Base or Multiplier
Base or Multiplier
From a gaming perspective, it depends on what matters more—boosting the multiplier or increasing the base clock speed.
I think the base clock ties into RAM and bus speeds, meaning increasing it can speed up more parts than just the CPU. This also raises the chance of instability, which is why people choose to overclock with the multiplier. Are you thinking about doing it yourself, or were you just exploring the BIOS settings?
I've been adjusting the clock speeds for a while now. My system uses an AMD FX8350 with a Gigabyte G1 Gaming 990FX (Rev 1.1) motherboard. The overclock settings I'm using are: 220 BCLK plus a 23.0x multiplier, which gives me these performance numbers. Core speeds are 4840MHz, 2480MHz, 2840MHz, and HT Link at 1720MHz. The original specifications are 200 BCLK with a 20.0x multiplier, resulting in a 4000MHz core, 2200MHz NB, 2600MHz HT Link, and 1600MHz RAM. I ran Prime95 in blend for several hours and it worked well. I'm wondering if keeping the BCLK constant and increasing the multiplier to 25.0x would yield a 5000MHz core, which might be better for gaming than my current configuration.
I can achieve stable at 5.0GHz, but I'm planning to lower all the other clocks, which is why I'm reaching out. Since I work 50 hours a week and don't have much time to experiment, I just wanted to find out if one setup was better for gaming than the other.