The Death of Overclocking is Nigh...(we knew it was coming)

There's nothing sensible about an $1100 GPU that's only marginally faster than GPUs costing 70% less.
Show me the GPU that costs 70% less and marginally slower than the 2080TI, I'm buying 10. Unless your definition of marginal is very different from mine. Because it seems to me that even a 2080 is significantly slower than a 2080TI with 3072 Cuda cores compared to 4372, and that is the Super. That's anything but marginal.
 
There's nothing sensible about an $1100 GPU that's only marginally faster than GPUs costing 70% less.

Right instead you have shortened lifespan of your CPU's, Motherboards, and potentially ram and every other connected component in your system because overclocking is cheaper.

It's all about risk vs reward today.
 
No death to overclocking here. :) It is one thing I have always enjoyed doing since my 486 SX 25 days. I would have overclocked my Amiga 500 back then but, I am not sure it was even possible. (Did upgrade to a 68030 processor, however.)
 
You don't have to spend $100 on a cooler that's better than stock. You can get pretty decent tower coolers for $30-40. Stock vs custom waterloop are not the only options.
Besides I've already ordered a 3900X I can't spend more on a CPU. Well, I could but it wouldn't be better at all. As 3900X is the best money can buy right now for multi threaded applications as it seems. But I don't plan to spend anything on a cooler I have leftovers.



That happened long ago. ... The 980TI was barely stable on stock clocks.

980ti really? You must have had some bad luck. Maxwell & 980ti was one of the greatest in terms of overclocking. Boost clock on a stock reference 980ti was 1076 and almost all of them could do 1400mhz, with 1500 being quite easy to reach. My evga 980ti sc+ acx does 1475 on the stock bios to this day.. I'm sure most will agree.


As for cooling on ryzen 3k, it is very important. My 3700x likes to run some pretty high clocks until it hits 60C, then the clocks start dropping fast. Unfortunately even on a 240mm AIO its easy to push toward 80C on this.. ryzen definitely benefits from a full loop (% wise in benches and games I haven't tested)

The lack of core overclocking has me pretty sad since but memory tweaking has been keepin me very occupied, and the cool thing is performance scales right up with memory speed and timing..
 
As someone who has been overclocking for over 35 years, getting lazy in my old age is part of the problem. :p
However, it's mainly the diminishing improvements when overclocking the current generation of chips.

Just some of the improvements I used to see:
286-6 to 286-8, 30% improvement
486-25 @ 33mhz, 32%
Celeron 300a from 300 MHz to 450 MHz, or a 50% improvement
Athlon slot A from 700 MHz to 900 MHz or a 28% improvement
P4 3.0 ghz to 3.6 Ghz, 20% improvement.

With the latest chips, any improvement is minimal, and I'm now more concerned with quieter low speed fans.
There's also the fact that CPU's have improved so much, it's rare when I actually push my slightly overclocked i7-7700K.
I'm actually running my current CPU slightly slow than I've tested it at, because the added heat & noise isn't worth the extra 3% speed improvement under full load.

There were always bad streaks I hope eventually we get trough this one as well.

My first oc: PII233 -> 290 25%
Celeron 366 -> 550 50%
Celeron 600 -> 1080 80% (it could do 3DMark at 1136 too. That's 90% %)
And then comes the bad part
Pentium III 800 -> 990 24%
Athlon XP 1600+ 1400 -> 1540 10%
Athlon XP 2100+ 1733 ->1950 13%
Athlon 64 3000+ 2000 -> 2300 15%
C2D E8500 3.16 -> 4.0 27%
I7-930 2.83 -> 3.33 18%
i7-3820 3.6 -> 4.5 25%
I7-6800K 3.8 -> 4.125 a shameful 9% with water no less.
 
for a while now? I am pretty sure that for the most part up till Ryzen there was actually a pretty decent range of overclocking that was able to take place. I know my 955 can do 4.35+Ghz (just need to slap on my new Gammaxx 400 or update from the hyper 212+ one more notch to keep below 54c, I got a solid chip IMO
Bulldozer etc were also "known" if not needed to overclock to rat snot to get the most out of them, am pretty sure mobile anything never counted for overclock/declockability

^.^

The post was in relation to everyone expecting double stock speeds or 1Ghz+ OCs. Also, the 955 was back in 2009, in computer tech that is forever ago. And Ryzen is on it's 3rd generation, so yes, for a while.
 
Intel's at the end of their 14nm cycle- not much more to be wrung. AMD manages to wring as much as possible with each Ryzen cycle right from the beginning.

But what about Intel at 10nm and 7nm? We've only seen the ultrabook-tuned version of 10nm pop up on testing sites so far, don't think anyone has one yet, but if not constrained to that envelope, can we even say yet how they'll do?
 
Intel's at the end of their 14nm cycle- not much more to be wrung. AMD manages to wring as much as possible with each Ryzen cycle right from the beginning.

But what about Intel at 10nm and 7nm? We've only seen the ultrabook-tuned version of 10nm pop up on testing sites so far, don't think anyone has one yet, but if not constrained to that envelope, can we even say yet how they'll do?

Its my understanding the 10nm laptop parts Intel shipped where all basically crap. Looked like they basically tried to make decent chips and ended up cutting them down to sell as low end parts to recoup at least something.

Intel has so far admited flat out (their head of engineering) that their 10nm stuff has all be a big fail and they are tossing most of the work. They will be coming back hard but with new 10nm designs that will be far less aggressive in terms of gate size ect. In other words instead of shipping new 10nm parts that are "equal to the other guys 7nm" they are going to ship actual 10nm parts. Which should be interesting. I'm hoping Intel still swings for the fences a little. Although as much as they are talking up their 3D chiplets... perhaps after their 10nm issues going for another new and ambitious tech like chiplet stacking would be a bit crazy. Still I really hope they go for it and nail it. I want to see the 2D vs 3D chiplet showdown. lol

This is an interview with Dr. Venkata "Murthy" Renduchintala on their 10nm plans.
https://www.thestreet.com/investing...ring-chief-plans-to-speed-chipmaking-14955335

At the last Intel arch day his exact words where...
"We have humble pie to eat right now, and we're eating it, My view on [Intel's] 10nm is that brilliant engineers took a risk, and now they're retracing their steps and getting it right."
 
Its my understanding the 10nm laptop parts Intel shipped where all basically crap. Looked like they basically tried to make decent chips and ended up cutting them down to sell as low end parts to recoup at least something.

Those that shipped previously, absolutely. I'm talking about what's going in the next Dell / HP / Lenovo /ASUS top-end ultrabooks, which is something that knocks the current Skylake-based parts out of the water all around, based on preliminary results.
 
Those that shipped previously, absolutely. I'm talking about what's going in the next Dell / HP / Lenovo /ASUS top-end ultrabooks, which is something that knocks the current Skylake-based parts out of the water all around, based on preliminary results.

Well the leaks that made it sound like a performer in regard to single core used BS ryzen 2 numbers to compare against.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3410589/is-ice-lake-better-than-ryzen-9.html

We are also talking about a 15w mobile part. Intel needs to actually scale that into a desktop part. Which is something they still have never done on 10nm. From listening to their engineers I'm sure they are going to solve that by being less aggressive. But that means larger die sizes and more potential defects. Mobile parts have small die sizes and even if their 10nm process still has major issues that hides a lot of flaws. A mobile part may yield 400-500 parts on a 300mm wafer. And even with a high silicon defect rate they could still be turning out 100s of working parts. A desktop part that is only turning out 200-300 parts per wafer however... the same defect rate could translate into less then 100 fully functional chips.

Guess will know the score if Intel is selling power sucking laptop chips again like they did the last round with half the cores fused.... or low cost 6-8 core 10nm desktop parts with the igpus fused off. That would indicate continued fab issues. Hope they do have it sorted.
 
Right instead you have shortened lifespan of your CPU's, Motherboards, and potentially ram and every other connected component in your system because overclocking is cheaper.

It's all about risk vs reward today.

You only have a significant impact on the life of your CPU if you're shoving insane voltage into it or not properly cooling it. Ditto for RAM. No idea where you get the idea that standard overclocking has a significant impact on a the lifespan of a decent motherboard.
 
You only have a significant impact on the life of your CPU if you're shoving insane voltage into it or not properly cooling it. Ditto for RAM. No idea where you get the idea that standard overclocking has a significant impact on a the lifespan of a decent motherboard.

Actually you know it does as well or you wouldn't have said 'Decent' motherboard. Most new overclockers are running on a budget so it is highly possible they are not running what you would deem as 'decent' motherboards. And then they are overclocking to get more out of their CPU's because they want the best experience they can afford. The VRM's on their affordable hardware are probably not built with longevity in mind for overclocked loads. They might have to overclock their PCIE bus in order to actually overclock their memory or other components due to lack of fine control of the system.

There are actually many ways in which overclocking reduces the lifespan of a system.

At some point the needle moves and you overclock not because you can't afford the best hardware. But because you can and you want to eek a bit more out of it, and because you purchased the best you have the headroom and controls to make tweaks to improve performance easily without reducing the lifespan of your installed hardware.

People who tell newbies that overclocking doesn't reduce the lfiespan of your hardware and can potentially destroy it before you're life with it is done. Then they are either new, or just don't understand what overclocking actually does.
 
Actually you know it does as well or you wouldn't have said 'Decent' motherboard. Most new overclockers are running on a budget so it is highly possible they are not running what you would deem as 'decent' motherboards. And then they are overclocking to get more out of their CPU's because they want the best experience they can afford. The VRM's on their affordable hardware are probably not built with longevity in mind for overclocked loads. They might have to overclock their PCIE bus in order to actually overclock their memory or other components due to lack of fine control of the system.

There are actually many ways in which overclocking reduces the lifespan of a system.

At some point the needle moves and you overclock not because you can't afford the best hardware. But because you can and you want to eek a bit more out of it, and because you purchased the best you have the headroom and controls to make tweaks to improve performance easily without reducing the lifespan of your installed hardware.

People who tell newbies that overclocking doesn't reduce the lfiespan of your hardware and can potentially destroy it before you're life with it is done. Then they are either new, or just don't understand what overclocking actually does.

If someone is doing budget overclocking they're not likely using a CPU that will fry weaker VRMs either. A person on a tight budget won't be pairing a a 3950X, for example, with the cheapest B350 motherboard they can find. On the Intel side the "budget" options include the 9600K with cheap Z390 boards, all of which are capable of handling that thing with the kind of OC you'd get out of a budget build. Even cheap VRMs have a good lifespan when they're not getting overly hot.

Point me to where I ever told a newbie that OCing never reduces lifespan. I didn't even say that it doesn't reduce lifespan in my reply. I said it doesn't SIGNIFICANTLY impact lifespan under normal overclocking conditions. If you want to bring newbies into this, I'd tell them to do a bunch of research first before even touching any overclocking features in the BIOS. I've been doing this shit since the Socket A days I'll still look at guides for new platforms before overclocking to make sure there aren't specific things about that platform I need to be aware of.
 
If someone is doing budget overclocking they're not likely using a CPU that will fry weaker VRMs either. A person on a tight budget won't be pairing a a 3950X, for example, with the cheapest B350 motherboard they can find. On the Intel side the "budget" options include the 9600K with cheap Z390 boards, all of which are capable of handling that thing with the kind of OC you'd get out of a budget build. Even cheap VRMs have a good lifespan when they're not getting overly hot.

Point me to where I ever told a newbie that OCing never reduces lifespan. I didn't even say that it doesn't reduce lifespan in my reply. I said it doesn't SIGNIFICANTLY impact lifespan under normal overclocking conditions. If you want to bring newbies into this, I'd tell them to do a bunch of research first before even touching any overclocking features in the BIOS. I've been doing this shit since the Socket A days I'll still look at guides for new platforms before overclocking to make sure there aren't specific things about that platform I need to be aware of.

I didn't say you. If you thought I meant you in my example well I can't do much about that. So I won't point out anything to you in specific. I'm glad you wouldn't. I've only been overclocking and tweaking since 1988.
 
I used to love overclocking when I was younger. I'm too lazy now though and just want things to work. However I'm still going to buy higher-end mobos and coolers just because.
Its not age, its the fact that overclocking is still something like 2-300mhz more than stock. Except our cpu's dont run at 300mhz anymore... Diminishing returns are real. (Yes some people can get 500+mhz overclocks, but i'm generalizing here)
Overclocking only still exists because AMD used it as a sales tactic to try and stay competitive. IMO its been dead for 10 years, actually more like morphed into its own sub industry.
 
I think as 7nm matures you will start seeing a little better. When yields are really good it's not uncommon to see higher end chips sold as lower end just to fill the void and since AMD doesn't restrict thinks like Intel, you can end up with a good performer. Right now, anything binned higher is getting sold that way until stock levels out and probably some time after. I still remember by x3 720 be running all 4 cores with an overclock, something Intel would never allow then or now.
 
I think as 7nm matures you will start seeing a little better. When yields are really good it's not uncommon to see higher end chips sold as lower end just to fill the void and since AMD doesn't restrict thinks like Intel, you can end up with a good performer. Right now, anything binned higher is getting sold that way until stock levels out and probably some time after. I still remember by x3 720 be running all 4 cores with an overclock, something Intel would never allow then or now.

I can still remember a buddy going crazy because he got a x2 550 to unlock both cores and reach 4ghz; it crashed once every several months, but you'd never notice instability in gaming.
 
I want an aftermarket cooler for 2 reasons. (think noctua or coolermaster)
1 They are quieter than stock.
and
2. They cool better allowing that cpu more headroom to stretch its legs.
 
I can still remember a buddy going crazy because he got a x2 550 to unlock both cores and reach 4ghz; it crashed once every several months, but you'd never notice instability in gaming.
I still have a 955be laying around nice little chip back in the day. I allways wornded how amd would be today had they just made the cores in that line better and skipped bulldozer
 
I want an aftermarket cooler for 2 reasons. (think noctua or coolermaster)
1 They are quieter than stock.
and
2. They cool better allowing that cpu more headroom to stretch its legs.
And I want to buy a corsair 1000D and fill it with Delta or Lamptron fans and have a loop running at ambient.
 
And I want to buy a corsair 1000D and fill it with Delta or Lamptron fans and have a loop running at ambient.

I'd opt for some Noctua NF-A fans; Scythe's GentleTyphoon fan design (high pressure, directed flow, low noise) with Noctua's SSO2 bearings (oil-based, quieter than Scythe's double-ball bearing). I've been running one on a TRUE Spirit for the past 6 months along with be quiet! Silent Wings 3 case fans and the only sound coming out of the case is the video card fans spooling up during gaming; I forget the danmed thing is on half the time since I use to be big on running an under-volted San Ace and cheap Yate-loons.
 
The only machine I have these day's that's overclocked is an Amiga 1200 with a 25Mhz 68030 @ 40Mhz - A feat it handles perfectly without a problem in the world!

Can't be bothered overclocking my x64 PC's anymore.
 
All I had to do was click on a big red button in the BIOS of my MSI Z270 board, and it changed all the settings I needed and put the chip at 4.8 GHz vs. the stock 4.2 GHz. It has worked flawlessly, never a hiccup, and runs nice and cool with the Hyper 212 cooler. Why not do it when it is that easy?
I’ve been a manual overclocker since the first PC I bought myself in 1997 (AMD K6 200), and I tried overclocking on my parent’s pentium 100 before that. The Skylake 6850k is the first chip I couldn’t manually overclock better than the automatic BIOS. I thought I got a dud overclocking chip because following various guides and tinkering myself I could never get the chip reliably stable last 4.1Ghz on all cores. So after months of tinkering with it I left it at 4.1Ghz. Low and behold a year after my many attempts — Gigabyte, after a bios upgrade, opened up a chip specific automatic overclock option in the BIOS of my x99 board and my 6850k was listed. There was a 4.3Ghz option. So I tried it. I’ve been running auto overclock 4.3Ghz issue without issue since. I’m not sure what magic they did, but it’s been reliable - whereas every OC guide I found — their setting recommendations were not.

Nvidia’s autotune overclocks your graphics card nearly as good as can be done with extensive manual testing over hours and hours and hours —- and it just takes 20 minutes (hands off) to run with MSI Afterburner.

I do pretty much agree with this thread title — but might change it to say manual overclocking is dead, because the hardware vendors are creating ways to do it automatically either built in, or as easy software interfaces. And they are finally very effective - increasingly more so than a manual overclock.
 
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Manufacturers love overclockers. They are the risk takers and the early embracers for the most part. With high risk comes repeat sales. ;)
 
OC'ing died for me when the risk was all for a 1-3% gain.

Overclocking the wrong CPUs I see.
Overclocked my 1700 from 3GHz to 4Ghz
The very top models tend to not overclock as much when talking about %.
8400m GS from 400mhz to 650Mhz (lol I know, but I almost doubled my FPS)
Phenom 965 from 3.4 to 4Ghz
8320e from 3.2 to 4.0 (Could go higher)
The ryzen 2700 (non x) can OC to 4.1 4.2

The top ones can't overclock though without losing single core speed (2700x, 3900x)
 
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Ocing isnt dead yet. Well amd cpu ocing is pretty much dead. Intel still sells K cpus for a reason. They embrace ocing their K chips despite what many seem to believe.
 
I stopped caring about overclocking myself... which is why I bought a non-K version of the i7-8700. No regrets.

It used to be fun tinkering with that stuff back in the day, but I also remember a bunch of headaches doing it.
 
2600k +1ghz and 7700k +900mhz with all core boost clocks. I spent days of tweaking on each to get them stable. I still very rarely see > 50% cpu usage on either as a gamer. Next CPU upgrade will be double to quadruple the amount of cores and no longer need more speed. I won't miss the tweaking. First 2-3 hours is fun but going into the third or fourth day I start wondering what Alienware cases might look like.
 
I see it as a good thing; overclockers and still fiddle with the bios and cooling and squeeze out a bit more performance. The rest of us can just build a system with good cooling knowing we are getting the most out of our purchase with no extra effort.
 
cpu's are so powerful now that you really do not need to tweak them like years past and I have not clocked a chip in about 10 years.
 
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