Overclocking noob

[joejak]

A couple days ago i pulled the trigger on an Acer XG270HU (27" 1440p 144hz TN) upgrading from an old Samsung SyncMaster 2333HD (23?" 1080p 60hz). I'm currently using both monitors, unfortunately i think my build is somewhat under-powered to use the monitor i bought. With the new monitor Rainbow six looks great and i don't see any problems, but pubg only looks good provided i limit myself to crawling (sneakySnake), if i move around too quickly i get screen tearing.

 

OS: Windows 10

CPU: Intel i5-4690k @ 3.50GHz

Cooler: Corsair H100i
Mother Board: Asus Z97-AR
Ram:  Evga 16G 2400 DDR3
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GTX 970 G1

Power: Corsair RM750

 

When i built my computer, about two years ago, a friend recommended i get certain parts to be overclock friendly. When he explained overclocking to me it sounded like a good idea so i got the parts he recommended. When i built my PC i never went through the flaming hoops (overclocking the cpu and gpu). Now it seems like i have to get every little bit out of my machine. Im hoping someone can recommend me some software to use for monitoring CPU / GPU temperature and usage levels. I am also not sure i understand how stress testing works; both the program(s) to use and if i am able to use that same program for the CPU and the GPU or if ill need to load two different programs. And lastly i was carious about the pro's and cons of going directly into Bios to overclock or using another program to do it. I know the list is long but i am largely ignorant of the finer details of computers and would prefer not to brick my machine, id like it to last at least another year. Thank you for any and all help.

 

P.S  My apologies to the mod's if this post isn't in the right place.

[MVPernula]

To overclock GPU:
Use MSI afterburner, it's literally all you need and it's a rock solid software.

 

When overclocking CPU it's generally recommended to do it via bios.

And this is certainly the right place in the forums

[Bananasplit_00]

set 45 multipiler in BIOS and 1.3V, run 10min stress test, if it compleates it, up another step of frequency, if it dosent pass then raise the voltage 0.02V untill it does or you reach 1.4V, if it goes above 85ishC then you have gone too far with the voltage and need to back off on the overclock. when you get someting you are happy with, like 4.7GHz 1.335V which is what i ended up on, set that in the BIOS and run a 15h+ stresstest to make sure its solid. if its not, raise the voltage or drop the multiplier. you can quickly upp the multiplier and voltage using IXT from within the OS and its a handy stresstest built in. just make sure that after you find your max using that to set it in the BIOS to make sure it sticks.

 

for your GPU download MSI afterburner, GPU-Z and Heaven Benchmark. in MSI afterburners settings, unlock voltage controll. raise the power limit of your card in MSI afterburner to whatever it maxes out at and then try adding 100MHz core or whatever and then just repeat what you did with the CPU, raise voltage, raise frequency and run the benchmark. if you see any artifacts or it crashes then you need more voltage or the card just cant overclock that high. my 970 G1 instantly crashed with even a 1MHz overclock on core or memory once it hit 60C which is a testement to how temperature sensetive Maxwell can be and how utterly garbage my 970 was lol. use GPU-Z to check what memory you have on the card, if its sammsung then start that off with a +500 and see wherer that goes. same temperature limits and so on here, but just remember that with the stop BIOS on the card you can not push too much voltage through the card but more voltage means more heat and more heat means less overclocking too

[joejak]

I downloaded MSI afterburner, GPU-Z, and Heaven Benchmark successfully. I also have corsair link but it doesn't seem to be helpful. Any recommendations for CPU monitoring and stress testing programs? I tried to navigate bios and was unsuccessful. I am currently looking up videos to see if any of them match up with what mine looks like.