How important is overclocking?
How important is overclocking?
It has always been enjoyable to tap into the full potential of components, CPU, GPU...
For new powerful and fast systems, even a 10% improvement might go unnoticed.
But for older systems or after five years when programs become more demanding, at a stage where components become a bottleneck.
The impact of demanding programs is always much greater than just a few frames per second gain.
I don’t believe overclocking helps in this case.
I tried the OC GT9800X2, but it failed quickly with the same performance.
My Intel i5 CPU didn’t show any difference.
What are your thoughts?
In my opinion, the key aspect of overclocking is thoroughly reviewing and grasping the related warnings.
What are your thoughts?
I pushed my R7-1700 to 3.9G across all cores and threads, and it finishes a typical video encoding about two minutes earlier—18 minutes instead of 20. Not much of a difference overall. Still, I only have enough time for a cup of coffee. Everything else feels just as smooth. Even games don’t run faster or feel smoother, though they do slightly improve FPS in the same situations.
The main takeaway is gaining a lot of knowledge about my system and how Ryzen functions. I discovered why cooling matters and how to manage it quietly. I also realized memory optimization is crucial for unlocking full performance.
I also noticed there’s still a lot of room for improvement in hardware, which is intentional by design. It’s left there for reasons like manufacturing costs, market targeting, or process enhancements over time. But since I’ve done this before and plan to do it again, I know it’s worth it. In fact, the only bad computer purchase I’ve made was an Intel system that couldn’t be overclocked. Even if the gains weren’t huge, it was disappointing not to have a fully optimized machine for my needs.
I also have an R7 1700, clocked at 3.8g, around 75 to 80c.
On the spec sheet it looks like it can reach 1800x.
Feeling pretty good emotionally.
However, it still gets warmer in summer, so going back to stock would help.
I do render on a PS3 emu by the way.
That might be a bit off-topic...
A better cooling system would really make a difference since 3.8G isn't a major boost, but you already noticed that.
If it hadn't occurred to you: even a very mild overclock to 3.7 or 3.6G could help when doing tasks that use all cores/threads, like encoding or rendering. This is because it would maintain that frequency across all cores while 'stock' keeps lowering the clock for each core to stay within the processor's power limits.
But it wouldn't really help much for everyday stuff like browsing or navigating windows. Games wouldn't benefit either, since they use only a few threads, so it's better to keep it at stock and let single threads reach at least 3.7 or 3.75G. But even then, it depends on having enough cooling – if it gets hot in stock mode, especially in a warm room, boosting won't happen even at lower stock settings.