Unstable CPU Overclock benefits Gaming?

So in general, a higher core clock translate to better gaming fps than core count. For example overclocked 6700ks do much better than Haswell-E 6 and 8 cores.

Usually when overclocking and trying to be stable, you find a good speed that the cpu can maintain at 100 percent full load. Almost all video games don't use 100 percent of the CPU Obviously.

So much question is, for example, in theory, could you game at almost 5ghz on the upcoming Broadwell-E that is 10 cores? Obviously games wont be using 20 threads and there will be a huge amount of headroom. That leaves a lot of extra voltage and higher frequencies. I'd randomly guess that most games would be only using 20-30 percent of the CPU tops in task manager, maybe less. So as long as you're keeping the cpu load low, should you be able to game at super high overclocks? I mean obviously if you dont change the voltage and you end up using 100 percent of the cpu at 5gz, youll get a crash.

I noticed this back when I would overclock my cpu and play bf4. I could run it at 4.2ghz and keep the heat low, yet full load could causes crashes.

edit to above: the overclock at 5ghz would still have a voltage increase, i just meant with the same voltage could you run higher clock speeds at lower cpu loads.


So does this make sense for gaming? Would it work in theory? or am I totally crazy?

 

The problem with unstable overclocks is you actually don't know when it will crash, or what other problems it would cause. I had an overclock I thought was stable, but it crashed when I was playing a game and thus wasn't actually stable. I would not suggest running an unstable overclock, because you don't know what problems it can have.

It's not a good idea.

 

For higher clocks you will need higher voltage. However yes a game may very well not crash a highly overclocked and overvolted cpu due to load not being 100%.

An example I pushed my 920xm to 4.2ghz across ALL 4 cores last year at an overvolt and played the entire wolfenstein new order campaign.

While temps were high (in the 90s) I never experienced a crash. Yeah I needed dual psus to feed it as it easily comsumed 150W+

At the same voltage with no load I was able to clock 4.5ghz so load absolutely is linked to stability.

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Like I said before, you can't say with certainty that running an unstable clock would be a good thing. I think it's a very dangerous thing, I had a BSoD as well as lots of freezing when I had an unstable overclock and the CPU was nowhere near 100% usage.

It's not worth it, OP likely isn't even very CPU limited.

CPU hardly makes any different for gaming: http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=1061

 

I 2nd this.. I've had similar issues with unstable OCs.. The trick is to find where the border between stable and unstable is and then be right near the point of instability.. Of course, having a 4790K now, I run at 4.5GHz with no issues so no reason on my end to push the CPU any further in games..

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i was just asking because id really like the upcoming 10 core broadwell e. but it only goes up to 3.5ghz. higher clock speeds will clearly help in gaming and single threaded applications. thats why everyone raves about the skylake 6700k

 

I never said overclocking is good. I simply stated that a higher clockspeed requires higher voltage and that load is certainly linked with so called stability at certain clockspeeds. That was the question afterall

It certainly isnt good. Hence why I havent done it since.

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It's not worth the trouble in my opinion. You can definitely run higher unstable OCs for most operations.
I've recently started using handbrake to be the best test for a stable overclock instead of 3dmark11 Physics.
Most of the time I can run 4.5ghz on my 5820k but to my dismay discovered handbrake crashes on anything more than 4.4. But everything else runs fine.
Using throttlestop is a nice easy way to switch up your clock speeds for different applications if you want to go that way.

 

If you have a game that doesn't do multithreading very well, you can just shut off HT. That tends to increase stability at higher clocks. Another thing that I've done is shut off cores in the BIOS but not all systems have that ability. Running an unstable OC will almost always make it crash at the worst time.

 

I am planning on the 6950x as well. I would just leave it at 4.4ghz. For gaming single thread is fine, and its godsend for multithreading.

 

im predicting itll be well over 2000 score in cinebench. possibly up to 2200-2300.

i read somewherre that adobe premiere pro in some testing actually performed worse after 6-8 cores. hopefully that testing was done wrong or something wack happened.