Underclocked my CPU and just got a MASSIVE performance gain, WTF?

[fallingpizza11]

I have an FX-6300 and Radeon HD 7870 from AMD and used to have the CPU clocked @4.1Ghz I was doing some testing with dolphin trying to get things to MINIMALLY RUN and I would get like 20FPS on new super mario bros on all the lowest settings. I was doing more testing and underclocked my CPU to stock so it's now running @3.5Ghz. I loaded up new super maio bros with 2samples of anti alaising and 1.5x native resolution and am getting 60FPS constantly. To note I am running with DX11. Doing more tests I found turning EFB Copies to texture instead of RAM gave me the possibility to run the game at 60FPS. Turning this back to RAM (Which by the was you need to have it set to RAM for NSMB or else the coins aren't animated) made me drop to 30-40FPS.

This has me really puzzled as to why returning my CPU to stock clock speeds has gotten me more performance.

If someone could please explain why in the word this is happening that would be great!

Thanks in advance.

[I.S.T.]

I have an FX-6300 and Radeon HD 7870 from AMD and used to have the CPU clocked @4.1Ghz I was doing some testing with dolphin trying to get things to MINIMALLY RUN and I would get like 20FPS on new super mario bros on all the lowest settings. I was doing more testing and underclocked my CPU to stock so it's now running @3.5Ghz. I loaded up new super maio bros with 2samples of anti alaising and 1.5x native resolution and am getting 60FPS constantly. To note I am running with DX11. Doing more tests I found turning EFB Copies to texture instead of RAM gave me the possibility to run the game at 60FPS. Turning this back to RAM (Which by the was you need to have it set to RAM for NSMB or else the coins aren't animated) made me drop to 30-40FPS.

This has me really puzzled as to why returning my CPU to stock clock speeds has gotten me more performance.

If someone could please explain why in the word this is happening that would be great!

Thanks in advance.

One possibility is thermal throttling was kicking in at the OCed speed. You went back to stock, and the thermal throttling might not be happening anymore.

[Shonumi]

It sounds just like I.S.T. suggests, especially if you don't have a great cooler. I would try recording your temperatures with both clocks. Use CoreTemp while running Dolphin and post screenshots of each attempt so we can verify if your temps are the problem.