Intel's Arrow Lake-S desktop CPUs could ditch Hyper-Threading after more than two decades

[DragonSlayer101]

What just happened? Hyper-Threading has been a longstanding feature in Intel CPUs, but that might change in the near future. According to a recent report, Intel's upcoming 15th-gen Core "Arrow Lake" desktop processors may do away with HT technology. While earlier rumors hinted at such a development, this would represent a significant decision for Intel, one that might leave many prospective customers disappointed.

The information is sourced from confidential Intel documentation recently leaked by tipster @yuuki_ans (since deleted) and highlighted by the German site 3DCenter. Although the initial focus was on the specifications of the Arrow Lake-S chips, a closer inspection revealed that the processors will likely feature eight performance cores and as many threads, lacking support for simultaneous multi-threading (SMT).

The exclusion of Hyper-Threading could have a potentially adverse impact on the performance of Arrow Lake chips in some situations. While single-threaded performance may remain unaffected due to the removal of HT, certain multi-threaded applications might experience a slight decline when compared to hyper-threaded processors, such as the Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh chips.

Fortunately for gamers, the removal of Hyper-Threading is not expected to impact gaming performance in AAA titles. In fact, Intel is reportedly targeting a 30 percent improvement in gaming performance with its Arrow Lake lineup. There's a high probability that the company can achieve this through architectural improvements and higher clock speeds, regardless of the absence of extra threads.

Hyper-Threading was initially introduced by Intel in the early 2000s to enhance the performance of its single-core Xeon and Pentium 4 processors in multi-threaded workloads. However, the x86 landscape has undergone significant changes since then, and the availability of processors with numerous cores means that Hyper-Threading is not as crucial today as it was a couple of decades ago. Nevertheless, it still provides assistance in some heavily-threaded applications and can offer a notable performance boost in certain scenarios.

For those wondering, the original leaked document revealed quite a few details about the upcoming Arrow Lake-S chips. First off, they could feature up to an 8+16+1 core configuration and support DDR5-6400 memory, which would be a nice improvement over the DDR5-5600 RAM supported by the 14th-gen lineup. The document also revealed that Arrow Lake-S will support 24 PCIe lanes, including 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes for the GPU and eight for NVMe SSDs.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/101599-intel-arrow-lake-s-desktop-processors-could-ditch.html

 

[Dimitriid]

Well in theory, not having more performance core beyond around 4 to 6 could be alleviated in the same way by E cores as they are when hyperthreading is active so in intel view's keeping both technologies around the same die might be redundant for consumer-grade chips.

In practice however, I don't think they trust E cores all that much and it might be just a last ditch effort to just keep their P cores under control as the power requirements and resulting heat are getting quite silly so disabling hyperthreading might keep their heads above the AMD performance waterline for a couple more generations by squeezing a few hundred extra megahertz of clock speeds being brute-forced in with just more power.

It sounds more like option 2 to me but hey, it might actually be actual good planning from option 1 instead.

 

[LetTheWookieWin]

This is reminiscent of the i7-9700K where they used HyperThreading to upsell customers into the then new i9 lineup. I wonder if they’re really ditching HT altogether or simply saving it for a new HEDT lineup.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

"Fortunately for gamers, the removal of Hyper-Threading is not expected to impact gaming performance in AAA titles. In fact, Intel is reportedly targeting a 30 percent improvement in gaming performance with its Arrow Lake lineup. There's a high probability that the company can achieve this through architectural improvements and higher clock speeds, regardless of the absence of extra threads."

So we know this claim is already bullshat. The 9900k and 9700k proved that years ago. Hyperthreading doesnt adversely impact gaming performance, nor does it improve it. The scheduler is smart enough not to put two demanding threads on the same physical core.

that 30% number is pie in the sky levels of cope by intel. That would require them to bridge the gap to the x3d parts, and short of a giant L3 cache that wont be happening.

 

[gamerk2]

So we know this claim is already bullshat. The 9900k and 9700k proved that years ago. Hyperthreading doesnt adversely impact gaming performance, nor does it improve it. The scheduler is smart enough not to put two demanding threads on the same physical core.

The *modern* Windows scheduler is aware of Hyperthreading, and will generally avoid using those cores if another core is free. Problem is, this tends to lead to threads bouncing between cores as they become free, which does lead to situations where you have a heavily loaded hyperthreaded core.

The Windows scheduler works *good enough*, but could use some tweaks to bias threads to stay on the core they were first put on.

 

[n3o127]

Love to see Intel provide enough CPU lanes to connect 16x and 4x PCIe slots directly to CPU, plus connect SSD to CPU Lanes directly also - give us a few more CPU lanes.

 

[ddferrari]

This is reminiscent of the i7-9700K where they used HyperThreading to upsell customers into the then new i9 lineup. I wonder if they’re really ditching HT altogether or simply saving it for a new HEDT lineup.

HA! All my tech buddies and I were building new gaming rigs in late 2019. They all went with the i9 for "maximum performance", but I chose the 9700K because while HT was a benefit in a few titles, it was actually a detriment in as many. A compromise (sort of) but I felt the money could be spent better elsewhere.

I saved $150 and put that money toward a better monitor. System is still running flawlessly today and it was high-end enough that I'm not feeling any urge to upgrade the system beyond a new GPU every other gen or so. I just don't see going from DDR4 to DDR5, or PCIe 3.0 to 4.0, as being that noticeable as a surfer and gamer. My QD-OLED upgrade on the other hand... HELLO!

 

[LetTheWookieWin]

HA! All my tech buddies and I were building new gaming rigs in late 2019. They all went with the i9 for "maximum performance", but I chose the 9700K because while HT was a benefit in a few titles, it was actually a detriment in as many. A compromise (sort of) but I felt the money could be spent better elsewhere.

I saved $150 and put that money toward a better monitor. System is still running flawlessly today and it was high-end enough that I'm not feeling any urge to upgrade the system beyond a new GPU every other gen or so. I just don't see going from DDR4 to DDR5, or PCIe 3.0 to 4.0, as being that noticeable as a surfer and gamer. My QD-OLED upgrade on the other hand... HELLO!

Yeah, I had the 9700K as well and was quite happy with it, though I just built a new system with a 12700K. For gaming, the 9700K was very good, though I did find titles that I think throttled performance a bit (mostly MSFS). I take a lot of digital photos and do some video work also, though, so for my non-gaming hobbies the extra cores plus HT are nice.

 

[wiyosaya]

Yes, Intel! Keep going! AMD is definitely in the rear-view mirror.

 

[Bobbydpue]

Rumours and speculation doesn't matter to me as much as third party benchmarks. I'll form an opinion after whatever is coming out is tested and can actually be bought.

 

[mbk34]

"they could feature up to an 8+16+1 core configuration"

Would that be 8 P cores, 16 E cores and 1 new ultra low power I don't give a FK core?

 

[Bamda]

I always amazed by Intel ingenuity. Lets see how they wow me once again. /s

 

[LimyG]

HA! All my tech buddies and I were building new gaming rigs in late 2019. They all went with the i9 for "maximum performance", but I chose the 9700K because while HT was a benefit in a few titles, it was actually a detriment in as many. A compromise (sort of) but I felt the money could be spent better elsewhere.

I saved $150 and put that money toward a better monitor. System is still running flawlessly today and it was high-end enough that I'm not feeling any urge to upgrade the system beyond a new GPU every other gen or so. I just don't see going from DDR4 to DDR5, or PCIe 3.0 to 4.0, as being that noticeable as a surfer and gamer. My QD-OLED upgrade on the other hand... HELLO!

Your situation almost the same as mine. One difference was I bought the first all core 5GHz with no time limit (on some boards.) special edition.
i9-9900Ks.

On my asrock Pantom gaming 9 it's true that the chip could run permanently like that, but with certain benches it got too hot for my liking. Also I could run it at 5.1GHz OC, but totally impractical. The temps went over 100C in most benches and almost that in some (2020) games.

I know HT was suppossed to be of little or (neutral) use in gaming, So I switched it off and have been running at a soilid 5.2GHz for years. Main point. Freedom to OC.

So 8 "real" cores only is much better for me, but only one reason. Good OC potential and far lower heat.

As with you, mine is still going strong with Asus Strix RTX 3080ti OC edition (up to 450 watts, safely!)
32GHz G.Sill Trident 3600Mhz but I run it at sligltly tighter timings and at 3,700MHz.

I can say that as of today I have no real need to upgrade. For gaming it is still great - even by 2024 standards.

Remember the i9 gen were 2019, with the Ks available with limited numbers half way through the 9th gen. (8 + 0) and 5.2GHZ all cores all the time with AVX was impressive then. Even now I guess it's respectable except for the flag ship 12th - 14th gen.

P.S. I would have bought the i9 9700k for the same reasons as you, but by luck the day I was going to buy it there was a few ks versions in stock. More expensive, sure, but I thought why not?

 

[ddferrari]

Your situation almost the same as mine. One difference was I bought the first all core 5GHz with no time limit (on some boards.) special edition.
i9-9900Ks.

On my asrock Pantom gaming 9 it's true that the chip could run permanently like that, but with certain benches it got too hot for my liking. Also I could run it at 5.1GHz OC, but totally impractical. The temps went over 100C in most benches and almost that in some (2020) games.

I know HT was suppossed to be of little or (neutral) use in gaming, So I switched it off and have been running at a soilid 5.2GHz for years. Main point. Freedom to OC.

So 8 "real" cores only is much better for me, but only one reason. Good OC potential and far lower heat.

As with you, mine is still going strong with Asus Strix RTX 3080ti OC edition (up to 450 watts, safely!)
32GHz G.Sill Trident 3600Mhz but I run it at sligltly tighter timings and at 3,700MHz.

I can say that as of today I have no real need to upgrade. For gaming it is still great - even by 2024 standards.

Remember the i9 gen were 2019, with the Ks available with limited numbers half way through the 9th gen. (8 + 0) and 5.2GHZ all cores all the time with AVX was impressive then. Even now I guess it's respectable except for the flag ship 12th - 14th gen.

P.S. I would have bought the i9 9700k for the same reasons as you, but by luck the day I was going to buy it there was a few ks versions in stock. More expensive, sure, but I thought why not?

Oh for sure - if I wasn't on a budget back then, I would have sprung for the extra horse power of a 9900Ks version as well. I'm all about the "why not" attitude too, but my budget didn't agree at the time.

My 9700K (a good sample running 5Ghz all cores) rarely gets in the way at 3440x1440p using a mix of Ultra and High settings with an MSI RTX 3080 12gb OC. But yes - I have seen it throttle my GPU (never to an unacceptable extent) in a few games with a high NPC count. I have pushed my 3080 nearly 10% beyond the factory OC with great temps, so a nice win there.

Meanwhile, my 3440x1440p QD-OLED monitor is far and away the most appreciable upgrade of any and all I have made, other than going from HDD to SSD. Bought it 20 months ago and haven't seen any of the issues floating around the web. It destroys my previous monitor, a top of the line Alienware IPS monitor of the same size. Absolutely zero comparison in color and contrast.. and no backlight bleed!

Anyway - CHEERS!

 

[LetTheWookieWin]

Oh for sure - if I wasn't on a budget back then, I would have sprung for the extra horse power of a 9900Ks version as well. I'm all about the "why not" attitude too, but my budget didn't agree at the time.

My 9700K (a good sample running 5Ghz all cores) rarely gets in the way at 3440x1440p using a mix of Ultra and High settings with an MSI RTX 3080 12gb OC. But yes - I have seen it throttle my GPU (never to an unacceptable extent) in a few games with a high NPC count. I have pushed my 3080 nearly 10% beyond the factory OC with great temps, so a nice win there.

Meanwhile, my 3440x1440p QD-OLED monitor is far and away the most appreciable upgrade of any and all I have made, even behind going from HDD to SSD. Bought it 20 months ago and haven't seen any of the issues floating around the web. It destroys my previous monitor, a top of the line Alienware IPS monitor of the same size. Absolutely zero comparison in color and contrast.. and no backlight bleed!

Anyway - CHEERS!

Funny that both you, LimyG, and I all had similar configs (9th gen plus 3080 12GB / 3080 Ti - I had a 9700K plus MSI gaming trio Z 3080 12GB). I may have to try an OC on the GPU sometime. I actually went the opposite direction and undervolted to 925 mV to get temps down (my 9700K was air cooled and got toasty (88C) in the Fractal Define R6 case I had after getting the 3080). My new case is a Lian Li Lancool III and I have an arctic 360mm radiator for the CPU, so I no longer worry about the GPU overheating the processor!

Out of curiosity, what are you getting for GPU temps after your OC (core, hotspot, and memory), and what is your GPU fan curve like?

While I’m enjoying my new build, my 9700K could still play anything I threw at it at 1440p. It was a beast!

P.S. I don’t have an OLED monitor, but I did buy a 1440p monitor when I bought my 3080 and I agree that the monitor is a hugely underrated upgrade!

 

[LimyG]

Oh for sure - if I wasn't on a budget back then, I would have sprung for the extra horse power of a 9900Ks version as well. I'm all about the "why not" attitude too, but my budget didn't agree at the time.

My 9700K (a good sample running 5Ghz all cores) rarely gets in the way at 3440x1440p using a mix of Ultra and High settings with an MSI RTX 3080 12gb OC. But yes - I have seen it throttle my GPU (never to an unacceptable extent) in a few games with a high NPC count. I have pushed my 3080 nearly 10% beyond the factory OC with great temps, so a nice win there.

Meanwhile, my 3440x1440p QD-OLED monitor is far and away the most appreciable upgrade of any and all I have made, even behind going from HDD to SSD. Bought it 20 months ago and haven't seen any of the issues floating around the web. It destroys my previous monitor, a top of the line Alienware IPS monitor of the same size. Absolutely zero comparison in color and contrast.. and no backlight bleed!

Anyway - CHEERS!

Sounds like you are using your hardware to the limit. Nice. Quite a few only OC the GPU but afraid to OC CPU and memory. If it's a balanced system and not OCed I view it as a sad waste of money. Still it takes a lot of time to really tune a CPU so as to get the max out of it. Kind of hobby for me.
Oh, off topic, apologies:

Back on HT topic.

I am not sure about this, but I guess a i9900k with HT Off would be largely the same as the
i7 9700k?
I was lucky to get that KS version. This is true but I hesitated to write it as it's well, unbelievable really:

I live and work in Japan (From U.K) so I use Amazon jp. They do have it in English too, but it is translation and doesn't always go so well.

So, when looking for i7 9700k I browsed a bit, saw 3 x i9 9900k I thought WTF? Well, the third page the picture of the CPU was exactly like the KS, but the price was regular 9900k.
So, I thought it's just a mistake, but checked in detail anyhow. DL the picture, magnify etc etc.
After that I was in no doubt that they messed that page up - very favorively for me! The serial number and chip it's self could be partly made out when I used a program to enlarge it.

I couldn't believe it. I quickly placed an order from that page. Sure thing, a day later I recieved it. A brand new, unopened lovely i9 9900KS in it's very special glass like box.

After it arrived and my cred card had been charged, I wrote to amazon using a different email and told them about it.

But it wasn't needed, the page was gone. So by pure chance I checked in a narrow period of time when it was up. I took full advantage of their mistake..Ha Ha. Obviously the deal (purchase) was fullfilled so they couldn't get in touch and ask for extra payment. Of course never heard anything, but I regularly check Amazon Japan!!

All I can say is it is true. But anyone not believing this would be fully understandable.
Nothing like that has ever happened before and after up till now.

I am a prime member and buy so much stuff from Amazon Japan, like 100 orders a year, average 2 times a week. Even cheap static wipes, they alway pay the delivery as Prime member and sometimes the value of my order is probably less than the excellent within 24 hour delivery (by courier) service cost.

So if my KS story is unbelivable to anyone, fair enough, my point now is that Amazon Japan is so cheap, great C.S. and fastest delivery.

Sadly I have not come across any page errors like my {true!} i9 9900KS story, but I still check for that when making expensive purchases!

Hey, I am jealous of your monitor! That will be my next upgrade. Current one is good 27" 170Hz "micro dot," display (Acer). Micro dot is probably not the correct name exactly, I forgot, but it is good tech. Has same or better color than IPS,, but with great bright (HDR) pic and very clean fast frame refresh.

Still, a 4k OLED, can but imagine! I know that nothing can compete (monitor wise) with a display like yours.

Happy gaming!!

 

[LimyG]

Funny that both you, LimyG, and I all had similar configs (9th gen plus 3080 12GB / 3080 Ti - I had a 9700K plus MSI gaming trio Z 3080 12GB). I may have to try an OC on the GPU sometime. I actually went the opposite direction and undervolted to 925 mV to get temps down (my 9700K was air cooled and got toasty (88C) in the Fractal Define R6 case I had after getting the 3080). My new case is a Lian Li Lancool III and I have an arctic 360mm radiator for the CPU, so I no longer worry about the GPU overheating the processor!

Out of curiosity, what are you getting for GPU temps after your OC (core, hotspot, and memory), and what is your GPU fan curve like?

While I’m enjoying my new build, my 9700K could still play anything I threw at it at 1440p. It was a beast!

P.S. I don’t have an OLED monitor, but I did buy a 1440p monitor when I bought my 3080 and I agree that the monitor is a hugely underrated upgrade!

Sorry missed your post while writing.

My GPU is top of the line so keep that in mind. It has an extra 50 watt above most others so with a good OC it draws 449.watt. In benches (lots of different ones) I do not over volt. But I can play games with an extra 120Mhz core to the already of the shelf OC of 1815 MHz. 1935Mhz, often goes above 2100Mhz. Actually I lied, I don't game with that high an OC, just for testing.
Memory is not OCed off the shelf, but I can add an extra 1,300watt to vram.
So the temps, with my max kind of safe OC above, in bench marks the hotspot goes over 90, memory is low (can't remember) and GPU core highest Ive seen 86c.
But it is rather pointless running that fast as I have to fix the 3xfans at 92%, so that's just for testing.

Reglular run OC, 54Mhz on the core and exactly 1000Mhz extra on vram and nothing goes over 85C. I don't need to make a fan curve for that as this GPU has 2 x BIOS. The second one I use for demanding games. (aggressiive curve). Recently I haven't used that.

So with that gaming OC the fans never get loud, so I am very happy with it. Also the temps are well within safe area. Even the hotspot stays below 90c which I find very impressive indeed.

How ever, it was a very expensive card. It's huge, and I have a huge case too. I'm sure that helps the GPU. Regarding sound it is subjective but it's never bothered me.
On my push just for the sake of it massive OC, it's way too loud. I would never use that for gaming. I just wanted to get top 10 3Dmark score for 3080ti, however I failed that - and by quite a bit!!

P.S. Often run it below 54/1000Mhz as it's not really needed in a lot of games. The temps are really low, like GPU core high 60s. I use afterburner which is fast to switch and gets the job done. Fans don't move at all below, mmm, I think it's 50c core or maybe 60c.

It's a really fast GPU, but sheesh, I paid a small fortune for it. Now I am glad I went all out cash wise. I think it is the fastest air cooled RTX 3080ti on the market, but it fights for that place with the MSI Supreme. That's just from reading reviews.

 

[erickmendes]

"they could feature up to an 8+16+1 core configuration"

Would that be 8 P cores, 16 E cores and 1 new ultra low power I don't give a FK core?

The "I'm just watching you guys work" core.

 

[ddferrari]

Funny that both you, LimyG, and I all had similar configs (9th gen plus 3080 12GB / 3080 Ti - I had a 9700K plus MSI gaming trio Z 3080 12GB). I may have to try an OC on the GPU sometime. I actually went the opposite direction and undervolted to 925 mV to get temps down (my 9700K was air cooled and got toasty (88C) in the Fractal Define R6 case I had after getting the 3080). My new case is a Lian Li Lancool III and I have an arctic 360mm radiator for the CPU, so I no longer worry about the GPU overheating the processor!

Out of curiosity, what are you getting for GPU temps after your OC (core, hotspot, and memory), and what is your GPU fan curve like?

While I’m enjoying my new build, my 9700K could still play anything I threw at it at 1440p. It was a beast!

P.S. I don’t have an OLED monitor, but I did buy a 1440p monitor when I bought my 3080 and I agree that the monitor is a hugely underrated upgrade!

Well I haven't played a demanding game in a few months, so I fired up the Assassins Creed benchmark (which I have yet to play, but is downloaded) and ran it seven times in a row to get things cooking. 3440x1440p high/ultra settings. According to the GPU-Z sensors tab, here are the key readings (set to max value):



I'll take those temps! CPU maxed at 72 C. Full disclosure though, I always wear noise-canceling headphones when I game, so max fan speeds aren't a bother. Here is my fan curve via Afterburner:



I'm using an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240mm on my CPU and it really does a great job. I do have a totally overkill-sized case with two 200mm fans in front and a 140mm exhaust, so plenty of airflow. It's mostly empty, but I bought it with plans to add a custom liquid cooling loop down the road on my next gpu upgrade (RTX "5080"?). Since GPU water blocks are expensive and specific to any given card, I'm holding off for the next GPU.

 

[ddferrari]

Sorry missed your post while writing.

My GPU is top of the line so keep that in mind. It has an extra 50 watt above most others so with a good OC it draws 449.watt. In benches (lots of different ones) I do not over volt. But I can play games with an extra 120Mhz core to the already of the shelf OC of 1815 MHz. 1935Mhz, often goes above 2100Mhz. Actually I lied, I don't game with that high an OC, just for testing.
Memory is not OCed off the shelf, but I can add an extra 1,300watt to vram.
So the temps, with my max kind of safe OC above, in bench marks the hotspot goes over 90, memory is low (can't remember) and GPU core highest Ive seen 86c.
But it is rather pointless running that fast as I have to fix the 3xfans at 92%, so that's just for testing.

Reglular run OC, 54Mhz on the core and exactly 1000Mhz extra on vram and nothing goes over 85C. I don't need to make a fan curve for that as this GPU has 2 x BIOS. The second one I use for demanding games. (aggressiive curve). Recently I haven't used that.

So with that gaming OC the fans never get loud, so I am very happy with it. Also the temps are well within safe area. Even the hotspot stays below 90c which I find very impressive indeed.

How ever, it was a very expensive card. It's huge, and I have a huge case too. I'm sure that helps the GPU. Regarding sound it is subjective but it's never bothered me.
On my push just for the sake of it massive OC, it's way too loud. I would never use that for gaming. I just wanted to get top 10 3Dmark score for 3080ti, however I failed that - and by quite a bit!!

P.S. Often run it below 54/1000Mhz as it's not really needed in a lot of games. The temps are really low, like GPU core high 60s. I use afterburner which is fast to switch and gets the job done. Fans don't move at all below, mmm, I think it's 50c core or maybe 60c.

It's a really fast GPU, but sheesh, I paid a small fortune for it. Now I am glad I went all out cash wise. I think it is the fastest air cooled RTX 3080ti on the market, but it fights for that place with the MSI Supreme. That's just from reading reviews.

Well, I'd say that overclocking is just fun to tinker with - even if it has minimal real-world gains for the most part. I spent a Saturday afternoon squeezing a bit more performance out of my stuff just for the "fun" of it... but I'd never judge anyone for concluding that the way it is out of the box is just fine! As for system ram overclocking, I gave it a few hours and threw in the towel. I couldn't get any real gains, and from what I've read it only yields miniscule results overall.

 

[LimyG]

Well, I'd say that overclocking is just fun to tinker with - even if it has minimal real-world gains for the most part. I spent a Saturday afternoon squeezing a bit more performance out of my stuff just for the "fun" of it... but I'd never judge anyone for concluding that the way it is out of the box is just fine! As for system ram overclocking, I gave it a few hours and threw in the towel. I couldn't get any real gains, and from what I've read it only yields miniscule results overall.

Yeah, it is just tinkering really.
Regarding real world gains in order: CPU, I have a 200MHz (over stock) stable OC. To be honest in various benchmarks it stands out and looks great. But I cant really say that when I game or anything, I don't get any earth shattering feeling of, WOW - the power.
In fact just cpu I don't notice anything, but I never played games with it at stock. I bought the parts with an eye to serious overclocking, so I started literally on day one!

GPU: This does make a difference (with cpu at OC 5.200GHz) I have a selection of profiles I made so I can easily switch back to stock, or use one (of 5) OC profiles.
Of course, same thing in part. 3D Mark (all) and unigine paid version the results look great.
But the real world difference in demanding games does not match the gains in bencmarks. However, it does work and improves fps, and all things GPU. Useful for some games so I am fairly happy with that. But to be clear the gains are not massive.

Memory. Memory is an absolute eater of time. I fiddled with my memory (after the cpu) and gained 100MHz, with a few timings tighter. I managed XMP straight away and it's enough really, but I like to torture myself, ha ha. Memory took about 3 months and many sessions to get the minimum I was aiming for. I won't be touching that monster again.

Same story. Memory benchmarks, I often wonder if they really reflect reality? Any way, I can't say there is any difference with just the memory overclocked. Miserable really.

Bottom line (this my opinion/hobby only) is that when all of those three are overclocked it does make the PC more snappy. Seems overclocking just one component is pretty pointless (unless you like benchmarks, or its a kind of hobby - that's me.)

There is one exception though assuming no bottle necks. Over clocking a GPU is easy and it's safe with modern, well, say since Pascal, semi modern manufacturers make it so that it's probably impossible to damage it. A lot of safe guards. Thats why I got a flag ship model which really is a great, overclockable one. Out the box there is a large Core OC, and almost all RTX3080ti are limited to 400w - unless you use a custom bios which is something I would never do - that May? render safe guards useless.But my GPU is set to 450watt vs 400watt. It does make a difference in real life (games, transcoding etc.) so I think anyone can give it ago.

I just like to overclock. As a result with the time and testing I put in it was worth it. Although I admit, I almost threw in the towel with my memory.

I've been overclocking since the 1st gen core series (i7 - 970) so I can say I have a lot of experience really. But, the most important thing is what you alluded to - Time, more time, lack of sleep. Oh another one especially for CPU is getting good silicon!

Anyhow I can't get all three to move up higher without overheating as of now, (cpu mainly) and blue screening (Memory is the main culprit it seems - but happens with CPU too.)

Stability is the most important thing - I mean an unstable PC is pretty useless. I think I've reached the max with my hardware, and rock steady stable.

So I do have reasonable gains - but it's not easy - time wise especially. I put in a lot of time and overclock all main components (with the exception of the GPU - OCing Just the GPU is easy and makes a difference - well, in benchmarks, ahem.. and a few games.

It's subjective, I do enjoy doing it so the time doesn't bother me, except for the memory which was approaching a nightmare. Luckily I got a decent memory overclock just before I almost got sick due to severe sleep deficit.

Also, others will disagree, but I find that that the memory and cpu both need to be overclocked. Just memory with everything else at stock does nothing really noticable, except placebo. But treat the PC as a whole each overclocked component compliments the other.

That's what I've found. I'll say again, you are right about the time. It helps to enjoy it. If I didn't I wouldn't touch the cpu or memory, and just AfterBurner for the GPU - because it's easy, safe, and doesn't gobble up all one's free time!!

 

[LetTheWookieWin]

Yeah, it is just tinkering really.
Regarding real world gains in order: CPU, I have a 200MHz (over stock) stable OC. To be honest in various benchmarks it stands out and looks great. But I cant really say that when I game or anything, I don't get any earth shattering feeling of, WOW - the power.
In fact just cpu I don't notice anything, but I never played games with it at stock. I bought the parts with an eye to serious overclocking, so I started literally on day one!

GPU: This does make a difference (with cpu at OC 5.200GHz) I have a selection of profiles I made so I can easily switch back to stock, or use one (of 5) OC profiles.
Of course, same thing in part. 3D Mark (all) and unigine paid version the results look great.
But the real world difference in demanding games does not match the gains in bencmarks. However, it does work and improves fps, and all things GPU. Useful for some games so I am fairly happy with that. But to be clear the gains are not massive.

Memory. Memory is an absolute eater of time. I fiddled with my memory (after the cpu) and gained 100MHz, with a few timings tighter. I managed XMP straight away and it's enough really, but I like to torture myself, ha ha. Memory took about 3 months and many sessions to get the minimum I was aiming for. I won't be touching that monster again.

Same story. Memory benchmarks, I often wonder if they really reflect reality? Any way, I can't say there is any difference with just the memory overclocked. Miserable really.

Bottom line (this my opinion/hobby only) is that when all of those three are overclocked it does make the PC more snappy. Seems overclocking just one component is pretty pointless (unless you like benchmarks, or its a kind of hobby - that's me.)

There is one exception though assuming no bottle necks. Over clocking a GPU is easy and it's safe with modern, well, say since Pascal, semi modern manufacturers make it so that it's probably impossible to damage it. A lot of safe guards. Thats why I got a flag ship model which really is a great, overclockable one. Out the box there is a large Core OC, and almost all RTX3080ti are limited to 400w - unless you use a custom bios which is something I would never do - that May? render safe guards useless.But my GPU is set to 450watt vs 400watt. It does make a difference in real life (games, transcoding etc.) so I think anyone can give it ago.

I just like to overclock. As a result with the time and testing I put in it was worth it. Although I admit, I almost threw in the towel with my memory.

I've been overclocking since the 1st gen core series (i7 - 970) so I can say I have a lot of experience really. But, the most important thing is what you alluded to - Time, more time, lack of sleep. Oh another one especially for CPU is getting good silicon!

Anyhow I can't get all three to move up higher without overheating as of now, (cpu mainly) and blue screening (Memory is the main culprit it seems - but happens with CPU too.)

Stability is the most important thing - I mean an unstable PC is pretty useless. I think I've reached the max with my hardware, and rock steady stable.

So I do have reasonable gains - but it's not easy - time wise especially. I put in a lot of time and overclock all main components (with the exception of the GPU - OCing Just the GPU is easy and makes a difference - well, in benchmarks, ahem.. and a few games.

It's subjective, I do enjoy doing it so the time doesn't bother me, except for the memory which was approaching a nightmare. Luckily I got a decent memory overclock just before I almost got sick due to severe sleep deficit.

Also, others will disagree, but I find that that the memory and cpu both need to be overclocked. Just memory with everything else at stock does nothing really noticable, except placebo. But treat the PC as a whole each overclocked component compliments the other.

That's what I've found. I'll say again, you are right about the time. It helps to enjoy it. If I didn't I wouldn't touch the cpu or memory, and just AfterBurner for the GPU - because it's easy, safe, and doesn't gobble up all one's free time!!

Thanks for sharing! I’ve done some OCing with all three as you have, and I have to agree that memory is the most time consuming. Stability is also my #1 concern.

I will probably attempt a CPU overclock in the near future, as I finally have a case/cooler combo that I think can adequately cool it. In general, my OC strategy is to operate within stock voltages, so it won’t be anything exceptional.

 

[ddferrari]

LimyG - very interesting, and good information!

It never occurred to me that without the memory being overclocked, the CPU oc might just be a placebo effect, as you stated. I have DDR4 3200 Corsair Vengeance 16GB x 2 (with Micron? memory, unfortunately) and an Aorus Master Z390, which has "12 Phases IR Digital VRM" power delivery. It's rock-steady and high quality, so I hope those sticks have a little more in them. I have read that the Samsung chips are the best for oc'ing. I'd like to shoot for 3400/3600Mhz, or at least get the timings tightened up a bit.

I really enjoy oc'ing - except for ram. But after this thread I've got the bug again, so I'll probably find a good article/video on it - specific to my mobo - and tinker with it over the weekend.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts - good conversation!

 

[LimyG]

LimyG - very interesting, and good information!

It never occurred to me that without the memory being overclocked, the CPU oc might just be a placebo effect, as you stated. I have DDR4 3200 Corsair Vengeance 16GB x 2 (with Micron? memory, unfortunately) and an Aorus Master Z390, which has "12 Phases IR Digital VRM" power delivery. It's rock-steady and high quality, so I hope those sticks have a little more in them. I have read that the Samsung chips are the best for oc'ing. I'd like to shoot for 3400/3600Mhz, or at least get the timings tightened up a bit.

I really enjoy oc'ing - except for ram. But after this thread I've got the bug again, so I'll probably find a good article/video on it - specific to my mobo - and tinker with it over the weekend.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts - good conversation!

Hey, happy to read your post. About RAM overclocking, please don't be disappointed if you don't get far. That's just the nature of RAM.
IMHO, if you reach 3,400Mhz you have done really well!! If you reach 3,600Mhz then you are a genious and I would ask you how the heck did you manage that!!

You probably know this but just in case. I have found that increasing the XMP, usually 1.35v voltage only can help, but I wouldn't push that past 1.36v - but what the final voltage really is varies my mobo. My DDR voltage is set at 1.355v in the uefi/bios, but in fact it runs at 1.376v.

Finally these two are very helpfule and support memory overclocking.
1. VCCIO, I would not go higher that 1.9v, but that's high (although others go much further)
Currently I am at 1.37v.
2. VCCSA, should be 0.01 higher than VCCIO, don't know why, but I've always done that,
So my VCCSA is 1.38v.

Probably fine to leave the rest on auto - unless you really want to get into it. But I'd say the gains, if any don't warrant that.

Anyway good luck man!! I really enjoyed your post!