Overclocking by many can be seen as a waste of time. But could it improve in game performance?

Recently, I did a post called A quick & easy overclocking guide for gamers and miners, where I showed you how to get the most performance out of your graphics card. In this post, I will be using the same procedure to boost the performance of the GPU, but I will also be delving into system overclocking just to show you how much performance you can expect to see, if any, to help in game performance.

The Test Bench System.

Each PC is different, and my new system is only missing a CPU, (AMD Ryzen 2700X. Not yet released) so I will be basing all testing using my current build.

CPU	AMD FX-8320 AM3+
Memory	Corsair Vengeance 8Gb, 1600Mhz DDR3
Motherboard	Gigabyte 990 FX AM3+
Graphics Card	PowerColor Radeon RX 580 8Gb GDDR5
Cooling	Corsair H55 120mm AiO 2 x 200MM case fans 3 x 120mm case fans
Power Supply	GameMax 1050 watt PSU

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Although I am using an older generation CPU and RAM, the GPU is indeed up to date. So the only bottleneck in performance I will get will be in the CPU, which will work out great for this experiment, because we will be pushing the CPU beyond its stock setting, any improvements will be seen in game straight away. Combine with memory and GPU overclocking, we should expect to see some big jumps in performance.

The Games I will be testing and benchmarking will all have there settings set to the highest graphical level possible at 1440p with any extras like 'Hairworks', 'Antialiasing' and such disabled to make the testing more consistent.
And the Games are...

• Unigine Valley
• Hitman 2016
• Assassins Creed Origins
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• GTA V
• Metal Gear Solid V
• Alien Isolation

Speed Baby.

So I will start by entering the Bios and reverting the CPU and Memory settings back to default, and the GPU, because it came with a mild overclock, I will dial it back to match the reference card speed. This will give those that have reference cards from there respective manufacturers, an idea of what they can expect to see.

• On the Stock setting the CPU is at a stock 3.5Ghz, the memory is set at 1600Mhz and the GPU has a core clock of 1256Mhz, with the memory clocking in at 2000Mhz.

• On the Overclock setting the CPU is at 4.3Ghz, the memory is at 1778Mhz and the GPU was pushed to the point, just before it crashed, with the core at 1475Mhz and the memory clocking in at 2320Mhz. But the power limit was also increased to plus 50%.

This all adds up to some impressive in game numbers.

	Stock Speed FPS	Overclocked FPS
Unigine Valley	48.4	56.6
Hitman 2016	59.4	66.8
Assassins Creed Origins	27.2	35.0
Rise of the Tomb Raider	67.7	75.4
GTA V	73.1	83.9
Metal Gear Solid V	72.9	89.8
Alien Isolation	74.3	102.6

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These are just some of the games I have installed, with only a few being popular today. However, I wasn't aiming for numbers in popular games, I wanted to show you what benefits you could see if overclocking is done right.
With older hardware, mainly the CPU and RAM, if like me you are running a more modern GPU, you may get what is called a CPU bottleneck. This is because the CPU can not process all the data received by the GPU and can result in the GPU performing less than is should be. With the correct Bios overclock, you can see drastic improvements in game, improving framerate and ability to up the graphical performance options.
As you can see across the board, all the games and even the synthetic benchmark all saw improvements of 4% or higher, with Alien isolation seeing as high as a 25% increase in framerate, and Assassins Creed Origins only seeing a small improvement, but with such a badly optimised game, any improvement is a bonus. (I need to review Assassins Creed Origins soon, I only got the game a few days ago and it is so disappointing)

Conclusion.

Can overclocking improve in game performance? Undoubtedly Yes.
The amount of overclock you give your system will ultimately be reflected in game. But with so much hardware available, it is impossible to do a guide that will cover everyone's system. So the only advice I can give you is to google ''How to overclock 'your motherboard and chip'.'' there are thousands of guides that can help you out with some video guides included. All you will need to know is your motherboard brand and model with what CPU you have in there. If you don't know this information, you can download CPUZ here from Cpuid.com. It is a simple program that shows you all the information about the main hardware your system has.
In regards to overclocking your GPU, well there already exists an all in one solution that I have already written a guide for which you can find HERE.

What's more, the gains you can achieve in game are all free. From the bios overclocking to the software needed to overclock the GPU. So there could already be a potential 25% improvement waiting to be had from your current PC.

Thanks for reading.

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