No longer motivated to OC

[aigomorla]

Just wondering,

How often do you guys perform stability checks on your overclocked machines? At regular timed intervals?

lol each time i swap cpu's.

So minus this 980X im on right now, id say the longest was 3-4months?

975 i had prelaunch, and retired it when i got the Q3QP.
Then i painfully pop'd that gulftown and went back to the 975 while the 980X was being sent out to me.
Before that, it was a 965, which lasted only 2 months.
And before that a 920 which lasted 2 weeks.
And before that a X5570 and that only lasted 1 week.

Oh i forgot to mention somewhere in the middle of those i had a W3580 and W3570, but only long enough to preview on AT.
I still have the W3580, the W3570 went back to intel. :T

LOL... i think the most i7 cpu's i had in one hand to "evaluate" is this:

Gah binning is painful.... very very painful.
What that means is you take each cpu and see what the best can do.
Then you filter though the best and see which one is more leaky.
Then you pick out the cherry and send the rest back.

 

[MegaWorks]

Reminded me when I first overclocked my PIII 700Mhz@ 933Mhz just by changing the FSB I was so excite I told everyone I knew about! lol!
I really don't see the need to overclocked recently, I do have my overclocking setting saved in the bios when I need it I'll go in the bios change and save and I'm ready to go.

 

[ShawnD1]

I really don't see the need to overclocked recently, I do have my overclocking setting saved in the bios when I need it I'll go in the bios change and save and I'm ready to go.

Overclocking always was and always will be about single threaded performance. Right now I'm indexing all of my drives and it says explorer is using 21% CPU on a 6 core processor, so basically it's a single threaded task. It doesn't matter if I was using a quad-cpu hex-core Xeon i7 server system capable of running 48 threads, it will still be slow unless it's overclocked. It seems like we're always headed toward more cores or more threads and we forget the little important details - things like installing Microsoft Office are single threaded.

With the way modern processors work, I really don't see a reason not to overclock. AMD Overdrive shows a breakdown of what each core is doing, and what is immediately apparent is that the cores are not all locked together. One is running at 3710MHz, one is clocked all the way down to 1060MHz, a few are somewhere in between, and the voltage for each core is different based on how fast that core is running. Simply put, overclocking has no effect on your power consumption unless the CPU is actually running at full speed. Intel is generally three steps ahead of AMD when it comes to using less power, so I assume i7 processors are also capable of having completely different speed and voltage for each core.

The major exception would be for computers running F@H. Since it's always at 100%, it never clocks down and always uses ridiculous power.

 

[taltamir]

Overclocking always was and always will be about single threaded performance.

I don't know about you, but I have oced quad cores with the goal of improved performance in highly threaded apps that benefited from all 4 cores.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The only problem with this strategy is that you end up paying for a $70 cooler which defeats the cost savings of the cheaper CPU.

It's not a problem if you can use the cooler on a number of different CPUs. I've already used my nh-d14 on two different CPUs, and if I ever get another one for this board, it'll be on its third mount.

Welcome, to the world of budget overclocking. Overclocking really lost its heart when you can just throw large amount of money at your PC. Go back to the old days when the point is to try to squeeze as much out of a cheap celeron as possible. I assure you you will gain more satisfaction out of overclocking a $40 E3300 combo with a piece-of-crap motherboard to 4Ghz, or unlocking 2 extra cores and 6mb L3 cache of your 5000+, than you will ever have from an expensive 1366 setup.

Or you could just run F@H, then you'll never have too many MHz.

The only exception I take to that is that both Intel and AMD seem to be doing a fairly good job of putting "interesting" tech into some of their mid-to-high end processors that you just don't get to play with on the low end.

For example:

1). Intel's current-gen budget processor is Clarksdale, and the cheapest one of those you can get (not counting the Pentium) is the i3-530, and that thing will give you major headaches with RAM/QPI speeds past a BCLK of around 200-210. You have to take the lowest RAM and QPI multis you can pick after that point, which leads to horrendous memory/memory controller performance unless you can really crank the BCLK. If you step up to an i5-750, you won't have that problem. Or you could buy the K-class Clarksdale or just one with a higher multi to try and top out the cores at a low BCLK, but at that point it hardly seems worth it when the 750 is there for a similar price.

Nevertheless, were I going the Intel route, I would feel cheated by owning and running a 530 (or 540 or 550) unless I went balls-out on the BCLK, and doing that can be hit-or-miss.

2). There are plenty of fun AMD processors to OC, but if you want the best stepping for overclocking, right now, the minimum price of entry is $200 for the x6 1055T. Want an E0-stepping Sempron? No dice! Even a C3 Sempron is hard to come by; I have found only one etailer carrying the OEM-only Sempron 145 (C3), and they want $41 + shipping for it!

Bottom line is that when you buy cheap these days, you're buying into limitations in most cases. There's always something else to go for in the higher price brackets that makes overclocking just that much more satisfying. It's not like in the old Celeron 300a days when 90-95% of the CPU you wanted was available in the lower price ranges just waiting to be coaxed to performance levels on par with Intel's latest and greatest.

I don't know about you, but I have oced quad cores with the goal of improved performance in highly threaded apps that benefited from all 4 cores.

Gonna have to agree with you there. Multi-threaded benchmarks like WPrime have become popular as well . . . it isn't all SuperPi anymore.

 

[Idontcare]

I don't know about you, but I have oced quad cores with the goal of improved performance in highly threaded apps that benefited from all 4 cores.

ditto here as well...overclocking is the tide that raises all boat, increasing clockspeed of all cores across the board will improve both single-threaded and multi-threaded performance.

Selective overclocking, e.g. Intel's turbo-boost and AMD's turbo-core, is aimed at merely boosting single-threaded performance for compute bound apps (little to no cache misses) but can improve performance of the occasional multi-threaded app which suffers from cache starvation.

Its too bad really that Intel's marketing-driven netburst architecture has soured this generation of young enthusiasts with the notion that MHz doesn't matter...the only thing that would make me happier than owning a 16core cpu is owning a >10GHz 16core cpu while still retaining the single-threaded IPC of today's 3GHz quads.

 

[Spicedaddy]

I've always overclocked my systems, but just didn't see the point when I did my last upgrade. I saved money by getting a cheaper motherboard, and the CPU has Turbo mode anyways...

Besides saving electricity and producing less heat, I think it's reassuring to know everything is running stock, especially since I use my computer for work.

 

[solofly]

I overclock everything but the motherboards...

 

[Gikaseixas]

does anyone leave cool n quiet on? Lets say, your i7 reached 4.0ghz, does any of you sees any benefit in leave it on?

 

[repoman0]

does anyone leave cool n quiet on? Lets say, your i7 reached 4.0ghz, does any of you sees any benefit in leave it on?

Coolnquiet is the AMD equivalent of Intel Speedstep, but yeah I do leave CnQ on on my AMD system. Benefit is it runs at about 900MHz with 0.8v and hardly uses any power most of the time, then easily jumps up to 3.5GHz when I need it, which is like 10% of the time. Saves big on the power bill I bet.

Unfortunately a lot of boards are picky when you have it on, for example I have to leave mine on the stock CPU multiplier for it to work even though it is unlocked. I still want to see a board with FULL CnQ support - i.e. it lets you pick the voltage and multiplier for all three power states.

 

[aigomorla]

I don't know about you, but I have oced quad cores with the goal of improved performance in highly threaded apps that benefited from all 4 cores.

overclocking also drastically improves HT on i7's.

 

[Collider]

Thanks for everyone's replies here, it was interesting to see what everyone thinks.

I def agree with some folks here that there's a whole "hobby" aspect to OCing that makes it very enjoyable. I went through a phase in the past where I even overclocked my PocketPC smart phone.

However with dynamic overclocking or as someone said "selective overclocking" (ie Intel's turbo mode) manual overclocking seems to become less relevant. Chip manufacturers will always be a step ahead of software developers in terms of core count support.

Meaning, with every core addition developers need to massage/rewrite their code to support additional threads. Writing multi-threaded codes is quite complex, costly, and difficult to test. Some software may not even benefit from more threads enough to justify additional code needed for thread support. For these reasons some apps will never make the migration and remain single-threaded (or thread limited). This could be assumed for a portion of desktops apps we will continue to use.

While CPU intensive apps will continue to add additional thread support they will still need to play catch-up with chip manufacturers. With this said and more aggressive Turbo modes, overclocking may become less and less of a "requirement" for enthusiast systems.

 

[aigomorla]

While CPU intensive apps will continue to add additional thread support they will still need to play catch-up with chip manufacturers. With this said and more aggressive Turbo modes, I think in the future overclocking may become less and less of a "requirement" for enthusiast level systems.

No... you will find out that you pulled yourself out of the Enthusiast category.

Sorry this level will never change, and if anything will only get more expensive, and more complicated.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Coolnquiet is the AMD equivalent of Intel Speedstep, but yeah I do leave CnQ on on my AMD system. Benefit is it runs at about 900MHz with 0.8v and hardly uses any power most of the time, then easily jumps up to 3.5GHz when I need it, which is like 10% of the time. Saves big on the power bill I bet.

Unfortunately a lot of boards are picky when you have it on, for example I have to leave mine on the stock CPU multiplier for it to work even though it is unlocked. I still want to see a board with FULL CnQ support - i.e. it lets you pick the voltage and multiplier for all three power states.

crap, got my stuff all wrong, yeah you're right, i meant speedstep...
but thx anyways.

i just turned it on last night and my system is stable, no issues and temps (duh) went down. It seems to a good compromise, like power on demand.

OP, i agree with you, no longer have patience to fine tune the smallest settings to extract the last mhz out of chips but i guess it is due to the fact that it's so easy these days. Where's the challenge?

 

[grimpr]

Thanks for the information Aigo, i always thought that the so called Enthusiast OC category was a huge over expense and by your words it WILL get more "expensive", out of the mainstream, with OCers losing their appeal, thats good to know, i mean wheres the thrill overclocking a 999$ cpu on a 399$ motherboard with a 299$ set of rams?

 

[aigomorla]

Thanks for the information Aigo, i always thought that the so called Enthusiast OC category was a huge over expense and by your words it WILL get more "expensive", out of the mainstream, with OCers losing their appeal, thats good to know, i mean wheres the thrill overclocking a 999$ cpu on a 399$ motherboard with a 299$ set of rams?

why do you think SR-2 is a 600 dollar board that uses Xeon's labeled as the peak of enthusiast platform?
http://www.evga.com/products/moreIn...rd Family&series=Intel 5520 Series Family&sw=

Uses these cpu's x 2... so you need to double the price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117228&cm_re=x5680-_-19-117-228-_-Product

Its basically a prettied up enterprise package meant for enthusiast.

So your putting enterprise which is already ridiculously expensive, and leveling up one category on that to enthusiast.

 

[johnny.dacu]

I also overclocked my computers every time, because i want more efficiency, but for my last computer i think this become too much because now it makes me more problems, so..i think we ave to be careful also to its limits.

 

[Idontcare]

Thanks for the information Aigo, i always thought that the so called Enthusiast OC category was a huge over expense and by your words it WILL get more "expensive", out of the mainstream, with OCers losing their appeal, thats good to know, i mean wheres the thrill overclocking a 999$ cpu on a 399$ motherboard with a 299$ set of rams?

The thrill comes in when you add custom vapor-phase cooling heads to the mix.

Seriously, what I mean is that there is a group (admittedly a small group) of folks out there who are cash rich and time poor and for them the "thrill" comes from spending as few of there precious few freetime hours building an absolute computing demon.

I bought the QX6700 the day newegg had it listed, $1500, plus vaporphase LS, plus a couple mobo's just to be safe, plus about $1k in mushkin redlines to ensure I wasn't ram limited, etc, etc. About 10k on the rig...at the time I was pulling in $1k/day from a consulting job I was doing...it was chump change but I wanted to find a thrill that fit into my weekends.

(edit: I was running 24x7 prime95 stable @4GHz in 2006 with that setup...that was thrilling)

I don't regret any of it. It was hella fun and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Point is that there are people out there who do find only the extremes to be worth pursuing. Its not about having more money than brains, the less affluent love to judge the purchasing decisions of affluent in as negative a tone as possible on occasion, but rather has everything to do with the fact some people's personal time literally comes at the expense of turning down large sums of money and as such their disposable income is larger than the average and their hobbies reflect it.

 

[ehume]

I've always overclocked my systems, but just didn't see the point when I did my last upgrade. I saved money by getting a cheaper motherboard, and the CPU has Turbo mode anyways...

Besides saving electricity and producing less heat, I think it's reassuring to know everything is running stock, especially since I use my computer for work.

I hope you realize that the cheap MB you got is quite able to OC.

 

[bryanW1995]

The thrill comes in when you add custom vapor-phase cooling heads to the mix.

Seriously, what I mean is that there is a group (admittedly a small group) of folks out there who are cash rich and time poor and for them the "thrill" comes from spending as few of there precious few freetime hours building an absolute computing demon.

I bought the QX6700 the day newegg had it listed, $1500, plus vaporphase LS, plus a couple mobo's just to be safe, plus about $1k in mushkin redlines to ensure I wasn't ram limited, etc, etc. About 10k on the rig...at the time I was pulling in $1k/day from a consulting job I was doing...it was chump change but I wanted to find a thrill that fit into my weekends.

(edit: I was running 24x7 prime95 stable @4GHz in 2006 with that setup...that was thrilling)

I don't regret any of it. It was hella fun and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Point is that there are people out there who do find only the extremes to be worth pursuing. Its not about having more money than brains, the less affluent love to judge the purchasing decisions of affluent in as negative a tone as possible on occasion, but rather has everything to do with the fact some people's personal time literally comes at the expense of turning down large sums of money and as such their disposable income is larger than the average and their hobbies reflect it.

I still love to OC, but I'm no longer motivated to spend 2 wks stability testing. I spend a couple hours getting approximate settings, then a 24 hours max stability testing, then start crunching seti. If I get some defective WU's during the first month or two or have random lockups/crashes then I do some more stability testing, but otherwise I take it and run.

When I first started I remember staying up until 3 am a LOT for the first few weeks. I remember the crushing disappointment when I discovered that my e6750 would not get to 4ghz no matter how much vcore I gave it...

 

[VirtualLarry]

I still love to OC, but I'm no longer motivated to spend 2 wks stability testing. I spend a couple hours getting approximate settings, then a 24 hours max stability testing, then start crunching seti. If I get some defective WU's during the first month or two or have random lockups/crashes then I do some more stability testing, but otherwise I take it and run.

Try doing stability testing on timescales of months at a time... stable for 24hr easy, but would reboot randomly, at anywhere from a week to a month at a time. I finally gave up and reduced the OC from 8x400 to 8x350. (E2140, P35-DS3R v1.0)

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=266521

 

[ShawnD1]

I still love to OC, but I'm no longer motivated to spend 2 wks stability testing.

The first 99% certainty should happen within 2 hours.

If it can run Linpack for 5 minutes, turn settings up and try again. Eventually it will hit a wall where it doesn't seem to go any higher. For the computer I'm using right now, I think it would fail at 275mhz bus, it's stable at 270, so I have it set to 265. I'm about 99% certain this computer is stable and it passes every test. It will take months before I have that feeling of 100% stability.

 

[Lark888]

I continue to overclock to find my "sweet spot". However, I am much less likely to be soldering jumpers on the MB socket or shorting across connectors to adjust voltages. As noted in the OP, I find the CPUs run great for most applications and will only run at my maximum OC for certain games or encoding.

In many ways O/C is for the challenge of figuring out the various parameters - more hobby than substance.

Lately, I have been spending more time on finding the underclocking/undervolting to minimize power consumption for my Server boxes and HTPC that run all the time. Finding the settings to get below 50 watts while running HD content has been fun & has some direct payback on my electric bills.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

The difference is that in the old days we were always performance starved. Even your 1GHz brand new Thunderbird Athlon could use more performance even for general computing. Overclocking it to 1.2GHz got you a good increase in performance even for general use situations. These days when you have 4 cores at 3GHz with 40% more IPC than the old days but you are only using software that needs twice the compute time you won't notice an improvement from a 20% overclock in most situations(hell your cpu spend probably half of its life clocked all the way down unless you run seti or something keeping it at 100% load, and the faster the cpu the more this is true) so there is less and less need to upgrade or overclock because cpu power has reach beyond the wall that software seems to have hit.

But really there is little reason for web browsers to start using loads more cpu time. Instant messaging either. At this point these kinds of programs don't even need to be properly optimized to run well on mainstream systems. Basic computing has more or less reached the point where you don't need more resources.

 

[ShawnD1]

The difference is that in the old days we were always performance starved. Even your 1GHz brand new Thunderbird Athlon could use more performance even for general computing.

Most programs were hard drive limited. I was using a 350MHz Pentium 2 with Windows XP as late as 2004 and the slowest part of the computer was still the hard drive. It could stream files across the network at 30mb/s, it could run Microsoft Office XP, it could run any web content that did not involve flash, and it would play movies that were encoded as mpeg2 (avi takes too much cpu power).
One characteristic I remember as clear as day is how terrible the computer sounded. That grinding noise was the hard drive.
My friend's Athlon 2800+ system is about the same speed as my Pentium 2 because it has hard drives from roughly the same era (I upgraded the hard drives as they got bigger). Windows still takes forever to boot, Firefox makes the hdd light stay on all the time, grinding noise, etc. It's all hard drive limited. The only real difference between my Pentium 2 and my friend's Athlon is that one can play youtube videos and one cannot.

Today we see the exact same thing. Most programs are hard drive limited, but some are not. Some of the first Phenom quad cores had slow enough single-core performance that they cannot play blu-ray movies. Flash is so terribly made that even i7 systems were having trouble with it; Anand had an entire article about how GPU powered flash was going to make it not suck so bad. Most programs that are not games, not flash, not 1080p are still hard drive limited.