4 ms·

Overclocking desktops in 2019 is only extremely rarely a productive use of your time.

by drcross 7y ago

rasz 7y ago
Overclocking desktop in 2019 is a 10 minute affair to gain a permanent >20% performance.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  I think it's a little less clear of a performance benefit in 2019, now that every CPU will dynamically overclock itself within thermal limits.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    Intel parts only dynamically OC to their max turbo presets. you can often go quite a bit further if you don't care about idle power use. I was able to OC my 9700k to run 5 GHz on all cores and tighten up the AVX offset to -1 (I think it's -3 stock). can I notice the difference outside of benchmarks? probably not, but the performance increase per core is comparable to stepping up to a stock 9700k from a 9600k (ignoring core count). if you would pay $100 to have a 9700k instead of a 9600k (which I did), why not overclock it too? it took me about 20 minutes of actual work and 12 hours of waiting for stress tests to fail.
- unicornfinder 7y ago
  Honestly I don't think so. I tried overclocking my i7-4790k back in the day and it took an absurd amount of time and I never really got a meaningful improvement that I could honestly say was stable. I hear the i9-9900k is a good overclocker but with AMD being the best option now and their chips being well, let's be honest, not the best overclockers in the world I don't really see the point.
- mschaef 7y ago
  I think you're saying the same thing. A one-time 20% bump isn't worth that much these days to the vast majority of people. (Even if it is only 10 minutes... which I tend to think might be an underestimate, given the testing, etc. you'd have to do to make sure it's all stable. 10 minutes to an overclocked boot, fine. 10 minutes to an overclocked configuration that can run a workload without problems for eight hours a day for several years... that seems like more of a challenge). .)
  - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
    That's all true (I personally don't OC either), but you should still run stability checks when you first get your computer. This Coding Horror post is great: https://blog.codinghorror.com/is-your-computer-stable/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/is-your-computer-stable/
    - optimiz3 7y ago
      IMO the use of Linux for out of the box stability testing is poor unless you're absolutely certain the hardware config works perfectly under Linux without any specific tinkering.
      - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
        Pretty much any PC will boot linux nowadays, maybe you need wifi or graphics drivers, but that post only uses Linux to test the CPU and disk.
- jandrese 7y ago
  Turns out that I'd rather have longer life and lower power draw over 20% performance most of the time.
- gruez 7y ago
  Which current gen CPUs can you get >20% performance increase on by overclocking? Assuming that baseline performance is stock settings with turbo enabled (usually default) as well as MCE/PBO (default on some motherboards).
GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
It's well worth it, especially when it's on a triple radiator water cooling loop

Overclocking desktops in 2019 is only extremely rarely a productive use of your time.

rasz 7y ago

Overclocking desktop in 2019 is a 10 minute affair to gain a permanent >20% performance.

rhinoceraptor 7y ago
I think it's a little less clear of a performance benefit in 2019, now that every CPU will dynamically overclock itself within thermal limits.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  Intel parts only dynamically OC to their max turbo presets. you can often go quite a bit further if you don't care about idle power use. I was able to OC my 9700k to run 5 GHz on all cores and tighten up the AVX offset to -1 (I think it's -3 stock). can I notice the difference outside of benchmarks? probably not, but the performance increase per core is comparable to stepping up to a stock 9700k from a 9600k (ignoring core count). if you would pay $100 to have a 9700k instead of a 9600k (which I did), why not overclock it too? it took me about 20 minutes of actual work and 12 hours of waiting for stress tests to fail.
unicornfinder 7y ago
Honestly I don't think so. I tried overclocking my i7-4790k back in the day and it took an absurd amount of time and I never really got a meaningful improvement that I could honestly say was stable. I hear the i9-9900k is a good overclocker but with AMD being the best option now and their chips being well, let's be honest, not the best overclockers in the world I don't really see the point.
mschaef 7y ago
I think you're saying the same thing. A one-time 20% bump isn't worth that much these days to the vast majority of people. (Even if it is only 10 minutes... which I tend to think might be an underestimate, given the testing, etc. you'd have to do to make sure it's all stable. 10 minutes to an overclocked boot, fine. 10 minutes to an overclocked configuration that can run a workload without problems for eight hours a day for several years... that seems like more of a challenge). .)
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  That's all true (I personally don't OC either), but you should still run stability checks when you first get your computer. This Coding Horror post is great: https://blog.codinghorror.com/is-your-computer-stable/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/is-your-computer-stable/
  - optimiz3 7y ago
    IMO the use of Linux for out of the box stability testing is poor unless you're absolutely certain the hardware config works perfectly under Linux without any specific tinkering.
    - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
      Pretty much any PC will boot linux nowadays, maybe you need wifi or graphics drivers, but that post only uses Linux to test the CPU and disk.
jandrese 7y ago
Turns out that I'd rather have longer life and lower power draw over 20% performance most of the time.
gruez 7y ago
Which current gen CPUs can you get >20% performance increase on by overclocking? Assuming that baseline performance is stock settings with turbo enabled (usually default) as well as MCE/PBO (default on some motherboards).

GaryNumanVevo 7y ago

It's well worth it, especially when it's on a triple radiator water cooling loop