Even with the seemingly same processor model. What one person manages to achieve with the exact same motherboard, memory, and everything else, is no guarantee that'll you be able to do the same. Oh before we move on, it's worth pointing out that not every CPU is the same. This is where this guide comes in to help you with some of the subtler aspects of the processor. Reality is a bit more complicated than that though because modern chips are complex, delicate slithers of silicon and if you just up the frequency and do nothing else, your machine will invariably crash if that's all you do. Run the CPU a bit quicker, stay on top of the cooling, and enjoy the benefits. This is a bit of a contentious take in an overclocking guide, but overclocking Intel's newest CPUs is unlikely to get net you a tangible performance boost in your games. New tech basically means the CPU is far better at dynamically pushing its frequencies than you can manage manually. You'll do much better with slightly older CPUs, like the Coffee Lake Core i7 8700K we've looked at here.Īs far as the concept of overclocking goes though, that's it.

Msi overclocking guide