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Firstly thankyou to Clunk for a comprehensive guide for pure numpties like me.
I have OC'd my Q6600 to 3.6Ghz, by changing the FSB to 400MHz. Runs stable, idle temps 38oC, and load temps of 53oC.
However, I have not noticed any big performance boost, in fact I am considering putting it back down to 3Ghz, just so I dont stress the CPU.
My question is, where would I notice the performance jump? I have not noticed any change to my COD4 gameplay, however I assume its GPU depenent.
Thanks.
Depending on your graphics card you might notice some difference in 1080p encoding and viewing.
If you do some video encoding or game with multi graphics card setups the higher clockspeed will help.
However IMHO for most other things a Q6600 at 3ghz is more than enough and TBH I keep mine at stock speeds as it does the job well and runs cooler than when it was overclocked.
Four words: Grand Theft Auto Four
yea, I second that. GTA 4 is a ridiculously cpu bound game. I overclocked my i7 and the framerates went up in direct proportion to the cpu clockspeed.
That said, most other games are made properly and you will most likely be GPU bound.
Your grid crunching (F@H, WCG, etc) points will scale linearly with frequency :)
Run task manager all the time, if it ever tops out at 100% on all four cores, or 25% on one single threaded application, then you will see an increase in performance on that app clock for clock. It's very likely that your CPU usage hardly ever goes over 10% in normal use, other than when gaming. When you get to these clock speeds it's often other parts of the system that slow the experience down such as slow hard disks (try a raided SSD setup!) lack of RAM or a slow graphics card.
If you're not seeing the benefits then clocking you CPU back down is a good move, not only does it save heat/life span of the CPU but you will also be consuming less electric ;)
Steve