the stock cooler is crappy if you are answering posts where you did not even bothered researching.

[tiberiusmoon5]

I do it for the shitz and gigglez :3

[SteveGrabowski0]

1 hour ago, imreloadin said:

If you're not going to over clock then save your money and just get the i7-6700, the non-K SKU.

The 6700k is still 300 MHz faster at stock than the 6700 in quadcore loads.

[imreloadin]

4 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

The 6700k is still 300 MHz faster at stock than the 6700 in quadcore loads.

Eh it's up to the person to decide if the extra 300MHz is worth the extra $35. If you don't plan on overclocking that money can be shifted to a different component.

[IAEInferno]

Just now, imreloadin said:

Eh it's up to the person to decide if the extra 300MHz is worth the extra $35. If you don't plan on overclocking that money can be shifted to a different component.

The extra 300mhz and $35 would be worth it instead of overclocking which would just be a pain.

[ttoks]

I personally find its not worth ocing a huge amount with my 6700k at this point, I'm only running at 4.4Ghz, but having that little extra in reserve at the end of my rigs life is why I went for the K, and because I like tinkering and this is my first PC build, so I'm slowly learning more about tinkering with various things.