... that is the eternal question. My PC is starting to chug, and the thought of overclocking it has resurfaced... However part of me is thinking 'why bother?... it's still gonna chug'... there's also the prospect of potentially borking a PC i can't afford to be without, nor could i afford to fix it if i did bork it [i know most CPUs/boards are pretty forgiving now but knowing my luck i would blow something]... So even if you thought it wouldn't make much of a difference, what would you do... overclock or not... For reference, the system - Pentium G3258 Asus Z97 Pro 2x4GB 2133MHz Corsair DDR3 ... and before some smartass suggests it, 'save up and upgrade' isn't an option... I have been since before I bought this PC, and i can barely scrape enough together to buy a packet of crisps...
What part of 'i can't afford to upgrade' was so vague? Do you really think I'd have stuck with a 3258 or persevering with an old HDD if upgrading was an option?
Well looking at the board you have you should be overclocking somewhat. The level of which comes down to your cooler and keeping the cpu in safe limits. My rule is keep the volts and temp in check and you are golden. Spend some time studying overclocking your processor see what people get for a rough idea and also the process of doing it on your motherboard. I spent time with this and had a idea my cpu could do this speed at this volts and it did. I then dropped the volts and it keep on delivering stable tests. Overclocking is free when you have the kit but the doing it right comes with time invested from yourself.
My post answered your question. No, there is no point overclocking because the clock speed on that CPU is OK as is. Your problem is almost obviously a lack of cores and overclocking isn't going to help you.
I recently ran my system with a Pentium G2030 which is slower than what you have and was surprised at how capable my machine was, what is chugging, perhaps the CPU is not at fault. The Pentium only struggled with one or two games, the Microsoft Forza titles as they seem to need 3 cores. My Pentium would not overclock at all.
He hasn't explained in what sense it is chugging. The fact that you still have a HDD instead of an SSD is an big enough chug factor as it is.
...it would be if i'd actually attempted any sort of overclock. This is straight up 'wake up, stagger to pc, hit power button... nada... hit power button again... nada... swear loudly...' Need to find a fuse so i can check that... but right now it won't even light up [even after the stuff MadDutchDude said]... Can't just try another kettle lead as my psu uses the c19 connector... thanks beQuiet...
Overclocking involves a lot of "Try and Error" but can give you some extra performance. I guess that your PSU is damaged (maybe bad electrolytic capacitors). What happens if you try to heaten the PSU with a hair dryer? Will the PC start again? If that´s the case, you have found the error.