does overclocking really pay off

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

One of the best places to lurk and learn about overclocking is at www.overclock.net.

[Flyby]

I last visited the site in July of last year. I'd forgotten about it! A great resource for sure.
Flyby out

[Codex]

Well I used to "overcook"


Even with manufactures now engineering their hardware to perform at “overcooked” specs, they still won’t provide a warrantee if you do over clock them. Plus, I personally hate the smell of burning plastic in the house and the sight of smoke coming from by PC. I won’t do that again … LOL


I now religiously pay for the best performance rather than try and make a lower spec’d component perform at a higher specs.

[louisv]

I overclocked my quad core from 2.66 to 3.2 GHz and fps in FSX was boosted by the same proportions.

If the graphics card is the bottleneck, like in most non-sim games, it will not happen until you change the card.

Know your bottlenecks...

[AndyJWest]

Hopefully, I'll be able to find out for myself when the custom build from Scan I've ordered finally arrives: an i7/950 system, overclocked to 3.80GHz from 3.06GHz. If it doesn't make any noticeable difference, I'll probably turn the overclocking off. No point in toasting the system for a few FPS, and this beast is going to use quite enough power anyway.

(Incidentally, if anyone else is thinking of ordering a system from Scan, don't take their estimated delivery times too seriously - they seem to work on Oleg time, and '10 working days' seems to equal a month. I'd have been prepared to accept this anyway if they'd been more realistic, but it is irritating to have to be given overoptimistic estimates time and again.)

[patrat1]

Originally Posted by Flyby

Actually, yes I am speaking about overclocking the CPU. I'm focused on whether or not overclocking would help a complex sim like CLoD. I was looking for some before-and-after data here, if anyone has some to offer up. They guys over at [H]ardOCP test video cards on an x58 board, overclocking the i7-920 to 3.6ghz to "remove the CPU bottle neck". That site has not tested CLoD and may never.
So, I should have posed the question like this: "How much has CLoD benefited from overclocking your processor?" Also is there a point of diminishing returns? As I've said, some guys here are running at over 4ghz. How much more responsive is CLoD to 4+ghz versus <4ghz?
Ought to be revealing. . The answers may help me decide on buying a new processor or keeping the old (un-used) 920
Flyby out
thanks guys

the black death track and all the stock quick mission have nearly the same FPS regardless if im running at 3.7ghz or 4.5ghz on my i5 2500k.

that being said, ive found that if i run a custom mission with over 100 planes in the air, 4.5ghz gives me a min fps of 20 over land, while with 3.7ghz im in the single digits.

hope this helps.

[RE77ACTION]

Originally Posted by Buchon

Watch out guys.

No one wants a wave of newbies burning theirs PCs.

I think that Intel and AMD wouldn't mind...

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

Originally Posted by Codex

Well I used to "overcook"


Even with manufactures now engineering their hardware to perform at “overcooked” specs, they still won’t provide a warrantee if you do over clock them. Plus, I personally hate the smell of burning plastic in the house and the sight of smoke coming from by PC. I won’t do that again … LOL


I now religiously pay for the best performance rather than try and make a lower spec’d component perform at a higher specs.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, as I'm honestly curious, how in the world do you fry a system while overclocking? I've been overclocking since the AMD Thoroughbred days and never myself or known anyone personally who has fried anything. What happened? What did you do, and did you find out where it went wrong?

[335th_GRAthos]

I bet it was a GeForce 6800 which refused to go Ultra....

[Rattlehead]

Originally Posted by Urufu_Shinjiro

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, as I'm honestly curious, how in the world do you fry a system while overclocking? I've been overclocking since the AMD Thoroughbred days and never myself or known anyone personally who has fried anything. What happened? What did you do, and did you find out where it went wrong?

I can only imagine some people go too crazy with their voltages, not knowing the harm they're doing.
But personally I've also never had anything actually stop working as a result of overclocking, not permanently anyway.
(I did see some smoke coming from my old PC once, which was alarming, after a particularly stressful overclock. )

Nowadays I just leave everything at factory settings...