CPU overclocking question

[duckwithanokhat]

What is benefitted by overclocking more, gaming or video editing and why?

[The_Denks]

The main benefit for overclocking is in benchmarking and multi-threaded workloads, such as video editing

Gaming, not so much, unless it is a VERY well optimized game

[Litargirio]

Unless your CPU sucks balls, the benefit of overclocking is little to none, and the performance improvement is scarce. Yes, you will see a few extra FPS and slightly better render times on paper, but people who overclock tend to do so just to baost about the numbers, not because it offers any substantial benefit.

[duckwithanokhat]

1 minute ago, UberGamerKing said:

The main benefit for overclocking is in benchmarking and multi-threaded workloads, such as video editing

Gaming, not so much, unless it is a VERY well optimized game

I see, well looks like I'm going to overclock because I like to video edit  .

[Hackentosher]

In content creation workloads, an overclock can actually help a lot. Adding a ghz to my CPU' a clock speed helped notiecable amount in CAD. Overclocking the gpu can sometimes warrant like 10 more fps if you get a good card.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

11 minutes ago, duckwithanokhat said:

What is benefitted by overclocking more, gaming or video editing and why?

Everything. Overclocking simply means your CPU runs faster, so whatever it needs to do, it will finish earlier.

By how much? By a little, sometimes barely noticeable. The thing is, as long as the task uses cores at 100% (not 100% of the CPU, just 100% of one, two, all cores, doesn't matter how many), you will notice the effect of overclocking the most. However, when cores are underutilized, increasing clocks won't make a difference, because the CPU already is faster than needed. 

Unfortunately, no blanket statement is going to be correct. For example, gaming can improve by overclocking if you are CPU-bound. However, most gamers actively seek to have underutilized CPUs and saturated GPUs, lest they start panicking about "bottlenecks" and what not. Hence, in their most common situation, OCing the CPU doesn't do much because it was already held back by the GPU anyway. As soon as the CPU is the limiting factor, though (such as in said cpu-bound gaming scenarios, winrar, cpu encoding, number crunching, etc), you see the effect of increased clocks. Just take into account that performance gains A) can never be greater than the % change in clocks, B) are usually below the upper bound due to other constraints sooner or later becoming binding.

[TheAmazingCookieFromSquare]

Overclock because-