Does Overclocking Impact Gaming Performance?

[Cyanide89]

I am down to the last part of my new rig; the CPU. It's making my skin itch in hesitation of buying the 2600K when I know the 2700K is around the corner.

Like I've said before, I want the 2700K because I want to catch the CPU at the start of its lifespan to get the most out of it, to have the best of the best, to overclock on liquid, and because it is so close! I hear that the die are "cherry picked" from the best for the 2700K and that the stability will be much higher.

My question is whether overclocking will have a large impact on performance in games and in multitasking programs. At what point does overclocking stop providing performance?

I plan to play a lot of games (as does everyone on this forum), but I am also very heavy on multimedia editing... sometimes running Photoshop, After Effects, Vegas, and 3DSM all at once. Would my best option be to wait until the launch of the 2700K or would it be no different than the 2600K?

 

[Master&Puppet]

Yes but ultimately...no. GPUs are more important once you reach a certain cpu level for gaming. Currently I'd say that a 2600k is enough...but you will have to upgrade it at somepoint in the future so it's not a bad step.

In gaming terms upgrade GPUs before CPUs.

You can tell if your cpu is bottlenecking your gaming by de-clocking it a bit and seeing if fps falls.

As for multimedia - It depends how much you do. For example, I make and edit my own hd mini-movies every once in a while (10 min long jobs) and the editing goes pretty quick, it's just the producing that takes the hit, so I do something else for 30 mins or whatever. If you do more than that, or want to produce more quickly then go 2700K.

Basically I think your editing would see some improvement but not much gaming wise if you went 2700.

M&P

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

Overclocking the CPU does very little in (MODERN) games because newer games are becoming more GPU friendly, which is why Intel and AMD are on par with each other in the gaming relm. It's all about GPU now. And depending on the game and GPU you can get nice performance boosts with just 50mhz. But it's all dependent on the game as well as the GPU.

 

[Cyanide89]

Yes but ultimately...no. GPUs are more important once you reach a certain cpu level for gaming. Currently I'd say that a 2600k is enough...but you will have to upgrade it at somepoint in the future so it's not a bad step.

In gaming terms upgrade GPUs before CPUs.

You can tell if your cpu is bottlenecking your gaming by de-clocking it a bit and seeing if fps falls.

As for multimedia - It depends how much you do. For example, I make and edit my own hd mini-movies every once in a while (10 min long jobs) and the editing goes pretty quick, it's just the producing that takes the hit, so I do something else for 30 mins or whatever. If you do more than that, or want to produce more quickly then go 2700K.

Basically I think your editing would see some improvement but not much gaming wise if you went 2700.

M&P

Thanks for your reply.

I edit hour to hour and a half documentaries and 15 minute short films. Im heavy on the cgi and particles with After Effects so a 12 second clip could render for 20 minutes on my current rig.

I don't need a GPU upgrade, I have a GTX 590.

I guess I could get the 2600K and see how that goes.

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

Stick with 2600k. AMD did the same thing with the Thuban chips, the 1090 and 1100T were virtually identical, the cherry picking process was near on futile - after about 700Mhz a modern CPU becomes smooth and stops making noticable difference IMO

 

[Cyanide89]

...

 

[Cyanide89]

Stick with 2600k. AMD did the same thing with the Thuban chips, the 1090 and 1100T were virtually identical, the cherry picking process was near on futile - after about 700Mhz a modern CPU becomes smooth and stops making noticable difference IMO

Ok thanks! But if you're wrong... oh man... heads will fly!

Sorry about the double post. My phone spazzed.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Ok thanks! But if you're wrong... oh man... heads will fly!

Ha!

 

[SkinToxicated]

im running an "ancient" I7 920 @4Gz and i have no issue with gaming (my 570 is taking care of that).

I certainly dont do vid editing to the level you do, but if i rip and compress a dvd film to my PC for my PSP/ipod and it takes about 20mins

 

[Rasmus66]

The 2700K is just a 2600K with a higher stock speed.

No cherry picked cores.

Just buy a 2600K and overclock it

 

[yassarikhan786]

The 2700K is a cunning marketing strategy on Intel's part. The 700 will trick some people into thinking that it is better.

 

[Scoob]

It would seem to me that the 2600k (with the same HT and cache as the 2700k) would be the best choice. I think getting to 2700k clock speeds would be somewhat trivial! If you could get an overclock you were happy with (right speed/heat/noise balance for YOU) of say 4.5ghz for arguments sake on a typical 2600k, maybe you'd get 4.6 ghz on the 2700k, maybe 4.7 or 4.8, maybe you'd be stuck at 4.4 ghz. Really, I'd not consider this degree of clock different to impact ANY game you play. At stock these chips are fanstastic if paired with a decent GPU or two...overclocked they're...overkill for the most part - but we LIKE a little overkill right?

I do have some titles in my collection that are CPU bound more than GPU, but even these show no benefit really, in FPS terms, at my 4.6 oc on my 2500k or at it's 3.3 stock. Why overclock then? Cos I can, it's fun and it's FREE performance I'll...erm, likely never need lol.

For reference though, my old Q6600 is a 2.4ghz stock chip. I had it running at 3.6ghz for most of it's life and this gave me a well-performing machine, when given the odd GPU upgrade throughout it's life, that lasted a long time. For comparison, a friend who also had a Q6600 but couldn't OC due to motherboard restrictions, started running into titles he could not play, at the levels he wanted, far sooner than me. So overclocking WILL extend the useful life of your system

So, if you really want Hyperthreading (not really needed for gaming at all) then the 2600k will be more than enough. Save your money. If you are just gaming (like me) then the 2500k will leave you with extra money to spend on other bits, and in real terms overclock and perform just as well.

Cheers & good luck with your choice, whatever it may be

Scoob.

 

[Cyanide89]

It would seem to me that the 2600k (with the same HT and cache as the 2700k) would be the best choice. I think getting to 2700k clock speeds would be somewhat trivial! If you could get an overclock you were happy with (right speed/heat/noise balance for YOU) of say 4.5ghz for arguments sake on a typical 2600k, maybe you'd get 4.6 ghz on the 2700k, maybe 4.7 or 4.8, maybe you'd be stuck at 4.4 ghz. Really, I'd not consider this degree of clock different to impact ANY game you play. At stock these chips are fanstastic if paired with a decent GPU or two...overclocked they're...overkill for the most part - but we LIKE a little overkill right?

I do have some titles in my collection that are CPU bound more than GPU, but even these show no benefit really, in FPS terms, at my 4.6 oc on my 2500k or at it's 3.3 stock. Why overclock then? Cos I can, it's fun and it's FREE performance I'll...erm, likely never need lol.

For reference though, my old Q6600 is a 2.4ghz stock chip. I had it running at 3.6ghz for most of it's life and this gave me a well-performing machine, when given the odd GPU upgrade throughout it's life, that lasted a long time. For comparison, a friend who also had a Q6600 but couldn't OC due to motherboard restrictions, started running into titles he could not play, at the levels he wanted, far sooner than me. So overclocking WILL extend the useful life of your system

So, if you really want Hyperthreading (not really needed for gaming at all) then the 2600k will be more than enough. Save your money. If you are just gaming (like me) then the 2500k will leave you with extra money to spend on other bits, and in real terms overclock and perform just as well.

Cheers & good luck with your choice, whatever it may be

Scoob.

Perfect answer... I just bought the 2600K.

Thanks.

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

Ok thanks! But if you're wrong... oh man... heads will fly!

Sorry about the double post. My phone spazzed.

If it's a cherry picked 2600 it will make zilch difference. If it's a hex then that's a whole 'nother story

---

Cherry picking = "Imran! Shovel have of dem to wun shiyd plez"

 

[Luger718]

and in the end your gonna overclock both of them the 2700k might get farther but not by much....my 2600k is at 4.5GHz more then enough for games...you might get 4.6 or 4.7 at the same volts

so yea no difference unless your playing those game that are very CPU intensive and even then its unnoticeable

 

[Chaney579]

2600k is more then enough, i have mine pushed to 4.9 at the moment for 24/7 use and gaming, They run real cool, mine is at 46C Under full load and 29c-31c idle. On water

 

[Cyanide89]

Shoot! I already went into the future and bought the 2900k.

JK, I have a 2600K on the way.

 

[S_I_N]

2600k is more then enough, i have mine pushed to 4.9 at the moment for 24/7 use and gaming, They run real cool, mine is at 46C Under full load and 29c-31c idle. On water

what volts are ya pushing for that 4.9 bro

 

[Chaney579]

what volts are ya pushing for that 4.9 bro

1.41

 

[Scoob]

1.41

That's low! I assume that's 1.41v under stress/load? Still, being able to keep those temps so low is a great help. It's like the more vCore you need the hotter things get, and the hotter things get the more vCore you need to stay stable. This seems even more true with SB than prior generations.

While SB is a fantasticly cool running chip, when you OC it really does like a good cooling solution.

I can hit 5.0 with my 2500k using just an Antec Kuhler 620, but it runs a bit too hot and needs a few to many volts for my liking. 4.6, where I am now, is the sweet spot for my combo certainly.

Cheers,

Scoob.