Is overclocking worth it?

It’s a tough question to answer, and depends on your circumstances. Without doubt, overclocking is extra performance for free. It’s an interesting pastime for those looking to broaden their custom PC building knowledge, and nowadays it’s quite safe, too. There’s always going to be drawbacks, though: the additional power draw is something we can’t ignore, and heat dissipation does need to be addressed. That said, in our opinion, pushing hardware to the limit is why we’re here, and what we enjoy doing most. For the average PC user, it isn’t something to venture into lightly, but if it’s available, why not take advantage of it?

That said, the computing world doesn’t always revolve around more power and more performance. If you’re looking at reducing the overhead temperatures and noise inside your case, undervolting may also be a solution. Intel has always been extremely conservative with the base VID that it applies to its processors upon leaving the manufacturing houses, and for many a chip, they’re far higher than

“For the average PC user, it isn’t something to venture into lightly, but if it’s available, why not take advantage of it?”

what’s actually necessary to keep it stable — depending, of course, on your luck in the silicon lottery. Just take a look at our benchmarks on page 68 and you can see that by reducing our core voltage by just 0.1V, we managed to decrease our average temperature by 15°C, while still retaining a perfectly stable overclock, with minimal impact on performance.

All in all, if you have a K or X series chip, and you’re not messing around with the voltages and frequencies, you’re genuinely missing out. The world of overclocking can be fraught with thrills and frustration, but that feeling you get when you have finally dialed in the maximum for your processor is second to none.