general question about OC

[guynexdoor]

i'm building my first pc ever in a few days, and I've read lots of people talking about OCing their machines, and buying parts based on how well they would be able to OC their PCs

I was reading the OC guides, and from what I read, isn't OC a bad idea as it says that OC will cause your components to last a shorter period of time? LIke, you're stressing the Hardware, and therefore, decreaeses life span of he system?

So why would I want to OC anyway? I am building first PC and I figured I'd put it together and not have to tinker.

 

[Monkey muppet]

There are there types:

Those on a tight budget and want to best performance for the least money

Those who do it for pure bragging rights and will OC anything they see just to 'post' a higher score.

And the hobbiest - just 'cos he can - the extra powers there when I need it

 

[Matthias99]

Um... because a slower-rated CPU is a hell of a lot cheaper than a faster-rated one? A 90nm S939 Athlon64 3000+ is $150. The 4000+ is $750. If you can turn a 3000+ into a 4000+ by putting on a better cooler and flipping some values in your BIOS... you do the math. Sure, you might be decreasing its useful life -- but it's probably going to last at least 3-5 years anyway, by which point you can replace it with something twice as fast for half the price.

That's the economic angle, anyway. Some folks just like to play around with this stuff and try to push the limits. It's like souping up your car with aftermarket parts -- but cheaper.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Yes it is bad for the hardware. People do this because they like to max out the performance of their systems and it is a big deal to them. It's kind of like buying one of those farting Civics, sure it runs faster but you will lose alot of the durability over time. It's up to you whether you want to do it or not, but the best thing to do is buy a solid system for now & overclock it when it can't keep up anymore. Some people like to do it out of the box though, so it's up to you like I said before.

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, OCing is kinda like Mt Everest. The answer is, "Because it's there".

 

[DaveSimmons]

If you can afford to buy a system that is fast enough for you at stock speed, I recommend it. It's a lot less work to have a reliable, stable system if you run everything at 100% stock speed and do no tweaking.

Sometimes you can think everything is fine with your overclock, then you start running some new game and get "mysterious" crashes or are not even able to install it. Dealing with quirks like that can be worth it if you're on a tight budget, but I'd rather spend time playing a game than playing "fix the crash."

 

[mauiblue]

I overclocked my system to 3.6 GHz and it ran fine for a while. Then I started having some random reboots. It wasn't too bad so I backed off on the overclock a bit. I still was having these random reboots. I decided that that was enough and brought everything back to stock speeds. I could have tweaked it more or less, but I felt that I didn't need to. The stock speed is okay for what I do. Maybe when I build my next system, I'll get a board and cpu combo that is more in line to be overclocked.

 

[Machine350]

The few times I've overclocked, I couldn't tell any difference except in benchmarks. To me, it's kind of pointless unless you're on a real tight budget and can get lucky and get a chip that can be overclocked 15% or more. I agree with Dave and Mauiblue, those random reboots and funky crashes (even though its 24 hr Prime95 stable) piss me off.

 

[Terumo]

With the prices now being so competitive OCing doesn't make much sense. With folks willing to buy $500 videocards and $400 processors, it's no longer about OCing for the sake of saving a buck -- just benchies to brag about (or to show how l33t they can be of OCing).

It gets really crazy when they're doing watercooling on $300 to $500 processors, $500 worth of memory, and a $500 videocard too.

OCing really only makes sense trying to get the most of old hardware (taking a P4 2.4ghz and upping it to 3.0ghz instead of buying the 3.0ghz as that's the max your motherboard can take). The life of the components is near their end of their useable lifespan, so OCing would be a true benefit (if something dies then, it's not a major deal as an upgrade is in the future anyway).

But personally I'd run stock or just a little OC (like upping the FSB). Stability is more important to me than any benchmark score.

 

[thehype2049]

a lil extra power may help. here a real world exaple, why would u buy cd's and dvd's when u can downlaod me lol. seriously, buh i just do minor overclocking, aorudn 10-20% only

 

[KoolDrew]

A overclocked CPU will not shorten it's lifespan by much. For example a CPU might last 7 years, but overclocked it will only last 5 years. Now who owns the same CPU for 5 years? You won't significantly reduce the life span of your CPUless you are pushing a lot of voltage through the thing.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: thehype2049
a lil extra power may help. here a real world exaple, why would u buy cd's and dvd's when u can downlaod me lol. seriously, buh i just do minor overclocking, aorudn 10-20% only

That's almost a good analogy.

You get audio warez to save spending money, I buy all of my CDs, because I want to rip to lossless FLAC format for the better sound quality (like the stabilty of stock speed).

There's also the ethical issue prompting me to buy my CDs and to rent DVDs with netflix, but that's wandering off topic.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
If you can afford to buy a system that is fast enough for you at stock speed, I recommend it. It's a lot less work to have a reliable, stable system if you run everything at 100% stock speed and do no tweaking.

^ Wise words.

For some of us, mild overclocking can help stretch the performance of one generation of hardware out a little longer, and delay having to upgrade. It's kind of like, when you're running out of shampoo, so you take what's left in the bottle, and add some water to it and mix it in, and what's left will last longer, so you don't have to buy more shampoo immediately. But at the same time, it may not clean as "stably" as full-strength ("stock specification") shampoo. Ok, not the greatest analogy. But that's sort of the thinking behind OC'ing to save money.

It exploits one of the biggest "secrets" of the computer/eletronics industry - that a large part of the market differentiation between products, is completely artificial, and the products all come off of the same assembly line.

It's like buying a Toyota, and putting a Lexus nameplate on it.

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Sometimes you can think everything is fine with your overclock, then you start running some new game and get "mysterious" crashes or are not even able to install it. Dealing with quirks like that can be worth it if you're on a tight budget, but I'd rather spend time playing a game than playing "fix the crash."

Overclocking and keeping stable, requires a certain amount of experience, just like tuning the engine computer of a car, you don't want to adjust the air/fuel mixtures and acceleration points, without knowing what you are doing, because you could end up blowing the engine. There are a minority of inexperienced overclockers that buy new parts, intending to overclock right out-of-the-box, and end up frying their CPU chips or something. Don't do that. If you don't know or understand, don't overclock. Read up and study and understand first.