GPU overclocked yet performance remains affected in both titles
GPU overclocked yet performance remains affected in both titles
A few months back, I upgraded my pre-built HP with a 750 Ti and started looking forward to better upgrades. Recently, I tried Afterburner and noticed some improvements. With the modest overclocking (+130 cores, +200 memory), my games and benchmarks improved, except for Hitman Absolution and CS:GO. The Hitman dropped around 1 fps, while CS:GO lost about 3 fps. Although that’s not much, seeing Tomb Raider (2013) gain 12 fps with the same overclock made it seem reasonable. I ran the benchmarks multiple times and averaged them, allowing the GPU to cool between tests. My AMD A8-6500 CPU is supposed to match an FX-6300 in single-core performance, but it clearly struggles in multi-core tasks. I’m still getting used to PC gaming and wasn’t sure what was happening.
In CS-GO you're likely achieving 140fps plus, correct? Therefore at extremely high frame rates where the GPU isn't limiting then yes, your CPU might be holding back from reaching 200fps. Reducing 3 fps in CSGO seems minor and probably just a coincidence, not a significant issue. Overclocking doesn't make much difference because you can reach such high FPS in CS-GO that it creates a bottleneck on your CPU.
This doesn't imply your performance is poor.
In CS-GO you're likely achieving around 140fps, which is quite high. At extremely high frame rates where the GPU isn't limiting, your CPU might still be the limiting factor, preventing you from reaching 200fps. A drop of just 3 fps in CSGO probably isn't significant and may not matter much. Overclocking wouldn't make a noticeable impact because you can reach such high FPS without CPU constraints.
This doesn't imply your overall performance is poor.
With Hitman, I'm not certain about the situation, but it could be similar. Still, it's possible your CPU is the bottleneck. You might want to check GPU-z for more details.
When your GPU usage or core clocks decrease, it may indicate a CPU bottleneck during gameplay. Also, a high CPU thread load can suggest the same issue.
What about benchmark results? Even a 1fps difference seems negligible; maybe the game struggles with higher clock speeds?
Tomb Raider also shows a significant jump thanks to its strong optimization. It handles your settings well, so overclocking has a big effect, particularly since it's more GPU-intensive.
Overclocking is useful when your GPU is the limiting factor, but it only improves performance if that's the case for each game.
Good luck!
An overclock that functions well in one game might fail in others. Overclocking is quite unpredictable. A setting that keeps Unigine Heaven stable for hours could cause issues when switching to Planetside 2, and a setting that works long-term in Planetside 2 might break when trying TERA. This is exactly what I experience. The key point is that your overclock performs, but the VRAM is nearing instability and requires higher voltage.