2 OC or not 2 OC

Everything tech-related is discussed here

Moderator: Global Moderator

Post Reply
User avatar
LaZy
Honorary Officer
Posts: 2444
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 3:44 am
Location: Ferragudo Portugal
Contact:

2 OC or not 2 OC

Post by LaZy »

Oh wizards of 1´s and 0´s provide this humble wannabe gamer with some insight. I currently run a Q6600 @ 2.4 with a NON stock cooler on it, 4 Gigs of OCZ 1066 DDR2 Ram on a Asus P5N- E Sli  with a single 460GTX card. Last year I upgraded my GPU and doubled my Ram and also went Win 7 (32bit). The improvement was remarkable and well worth the "cheap" effort! It just so happens that when I play SC2 with all GPU related graphic options in Ultra and all the CPU related options in high or medium, all HUGE battles make the "ur PC is slowing down the game" message pop up. When I leave all options on default it automatically turns all options into Ultra and the same message pops up more frequently.

Ive spoken 2 Comadevil which supports the idea that my processing power is simply 2 low. So I started watching a lot of utube vids that teach how 2 easily over clock my Q6600 from the standard 2.4 up to an easy 3.0 or even 3.2, with stability. Question Nº1: will such an OC actually improve my gaming experience significantly? 2) every single video on Utube starts the OC by entering the MB Intelligent Tweaker (MIT) menu on their BIOS. I do not have that option. In fact my BIOS doesnt resemble anything that is seen in any videos on the subject. Does this mean I need 2 flash the darn thing?

Thanks in advance

out
User avatar
Comadevil
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 2117
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:55 am
AOE3 Nickname: Comadevil

Re: 2 OC or not 2 OC

Post by Comadevil »

The OC won't help u very much as more RAM and graphics card helped u.

Even if u OC u will still slow down the game. U can see ur FPS ingame by pressing ALT+F, STRG+F or ALT+STRG+F. One of these combinations should work. U will get maybe a 3-5 fps increase

For comparison look at CPU SC2 benchmarks.
e.g. http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,76608 ... piel/Test/

The E8400 or Q9550 benchmark will come closest to overclocking to 3 GHz

I even used only high settings with my old comp because Ultra was just too much
User avatar
LaZy
Honorary Officer
Posts: 2444
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 3:44 am
Location: Ferragudo Portugal
Contact:

Re: 2 OC or not 2 OC

Post by LaZy »

That was a very cool link Marco. Thanks 4 that.

IF I understood it correctly the Nº of cores used doesn't actually make a huge difference. What does significantly change things is the cache level and size. Please correct me if Im wrong here, but surely if I do OC my Q6600 I should outperform, say, the Core i3, since if I get it to more or less the same CPU clock (~3Ghz) Id have 8Mib L2 vs 4Mib L3. Or am I just being dumb here? Also in the FPS graph, Im doing an average of 18,5 fps vs the 22,1 of the i3. If I get the 4-5 fps increase that u mentioned then Id b on par with a new CPU using a 4 year old CPU.

thoughts

I dont expect the OC 2 get rid of the "ur PC is slowing down the game" message. I realize that simply will not happen. But if I can lower the amount of times per gaming session it shows up then Id b happy. Rarely do we have a 8 player 200/200 fight going on :P

out
User avatar
Comadevil
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 2117
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:55 am
AOE3 Nickname: Comadevil

Re: 2 OC or not 2 OC

Post by Comadevil »

Sorry Lazy, but i must say u are dumb  8)

The Q6600 and a i3 have different architecture and the performance isn't only influenced by clock(Ghz) but also to a big amount by architecture. Else Intel processors from 6 years ago would outperform todays CPU. That is why u should compare it to the E8400 or Q9550 because that are the ones which have a similar architecture to the Q6600.

I would suggest to reduce ur graphics options to high. I didn't see really much difference between Ultra and high

U can also try to tweak the settings urself, e.g. by lowering especialy those settings which require CPU power
Last edited by Comadevil on Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
LaZy
Honorary Officer
Posts: 2444
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 3:44 am
Location: Ferragudo Portugal
Contact:

Re: 2 OC or not 2 OC

Post by LaZy »

Comadevil wrote: U can also try to tweak the settings urself, e.g. by lowering especialy those settings which require CPU power
I mentioned this in my initial post Coma.
LaZy wrote: It just so happens that when I play SC2 with all GPU related graphic options in Ultra and all the CPU related options in high or medium, all HUGE battles make the "ur PC is slowing down the game" message pop up. When I leave all options on default it automatically turns all options into Ultra and the same message pops up more frequently.
out

PS
Comadevil wrote: Sorry Lazy, but i must say u are dumb  8)
not cool. I guess I just take my own tech help questions else where from now on.
Last edited by LaZy on Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Comadevil
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 2117
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:55 am
AOE3 Nickname: Comadevil

Re: 2 OC or not 2 OC

Post by Comadevil »

Then in the end also the graphics card limit ur FPS

GPU SC2 Test, the seauence they used for testing are similar to 200/200 battles in 4v4, Mothership, Mass Carrier etc.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,76586 ... piel/Test/

i have also the replay for it so u can compare it to ur comp if u want
Last edited by Comadevil on Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Aaryn_GenD
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 3555
Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2008 9:59 pm
Location: Germany

Re: 2 OC or not 2 OC

Post by Aaryn_GenD »

hey lazy,
coma is right, new architecture is a whole diff business.
you remember the pentium 4 prescott? the latest pentium 4 generation (aside of those Extreme Edition things) they are 3,0ghz also, same as e8400 clock and the e8400 is much faster, the new sandy bridge is way faster again. that's why nowadays, overclocking is less and less effective, especially for newer games.
dragon age 2 i believe even doesn't gain more than 5-10% from massive oc.

a comment about your ram and gtx  460: both of these components can guarantee lag-free large multiplayer battles on ultra in sc2, if accompanied by good hardware (meaning cpu)
i think you should play on medium, with a few gpu dependent settings on ultra.
also one tip: do what you want but STAY AWAY FROM THE VARIABLES.TXT CFG FILE!

those settings are jerky and often don't correlate with each other and you'll get extremely slow framerates because of it
Image
User avatar
LaZy
Honorary Officer
Posts: 2444
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 3:44 am
Location: Ferragudo Portugal
Contact:

Re: 2 OC or not 2 OC

Post by LaZy »

I guess I need 2 invest in a sabertooth mobo and a i7 k version and just keep everything else for a while.

out
User avatar
Comadevil
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 2117
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:55 am
AOE3 Nickname: Comadevil

Re: 2 OC or not 2 OC

Post by Comadevil »

U will also need new RAM because u need DDR3 RAM but that is quite cheap at the moment.

U will have to invest 300-350 Euro for i5 for i7 about 70 Euros more
Post Reply