Overclocking SLI Performance

Does overclocking really make a difference in an SLI gaming system? We decided to put this to a test.

The test system we used (pictured below) is an ASUS Sabertooth Motherboard with i7-4770K CPU, 8 Gigs 1600Mhz DDR3 and 2x GTX760's in SLI

We ran 3DmarkVantage & 3Dmark11 3 times each at default, and averaged the score.

The testing was done at default speed 3.5Ghz (turbo 3.9Ghz), Overclocked to 4.2Ghz and Overclocked to 4.4Ghz

As you can clearly see, the benefits of Overclocking are not fantastic. Going from the default CPU speed to Overclocking it to 4.4Ghz results in only about 3 - 5% extra performance.

If you are playing your game and getting 30fps (frames per second) then Overclocking to 4.4Ghz will give you 31.5fps. If you are benchmarking your system as a sport against other people, then this increase can make all the difference, but in real system performance it is hardly worth mentioning.

The Power consumption on Overclocking changed a fair bit as we went up. At default the Peak was 427watts, at 4.2Ghz Peak was 456watts and at 4.4ghz it peaked at 527watts. The Temerature of the CPU also went up. At default the 4770K Peaked at 53 degrees while at 4.4ghz the CPU peaked at 69 degrees Celcius!