Worth overclocking the cpu and/or gpu ?

Hi all,

So a friend of mine with a I5 2300 cpu and a HD5570 gpu got AC.
And as you probably already know it sucks and can get around 50fps with all graphics settings disabled or at the lowest at a res of 1920x1080. He want's to know if it's gonna be worth it to overclock to get a little more fps or maybe some graphics settings to turn up. I suggested to try it but he doesn't wanna take the risk of damaging it for no reason maybe. So has anybody some experience with this and thinks it's gonna be worth it ? Or maybe some tips and tricks to squeeze some more power out of his system ? Cuz it drives and looks like crap with low fps

Thanks in advance!

 

yes its worth it

 

Maybe, sometimes an overclock will add to the problem. GPU overclocking is not a good way to go with an onboard GPU as if it goes pop the whole lappy is an expensive paper weight. Sell the lappy and buy a PC, so much cheaper and so much faster, even a lower spec desktop will do a better job and if you select the right hardware you can slowly upgrade it to an even better gaming rig.

So yes you could gain an improvement in overall performance but at the expense of reliability and longevity.

 

Alright

It is a desktop pc but I think he already got it for 5 years..
He might upgrade it but he is just using it to play assetto corsa and gmod so he doesn't need something very powerfull and uses his money on other stuff..
But i'm with him so i'll try to overclock it and see how it turns out

 

My I7 920 (2.6GHz) is running at up to 3.9 GHz...since 3 years now. No issues.

 

I gained about 20fps clocking my CPU up and another 10 by doing my gfx card. (From about 80 to 110 on Nords)

Great way to squeeze another year from your system if it can take it. Make sure your heat management is sorted out.

 

My I7 920 has been at 3.8 GHz for three years as well. Overclocking just needs to be researched first. He needs to research his specific CPU and see what most people have overclocked it to and how. GPUs usually don't overclock very high.

 

I am not saying OCing your system is not a way to squeeze a bit extra out, what I am saying is that it can cause DATA corruption and will degrade your systems quicker than leaving them default. My AMD has been running a nice OC for over five years (watercooled), but I would not bother trying to OC an onboard GPU like the Intel HD. You might be able to change the BIOS to add extra memory dedicated to the onboard GPU, but again you will be stressing the system even more with a onboard GPU OC as it will push the CPU further down the road of unreliability.

Personally I would get him to send that letter to Santa and ask for a dedicated GPU, anything from the nVidia 5 series up will give him far more performance gains than OCing.

 

Aight, thanks for the replies guys! There's a huge cpu cooler in there so it won't run hot i think Just installed all latest drivers and some overclock software so lets try some settings out
@Horus it's a dedicated GPU HD5570 by AMD

 

Before thinking a lot about this, investigate whats even possible. Some CPU´s are `locked` and hard to overclock to any meaningfull gain.

Also you must have sufficient cooling (and power supply, but thats usually alright). So check your temps too, especially if your friend has the stock cooler only.

If you dont change the voltages overclocking is very safe. If you do change the voltages its still safe, if you know what your doing. And normal levels of OC is not rocketsience. Take your time and enjoy your free upgrade

 

Any idea about the gpu settings in the AMD Crimson settings ? I can make a custom profile for ac with AA settings and some more.. anybody has an idea of how to put this ?

 

Start slow, go in increments, and do one at a time. (CPU, then GPU.) Run some benchmark software to test each upclock and watch the heat. Be patient.

In a couple of hours you'll be done, and you'll have done it right.

Horus is right, it stresses your hardware. But many of us have been running oc'd for years with perfect reliability. (A lot like cars...)

 

It's a non K processor my man. They are locked maximums and you will only be changing the turbo speeds, 3.3 is the max you can get to without breaking. And given his low end PC what mobo does he have? Because if it is anything other than P67, Z68, Z75, or Z77 chipset then you shouldn't even bother because you can't. You will at best get a 400 MHz boost, realistically speaking not even half that on the turbo with that chip. Not worth it.

As for the GPU go nuts with it, just leave that CPU alone. That's my advice unless your friend is planning on doing a full rebuild soon and he doesn't mind frying his mobo and gpu because you tried to overclock the CPU by increasing the base clock and since PCIE and SATA are tied to bclk it will make the system unstable and deader than a bag of dead rocks.

 

Curious, I'm using a BioStar TA75A+ with what I believe is a K AMD A8-blah blah blah processor (check my spec spoilers) and I've always overclocked .3 GHz on the CPU...should I not be doing this?

@Sen Dewael Your friend should hopefully see 10 to 12 fps boost with proper oc'ing on the GPU. I'd also install GPU Techpowerup that you can find online to monitor your overclocks. MSI Afterburner also works really well. If you know your card's maximum TDP power limit, you can overclock to that point without getting problems.

AMD Crimson works best when paired with Windows10...Windows7, I haven't seen the 15 fps extra boosts others have been getting. Since Beta 15.0, there have been FPS boosts everywhere, so I'd install the latest AMD drivers whether Crimson or not. Don't oc with AMD Catalyst either, use an aftermarket program.

 

And your friend might look into getting an ASUS Strix GeForce 970...that card has a VERY low power draw, oc's well, and is a supercard. If he has a 6+2 pin and 32amps on his 12+volt rail, he should be able to get around 160 FPS with that card easily. It's the card I'm getting next. The AMD R9 380x is another lower powered card he might try upgrading to. Gigabyte sells one with a 6+2 pin connector, and it oc's very well, not as solid as the 970, but extremely good fps, and very stable under oc's. They are selling for 200 - 229 USD, and are proving popular. They also appear to work very well with Crimson from the reviews coming out recently, and are more powerful than the hotter running 280X outgoing cards.

 

The stuff I mentioned is intel processor and i5 2300 specific, won't apply to you. Your setup is fine..

 

So after a couple hours of trying last night i figured that the cpu isn't overclockable (like @Torcano mentioned) we tried to find stable settings for the gpu and finally came up with a 100 GPU Clock increase and a 100 Memory clock increase.
So now the GPU Clock is 750 MHz and the Memory Clock is at 900Mhz.. can't go any higher because the drivers will crash. Sadly there's only a 4-5fps increase when running the AC Benchmark.
So i guess the only way to be able to play this game like we should is to upgrade the system Thanks for all the help guys!

 

Thanks for the conclusive report. THIS is how you do forum