Overclocking Is overclocking graphics cards worth it?

Hi all,

When reading the captions at the beginning of this months CPC Reviews section I noticed that Antony and Harry disagreed (strongly?) about whether overclocking graphics cards is worth it. What does everyone else think?

 

for me depends on the end results. i am always interested to see what i can get out of my hardware, and run a few benchies. but after that i tone it back down to stock. if i am playing a game that i need the extra fps to get playable frames, i'll do it. otherwise, why?

 

I always oc everything I've got but I can understand people who can't be bothered ocing graphics cards, the frame rate boost for a good overclock is often around 1fps which isn't exactly stellar.

 

When I get something new, Video card, CPU (anything that can be overclocked) I OC it to the max as soon as its on and running.

 

I overclock my GPU on my laptop... making a geforce 9300 up to near a Geforce 9500M and in some games close to a Geforce 9600M.

But on my deskotp, my CPU is limiting my GPU, and I can still run all games at max settings except GTA 4 and Crysis. So why bother?

 

I tried overclocking my 4850. And I can max out the core speed in the CCC but it doesn't make much of a difference in games in terms of FPS.
So I just leave it at the stock setting. No point in unknowingly overheating some part of the card and killing it early.

 

I could do with more graphics power in Crysis, just to make it a little smoother in the big battles.

 

i asked pretty much the same a while back, and got some mixed feedback..

i overclocked a 8800gts 640mb, and got +4fps extra in The Witcher. "wow, a whole 4fps."
but it was fun, and its nice to play with overclocking and the extra preformance and knowledge gained made it worth while.

so, .. why not? give it a go and see how far you can push it!

 

why shouldn't you oc your graphics card it is so easy to do and well worth doing

 

I OC my 8800gts 640mb (). I find it allows me to run Quake Wars at 1680x1050 on high rather than medium...Which is sexy.

 

On a related topic, what is the max temperature you would push a card to?

 

GPU shutdown temperature are 90C or 95C or 100C, depending on the GPU model.

 

For gaming, no. Benching of course.


Every GPU i've ever owned has never given me any noticeable framerate increases when overclocked (as in, actually made an unplayable game playable)..... and the last few have been watercooled.

 

I don't let my GPU get above 80C for short periods, for longer gaming sessions I'd like it to be less than that.

Although I agree with the people above that say you might as well as it is so easy, much easier than for a CPU, the gains are also much less than you would get from overclocking a CPU (I believe this was one person's line of reasoning in the mag segment), so I only bother to do it on my own systems and only when I feel I'm not getting enough performance out of the card at stock speeds to enable the game to run smoothly (even though overclocking it rarely improves things by much more than a few FPS).

 

well, i've never seen the power draw increase stats, but there obviously is some, which obviously increases the electricity bill. running a game at 25 fps as opposed to 20 fps would be worth it probably for the higher bill. but to run a game at 45 fps vs 40? i wouldn't want to pay extra on my utility for that.

of course, these are guess-timates (is that a word?)...

in short, pay more on the utility bill for no real gain? why? even if it isn't that significant...

 

I overclock the hardware in my folding rigs for better PPD. The two 8800GTS's in my first rig are the success story here, they are fitted with aftermarket arctic cooling HSF's and clocked in excess of 30% above their stock values. Higher shader clock = more PPD = basically. For gaming, unless you are getting massive overclocks like I am (and in most cases you won't, I just happened to get two of the most overclockable 8800's out there) there isn't much point.

I always overclock watercooled PC's or those with good air cooling, because it's my opinion that if you spend a lot of money on specialist HSF's or liquid cooling systems that you may as well have a little more performance out of the hardware they're cooling.

 

I'm glad this thread came up - I am (still) thinking about my first watercooled build and have been wondering about the graphics card part of things. It's a lot more expensive to get a full cover waterblock for a graphics card than it is for a CPU.

Minimum framerate increases concern me more than average or maximum, so what kind of framerate increase are we looking at with a watercooled GPU?

Also, if I AM watercooling a GPU, it would be silly to buy one of the ones from a more expensive company like xfx or bfg right? Since I assume their added cost is from the factory overclock and alternative cooling?

 

BFG do (some) graphics cards with decent water blocks attached, so you could save yourself a warranty and some effort by buying one of them.

Its not like you cant get decent overclocks on stock air cooling for graphics cards, though you certainly should get better results with water. They should be quieter to boot

 

quieter under load as well

 

you'll only see your oc when the game becomes bottlenecked by the gpu- I should explain it in laymans terms so it's easier to understand

let's say joe blow is playing a game at 800x600.. he's stock clocks on everything but getting 150 fps.. his gpu is capable of 500 fps but is currently bottlenecked by the cpu (at 150)

now joe overclocks his gpu.. his card is now capable of displaying 550 fps at that resolution (just as an example).. he runs the game and it still running at 150fps.. this is where the newbie throws up his hands and goes haha

ok now.. joe is my puppet here.. he moves to a resolution of 1080p- now his cpu hasn't changed through all of this but is still capable of churning out 150fps as far as it's concerned.. but his gpu is now become the bottleneck and is churning out only 100fps at the new res

joe now overclocks the gpu and sees his gains at 120 fps (as an example).. he decides to turn on 16x aa 16x af at stock speed.. his card at 1080p is churning out a lowly 40fps, his lcd refresh rate is 60, so he does notice it chop a bit.. he overclocks and now it's smooth average of 60fps with the aa/af applied- he's gpu capped and is running the best he can

if his monitor was only 1024x768 for example.. he may never see the benefits of ocing.. it's the higher res and amount of aa applied where the cpu falls back from being the bottleneck and the gpu becomes the new bottleneck where ocing pays off

hope it helped.. I get tired of seeing ocing gpu doesn't mean anything- these guys saying it are all cpu capped or don't use any aa! it helps to get a wicked oc on the card also