Overclocking CPU

OhhPaigey

Hi, so as the years have passed I've noticed my CPU has pretty much been the weakest point of my PC. The CPU in question is my i5 3570k.

Right now everything is running at stock speeds except my GPU (GTX 970 ACX 2.0). I figure it's either OC my CPU or rebuild, and right now I don't feel like rebuilding.

Any advice on how to start would be appreciated.

Cleffy

I wouldn't advise an over clock, especially on these CPUs. In general the last few generations of Intel CPUs don't over clock well. I think you can reasonably get a 4.5 Ghz over clock on the 3570k if you have the right components for a good over clock, like mobo, cooler, and memory. In the bigger picture an 18% increase in speed won't be much of a difference.
I also highly doubt your CPU is holding you back unless you are doing some CPU intensive tasks. Anything over 3 Ghz quad core should be sufficient in nearly every task. Knowing your specific components and what you are doing is the best way to find your bottle-neck.

OhhPaigey

Cleffy said:

I wouldn't advise an over clock, especially on these CPUs. In general the last few generations of Intel CPUs don't over clock well. I think you can reasonably get a 4.5 Ghz over clock on the 3570k if you have the right components for a good over clock, like mobo, cooler, and memory. In the bigger picture an 18% increase in speed won't be much of a difference.
I also highly doubt your CPU is holding you back unless you are doing some CPU intensive tasks. Anything over 3 Ghz quad core should be sufficient in nearly every task. Knowing your specific components and what you are doing is the best way to find your bottle-neck.

Well, I just had to refund Mafia 3 because it was putting my CPU usage up to 100%.

I also stream on occasion and depending on what I'm playing, it can put my CPU usage to 100%.

Maybe it's just time to rebuild completely. It has been a couple of years.

Vrika

What kind of CPU cooler do you have?

If you have good CPU cooler, then you could get maybe +15% speed out of your CPU. But if you've used the stock cooler that comes with Intel CPUs, then you'd need a better cooler to do any overclocking.

New CPU coolers are not that expensive, and you could do overclocking even with something like this:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16835103099

But installing something like that is takes quite a lot of time. So much that it's not really worth all that time and money just to get maybe 15% CPU speed increase in the end.


If you have some good cooler, the first step for overclocking is checking what motherboard you have, and its manual. Many motherboards have their own programs and solutions for overclocking. But only if you have something better than Intel's default cooler.

rertez

OhhPaigey said:

Cleffy said:

I wouldn't advise an over clock, especially on these CPUs. In general the last few generations of Intel CPUs don't over clock well. I think you can reasonably get a 4.5 Ghz over clock on the 3570k if you have the right components for a good over clock, like mobo, cooler, and memory. In the bigger picture an 18% increase in speed won't be much of a difference.
I also highly doubt your CPU is holding you back unless you are doing some CPU intensive tasks. Anything over 3 Ghz quad core should be sufficient in nearly every task. Knowing your specific components and what you are doing is the best way to find your bottle-neck.

Well, I just had to refund Mafia 3 because it was putting my CPU usage up to 100%.

I also stream on occasion and depending on what I'm playing, it can put my CPU usage to 100%.

Maybe it's just time to rebuild completely. It has been a couple of years.

Even a small amount of dust settled on your CPU heatsink can cause your CPU to overheat and throttle at 100% load. Try to completely clean dust from the fans and heatsinks first and see if it helps performance. Compressed air sold in cans and a soft brush helps a lot. Thermal paste can also degrade over time so it's recommended to reapply thermal paste on your CPU. If you have no experience in how to do that without damaging the CPU and heatsink then I'd suggest you to ask for professional help or at least read/watch a few guides on that subject.

Incomparable

how overclocking an old cpu makes a difference

it depends on the cpu and how many ppl played with that cpu to read on how ppl managed to over clock it as well.

i was lucky with mine which is different than the vid, that there were many ppl trying to over clock with it, and they said which was an easy target with the cpu so i knew what i should target.

I have a somewhat old cpu over clocked. i have only a simple 1080p setup, so its very manageable to run games well with a gpu that supports it.

so, its not easy and there are obvious risks, and i was lucky my risk taking payed off. it was my first time over clocking as well and spent too much time reading and preparing for it.

in hind sight i should have gone to a friend/technician and got them to do it, and learn from them directly.

Loke666

You could replace the CPU with something that uses the same socket but I don't think that is worth it.

OCing will give you 5-10% (maybe a little more if you have a good fan), not enough.

Sorry, but I fear that it is time to upgrade. If you still want to OC until you can replace things check out this guide:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-overclocking-guide,4593.html

Dragnelus

I saw this: 

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/278263-29-safely-efficiently-overclock-3570k

They OC 4.4 ghz.

I got the i7 2600k oc at 4.6 ghz with a gtx 1070, no bottleneck! If you bottleneck try max gpu settings and/or up your resolution.

Edit: 


Maybe this could help

R3d.Gallows

Wouldnt upgrade just yet. Wait for the new Kaby Lake CPUs.

Muke

OhhPaigey said:

Cleffy said:

I wouldn't advise an over clock, especially on these CPUs. In general the last few generations of Intel CPUs don't over clock well. I think you can reasonably get a 4.5 Ghz over clock on the 3570k if you have the right components for a good over clock, like mobo, cooler, and memory. In the bigger picture an 18% increase in speed won't be much of a difference.
I also highly doubt your CPU is holding you back unless you are doing some CPU intensive tasks. Anything over 3 Ghz quad core should be sufficient in nearly every task. Knowing your specific components and what you are doing is the best way to find your bottle-neck.

Well, I just had to refund Mafia 3 because it was putting my CPU usage up to 100%.

I also stream on occasion and depending on what I'm playing, it can put my CPU usage to 100%.

Maybe it's just time to rebuild completely. It has been a couple of years.

Tried it, one of my older machines (i5, 16gb ddr3 ram, 970gtx, Asus maximus Ranger 7 and ssd) runs Mafia 3 perfect.

You have some serious problems with your OS/installed programs consuming all the CPU it seems. Or maybe not enough of memory?

Also upgrading a cpu to the same socet is (imo) not worth it.
Sure, benchmarks will say is worth it, but can you see the difference with your bare eyes? in 999/1000 cases: no.

If you really want to run Mafia 3, and you are not sure what the problem is, I would say to format and reinstall your OS+run the game without all the bagage that you install and might be running in the background.

Pynda

I'm sure there are a lot of guides out there on the net if you look, but the one thing I'll mention is the necessity of testing both the CPU and the memory for "stability" after overclocking.  And making sure temperatures stay within parameters while running stress testing/stability testing programs. There is good free software available for all these purposes readily available.

But all the work involved with overclocking makes it an endeavor more suited to hobbyist rather than for practical benefit. At least the first time you do it. After that you'll have the skills required, and it's much easier to accomplish correctly the next time around.

sacredfool

The fact CPU is running at 100% does not always mean CPU is the bottleneck. 

I totally agree with Muke that your CPU should be able to handle modern games decently well, even while streaming. 

What is your full setup? It might be that your PSU or other components are failing.

OhhPaigey

Thanks for the replies.

MSI Z77A-GD65 ATX LGA1155 Z77 DDR3 3PCI-E16 4PCI-E1 SATA3 DVI HDMI VGA DX11 USB3.0 Motherboard Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Direct Touch 4 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 AM3 LGA1366 LGA1155 LGA1156 120mm

Intel Core i5 3570K Unlocked Quad Core Processor LGA1155 3.4GHZ Ivy Bridge 6MB Retail

Antec HCG-620M 620W ATX12V Modular SINGLE-RAIL 48A 80PLUS Bronze 135mm Fan Active PFC Power Supply Mushkin Enhanced Blackline Frostbyte 16GB 2X8GB PC3-12800 DDR3-1600 CL10 Dual Channel Memory Kit

These are my parts pretty much. The SSD has been trouble since day 1, no lie.

I also have a GTX 970 I recently bought and upgraded.
This PC was built almost 4 years ago now.

I guess the question now is, is it time for a upgrade? :P

Dragnelus

OhhPaigey said:

Thanks for the replies.

MSI Z77A-GD65 ATX LGA1155 Z77 DDR3 3PCI-E16 4PCI-E1 SATA3 DVI HDMI VGA DX11 USB3.0 Motherboard Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Direct Touch 4 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 AM3 LGA1366 LGA1155 LGA1156 120mm

Intel Core i5 3570K Unlocked Quad Core Processor LGA1155 3.4GHZ Ivy Bridge 6MB Retail

Antec HCG-620M 620W ATX12V Modular SINGLE-RAIL 48A 80PLUS Bronze 135mm Fan Active PFC Power Supply Mushkin Enhanced Blackline Frostbyte 16GB 2X8GB PC3-12800 DDR3-1600 CL10 Dual Channel Memory Kit

These are my parts pretty much. The SSD has been trouble since day 1, no lie.

I also have a GTX 970 I recently bought and upgraded.
This PC was built almost 4 years ago now.

I guess the question now is, is it time for a upgrade? :P

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2620820/gtx-970-4gb-3570k.html

H0urg1ass

Some are saying that you won't notice or need the bump in processor speed that you gain by overclocking, but I would have to heartily disagree.

When I bought my i5 4670K machine, I ran it for about a month to burn all the components in and I played games on it in the meanwhile.  When I finally overclocked, I took it from stock 3.4MHz to OC 4.6MHz and I noticed a huge difference in both games and tasks such as encoding video, compressing files, performing AV scans, performing malware scans and backing up my machine.

For instance, there was nearly a 75% increase in speed when using Handbrake to encode videos to MP4 so that I could move them to my NAS and watch on my Samsung SmartTV's.

All of that being said, a 3570K is not a bottleneck for a GTX 970.  If Mafia 3 is maxing your CPU to 100%, then there's some other issue with your machine or with the optimization of the game itself. 

So, with that thought in mind I took a 5 minute look at the steam page and it has mixed reviews.  So I read a lot of the reviews, and guess what everyone is having issues with?  Optimization.  It's a horrible shitty PC port of a console game that is locked to 30fps and has ton's of other graphical issues such as textures popping in and out and running some people's CPU's to maximum.

It's not your PC, Mafia 3 is just a shitty programmed game.

Lastly, if people ask for your system specs, then download Speccy from Piriform and simply snapshot the summary page.  It will tell people all they need to know about your specs and it's ridiculously easy to use.

OhhPaigey

H0urg1ass said:

Some are saying that you won't notice or need the bump in processor speed that you gain by overclocking, but I would have to heartily disagree.

When I bought my i5 4670K machine, I ran it for about a month to burn all the components in and I played games on it in the meanwhile.  When I finally overclocked, I took it from stock 3.4MHz to OC 4.6MHz and I noticed a huge difference in both games and tasks such as encoding video, compressing files, performing AV scans, performing malware scans and backing up my machine.

For instance, there was nearly a 75% increase in speed when using Handbrake to encode videos to MP4 so that I could move them to my NAS and watch on my Samsung SmartTV's.

All of that being said, a 3570K is not a bottleneck for a GTX 970.  If Mafia 3 is maxing your CPU to 100%, then there's some other issue with your machine or with the optimization of the game itself. 

So, with that thought in mind I took a 5 minute look at the steam page and it has mixed reviews.  So I read a lot of the reviews, and guess what everyone is having issues with?  Optimization.  It's a horrible shitty PC port of a console game that is locked to 30fps and has ton's of other graphical issues such as textures popping in and out and running some people's CPU's to maximum.

It's not your PC, Mafia 3 is just a shitty programmed game.

Lastly, if people ask for your system specs, then download Speccy from Piriform and simply snapshot the summary page.  It will tell people all they need to know about your specs and it's ridiculously easy to use.

Tyvm.

Quizzical

Hitting 100% CPU usage isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're getting plenty high enough frame rates.  Unless you throttle back your frame rates by using vertical sync or some other sort of limiter, some resource will be utilized at 100%.

If you're at 100% CPU usage and getting poor frame rates, overclocking or a new CPU could help a little, but not that much unless the problem is that you simply need more than four CPU cores.  A game that can't run well on four good CPU cores is a game that doesn't run well, period.