Paying £80 more on an "overclockable" CPU - worth it?

antobag

Honorable
Feb 27, 2013
31
0
10,530
I've read in a number of places that overclocking is more of a hobby than a money-saving enterprise. I was wondering if spending more on an "overclockable" PC would be economical in the long-run (ie. could offset hardware upgrades for a few months or so).

Specifically, I'm looking at the following:

Non-overclockable PC
CPU: Intel i5-4690
Motherboard: ASUS H81M-PLUS
Cooler: Super Quiet Titan Dragonfly Cooler

Overclockable PC
CPU: Intel i5-4690K
Motherboard: ASUS Z97-P
Cooler: Noctua DH-15S Ultra Quiet Cooler

The overclockable PC costs £80 more (overall cost of PC is roughly £1000). The Noctua cooler is actually the biggest cause of the difference in cost (it's £40 more than the Dragonfly) but I feel it would be necessary for sufficient cooling on an overclocked CPU. In terms of pure performance-to-money ratio, would the £80 investment in overclocking be worth it?

Another quick question - would I be able to overclock the graphics card on the "non-overclockable" PC, or would the H81M-PLUS motherboard hinder that?
 
You can overclock GPUs independent of the CPU, you just need a decent power supply. That said the overclockable PC will have a higher quality motherboard which may offer a little more stability of power through the PCIe slot.