I have clocked my CPU to 44Ghz which is a smallish increase will test it out this afternoon with a bit of gaming.
Thing is, CPU performance isn't anywhere near as limiting as GPU performance unless you have a VERY old CPU - which you don't! Well, maybe it is if you game at 120+Hz...
There are a lot of appeals to "free performance" in this thread, and in most cases the performance gains you get from OCing (especially with current gen hardware like OP's 6600K and GTX 1080) will be imperceptible (as jrs77 said). But, to be fair, Parge makes a good point about overclocking a lower tier component to match or exceed the performance of a higher tier component, and this is exactly why I run a Xeon X5650 instead of an i7 990X. But with regards to this thread... what sits above a GTX 1080 that OP needs to match? Unnoticeable free performance?
But is it ever free when you take into account the increased power draw? Seems like a big jump to me which no one seems to take into consideration. Yeh its probably not that massive but it does exist. I'm still using a stock clocked 2500K and I don't seem to have any issues at 1920x1200 with a GTX 970. I always intended to overclock when playing games started to struggle but so far its never happened so to me it just burning extra watts for no reason at all other than kudos.
I sit in the middle, I like tapping the 'free' performance from a small speed bump, but don't increase voltage much. Once you need to increase voltage, you have to deal with much more heat and power consumption. I'm running my 6600k at 4.2-4.4 turbo, 1.2v. Runs cooler than the stock settings, with a 15% performance boost, when needed (else it downclocks). To me, that's the best of both and it was fun to tinker.
My GTX 1070 goes above 2ghz. My vintage i5 2500k is stable at 4.8ghz using offset mode so the voltage drops low at idle. It's the only method I'd use for CPU overclock these days. I overclock just because I can. I understand that some games don't need it with more modern CPU's but I will still overclock when I buy i7 6700k this week. My 1866mhz 16gb ram I had running at 2133mhz. When I had my GTX 680 I got an extra 20fps out of it during Battlefield 3 days. 135mhz+ core.
Depends on what the build is for but my own gaming rigs I've overclocked. I've never gone too hard though and have never played with voltage settings. Still have my 1st build from 2008 that originally had a Pentium E2160 which I pushed to 2.6 from 1.8 just using an FSB increase and really benefitted from the CPU boost. Replaced it with a Q9650 and ran it at 3.6GHz with another FSB increase. I still have that rig but it's now running at stock for legacy games and tbh didn't really see much improvement with that OC. My i5 4670K does seem faster running at 4.2GHz, again no voltage increase and just an increase in the multiplier. Planning on doing so again with an itx build at the end of the year and still think there's a benefit in overclocking a CPU. Never bothered with GPUs, I've bought some that are factory overclocked and have been happy with them but never felt inclined to gain a small increase. As others have said with 60fps @1080p being obtainable by pretty much any new card on the market I don't see any point in pushing GPUs. 44GHz?!? Impressive.
You will have issues but just not be aware of them. It has come to light recently that the i5 2500k even with 4.8ghz overclock is losing FPS on CPU heavy games. We're talking 30fps which is significant especially if you run VR. Thus my 2500k is getting the boot as soon as I commit to i7 6700k or 6800k.
I used to, but even now I think stock isn't half bad. It does however extend the usable lifetime of a processor for quite a while. GPU clocks on the other hand yield at best 10% on a good day so I'm never entirely sure if those are worth it.
I have a 1070 to go in my rig. Plus water block. The card will do over 2ghz with little tuning. Why wouldn't I? I'm not worried about heat.
I'm gonna upgrade my bits very shortly (perhaps place order today). Was thinking 6 core because of future upgrade options on the 2011-v3 but realistically will I buy a used cpu for it in 3 or 4 years time? I don't want to run SLI so I dung need the extra PCIe lanes. I've determined that 6 core isn't really any better at 3d rendering than an i7 6700k. 6 core consumes 154w+ on overclock. Monstrous heat and wattage. Poor overclocking. 6 core would need new waterblock. If I go z170 I can keep my swiftech apogee xt. i7 6700k will give me the fps boost I need for VR.
I haven't bothered overclocking for years now - ever since I moved to X58 in fact. The system is plenty fast enough on its own and I'd rather have the stability and longevity of the hardware. Plus I've got better things to do in my life then spend hours tweaking the settings - valuable time when I could be gaming! [because I barely have any time for that as it is!] But each to their own - if you enjoy fiddling with the settings, then go for it! I used to have great fun overclocking my old AMD socket 939 hardware - the Opteron 165 was my favourite. Got a "broken" processor off eBay for £15, bent the pins back into shape, then ran it at 2.6Ghz all day long (stock speed was 1.8Ghz). Oh the memories...
An overclocked system should be fully stable if done right. Also the fiddling with settings is only done maybe twice in 4 years for a few days.
X58 would benefit fairly well with an Overclock now. That said, I do understand. Running an i7 920 @ 60C constantly is mildly scary!
Got 1070 in now... mild overclock. Sits not higher than 46c during gaming... core clock at constant 2025mhz during gaming. Never drops, nor clocks. Unfortunately my card has limitation on power limit. Have to wait till pascal bios editer is available I guess... anything above and it doesn't play ball. Not too concerned anyway. Gfx card at plus 2ghz core is pretty awesome to me. Only wanted to turn up remaining witcher 3 settings and play We Happy Few when it is out proper. Sure there will be more also.
I can't remember that far back. https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/i7-920-idle-voltage-when-overclocked.2202360/ Looks like it might feature.
I dunno if everyone already knows this, but avoid burn-in testing with tools like Furmark. There have been various highly technical explanations over the years, on various forums, about why extreme burn-in testing a graphics card is a terrible idea. CPUs, it doesn't matter so much, because CPUs literally never die (if you know of a CPU having died under normal, proper overclocking operations, please let me know). But graphics cards, it's just really not a good idea. Something to do with the capacitors being forced to hold charge in unnatural/unrealistic patterns or for unrealistic durations they aren't designed to tolerate, and dying young. TL;DR: don't extreme burn-in your graphics card to find out if it's stable, just run a few games, as Yadda says. CPUs it probably doesn't matter bc CPUs never die, but I still avoid torture tests generally on principle.
