OC'ing? Can it make that much of a difference in games?

[Cigarjohn]

Hello all. I've searched all over the forums for my answers and can't seem to find any answers. So I'm posting here and maybe some of you can help me with some of my questions and guide me in the right direction.

First of all my system consists of:
Asus Maximus IV Extreme Z68
Intel i7-2600k
Mushkin 992000 (997000) 16gb @ 7-8-7-24-2T
(3) Crucial M4 256gb SSD
(2) EVGA GTX-580 @ 855mhz Liquid Cooled
Asus Xonar Xense Sound Card
Antec HCP-1200
Koolance ERM-3K3U cooling my video cards and processor

So my system is being overclocked to 4.6ghz and is very stable. This overclock has been running for over a year now with no problems. In the CPU-Z the core voltage is 1.504 and my memory is:
DRAM Frequency - 933.3MHz
FSBRAM 1:7
CL 9
tRCD 9
tRP 8
tRAS 24
CR 1T

This was an OC I got off of a Newegg youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lajZi-JAFXA&feature=related

I'm OC'ing my CPU to 4.6ghz and my RAM to 1866mhz. I also have all my over/under voltage protection enabled including the RAM Voltage protection.

Like I said everything is working great with no problems. Temps at idle are 61F.

After watching the OC3D video on overclocking the 1155 new Intel 3970K I will be redoing my OC to get lower temps at idle and to possibly lower my RAM back to 1600mhz.

My troubled questions are, do I really need to OC my processor and RAM to get better game performance? Is it really needed? I'm not into benchmarking other than to test for stability issues. My processor is 3.4ghz and in turbo mode rises up to 3.6ghz. Is that good enough for all my gaming pleasure and beyond? By OC'ing my processor, I'm sure I'll gain some better performance but is it necessary. I noticed by OC'ing my RAM, the CPU-Z memory section say's it's at 933.3mhz. Is this normal? Should it be reading 1866 mhz? I just want to know if it's really necessary for me and the avid gamer to do some OC'ing and if it will make that much of a difference in game performance. Also, should I be OC'ing my video cards too and will they also make a needed performance gain in my gaming and other application usages.

Thanks for your time. Like I said, I've looked everywhere about my questions and can't seem to find any answers. Though I do want more life out of my processor since I build a new system every 5 years but I do want to know what my processor is capable of and if I were to keep OC'ing my processor, I would like to know a good OC to use that doesn't lessen the processor's life too much and that's adequate for my usage. Obviously more is better but there should be some type of limitation rule to go by. Anyway thanks again for your time and cooperation in answering my questions and for your trusted suggestions.

Peace to all

 

[Spiderz]

In gaming you will probably see more benefit to OC'ing your GPU as that is what does most of the heavy work and it is what will often hold back your FPS.

Would pull back the volts on your CPU OC, might be able to get it less and 200MHz either way wouldn't make a massive difference in games.

Most others will be able to give better advice than I on OC'ing everything else, quite new to it myself but picked up a few bits here and there.

 

[Josh Weston]

4.6GHz at 1.5v? First of all, you should work to get your volts down to below 1.4v, even if that means sacrificing some clocks. That high voltage over a long period of time has been proven to degrade the CPU, making it harder to reach such clocks in the future.

OCing can make big performance increases, but it depends on what games you're playing, etc.
CPU intensive games, such as Starcraft 2, can really benefit from a CPU overclock. A lot of games don't rely on the CPU all that much, and you won't see big improvements by overclocking the processor.
For gaming, overclocking the RAM really does nothing at all. If you can do it as a little bit of experience, or if you just want to get the most performance you can, go for it, but don't expect to see tangible real world differences in games.

DDR stands for Double Data Rate and as such the clock you see CPU-Z reporting is correct. Double that value and you get the clock that your memory is advertised at.

For the most part, overclocking your graphics card has far greater in-game performance benefits than overclocking the CPU.

 

[SeekaX]

1.5V. are you frying eggs on that thing?