Overclocking and You.. Why?

[GuitarDaddy]

Because it's fun and it makes you understand your computer and teaches you how to test and trouble shoot it.
Perhaps the same reasons people hotrod cars?

In the event of a mechanical failure with their computer, who will sort out the problem and be back in buisness quicker: The granny with a dell warranty, or the overclocker with no warranty?
My money is on the overclocker with no warranty

 

[sandorski]

Some do it for fun, some to save $$. In the past I have done it to give an aging system just a little more to make it perform a little longer before an Upgrade. I'm not a big fan of it though, as in my experience something will eventually pack it in due to the extra strain, usually the Motherboard.

 

[IT Professional Ant]

A friend came over today he is a fellow computer geek like all of us..

He really wanted to see what my pc would do with the biggest oc I could get it to sustain and I agreed under the notion of keeping everything stable without changing voltages..

the end result was this..

3.23 on the 6000+ with a 215.0 Mhz External Clock

860 Mhz on the ram while still keeping the timing 4 4 4 12 and the voltage at 1.95

625 mhz on the 8800gts g80 core

915 mhz on the memory bus of the 8800gts 320mb of ram


I ran 3dmark 05 and 03 on it several times to check for stability it was a rock and temps were insanely low due to the 900 antec and the zalman cnps 9700 NT..

I ran prime 95 for a half hour with no errors and the cpu didn't go above 40C..

end results on the benchmarks..

My score and benchmark

I beat a rig very similar to my own with 2 8800 gts ko's in sli..

His score and benchmark

I have to say I am suprised the performance increase was that significant.. To beat out a similar machine with an sli solution with my one videocard solution machine..

Ok now back to stock settings on the videocard.. might leave the rest the way it is just for a couple days though.. heh..

 

[sandorski]

Ya, gains can be significant. I don't even consider Video card overclocking though. Have had 2 burn out on me at stock settings.

 

[IT Professional Ant]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Ya, gains can be significant. I don't even consider Video card overclocking though. Have had 2 burn out on me at stock settings.

Yeah.. I heard that.. I just did that to see the performance gain.. I set it back to stock in Ntune..

 

[Rubycon]

It's a people thing - they do because they can.

Even if motherboard manufacturers and chip manufacturers tightened down the hardware to stop it, the hardcore folks would still try - and likely succeed.

 

[tigersty1e]

Because it's so easy.


BTW, 1000th post.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
It's a people thing - they do because they can.

Even if motherboard manufacturers and chip manufacturers tightened down the hardware to stop it, the hardcore folks would still try - and likely succeed.

We find ways to solder small pots to our video cards so we can raise voltages becaue they don't offer it through BIOS. We ued to wrap small pieces of copper around pins to change multipliers or use trace pens to connect pins in order to change voltages on intel motherboards where it's not an option. We replace capacitors on motherboards when they start to leak because we've been running 1.5v+ for a couple years. We even modify motherboard BIOS so we can get extra memory options to tweak just a little bit further, they can't stop us even if they decide to try. They may greatly reduce our numbers though. Not may people like taking brand new $200+ hardware out of the box and soldering stuff to it or taking things off. In my current rig I have a voltmodded 7800 that was BIOS unlocked to a GTX, a motherboard that I trace penned from an NF4 ultra to a NF4 SLI(though am using an ultra BIOS cause it offered better overclocking on my system). I'd have modified more but, my board pretty much lets me do anything I want.

 

[Pez D Spencer]

Why do I overclock? Because if FRAPS ain't showin me at least a 60 in the corner of my monitor I'm not happy.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
It's a people thing - they do because they can.

Even if motherboard manufacturers and chip manufacturers tightened down the hardware to stop it, the hardcore folks would still try - and likely succeed.

yup, you got that right

people just love to tinker with things - I remember when the DFI nF4 Ultra-D came out and the board was practically identical to the SLI version. A simple pencil mod would turn the Ultra into an SLI and there were tons of people who did this who never even ended up running SLI at all, they just did it because they could, just because it was neat that their system would boot up and say "SLI" instead of Ultra...

 

[bharatwaja]

Some smoke, some drink... well for me, OCing gives me a high... its all jus to see how far i can go... and i guess many agree with me here....

and who cares about warranty?? If ur e6850 cant do more than 4.2GHz and it burns out, then it was crap anyway and I bought a QX9650 jus to see how far it goes.... not goin strong at 4.35 on air (TRUE cooled)

well it gives a rush jus lookin at the prime95/memtest screen with all the tense excitement hoping for it not to throw some kinda error... and its kinda like drag racing when calculating superPI 1M times!

Its jus a game, like others play in the PC, I play too! But WITH the PC!

 

[harpoon84]

So it won't bottleneck my GPU (also overclocked ) in certain games.

At 2GHz, my E4400 has a hard time keeping up with my overclocked 8800GTS 320. At 3.33GHz, not so much.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I overclock, more than some and not to the extent of others, but I do...why?? Because I can?! The same reason people tweak cars, motorcycles, etc..

 

[CatchPhrase]

I buy a $65usd dual core and I overclock it to match $160usd dual core in most apps.

 

[Regalk]

Why - the question has been asked a lot in the last 10 years. I expect that it will be asked again in the next 10 as the kids grow up

 

[Zenoth]

Over-clocking is a hobby, to the same extent that reading a book can be or drawing can be, we do it because not only we can (and not because we "have to") but because we like to do it, performance boost or not, hardware crashing/damage or not, the risks are there but who cares if you were willing to take them full front in the first place. There's just no justification to bring for over-clocking. Some people just collect things, others read books, some over-clock their PC.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Overclocking is a fun hobby, and a good way to get "free" performance. It's all about getting more for less. It's about breaking those barriers like 2 GHz, 3 GHz, 4GHz, etc.

I've been hooked ever since the old Celeron 300A with 128K of on-die cache overclocked to 450 MHz, matching the performance of then-current Pentium-II 450 MHz (which cost around a grand, if I remember correctly).

Plus with things like asynchronous FSB's and whatnot, things like hard drive corruption are pretty much a thing of the past.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
I'm a little surprised that a user named IT Professional would provoke people by asking them if overclocking helps WoW or Counterstrike load faster.

Load faster? Wouldn't that be more related to the speed of storage in use than anything else? It's not like we're overclocking our harddrives here.

That's what everyone tells me, but from my tests its always been CPU limited.
Generally speaking loading doesn't mean just reading files to memory, it means decompressing archives to memory. Otherwise the HDD space requirements of the game would be huge. So in many games its CPU limited due to an intensive compression algorithm...

We all know it voids your warranty on almost all your parts..

So does using an after market cooler that decreases the infernal noise it makes and improves temperatures and lifespan...
Besides which they have NO way of telling. My buddies have fried parts from overclocking before and just sent them in and got a replacement.

We all know it boosts performance of your PC..

Ah, so you DO know why people overclock.

I just do not understand why people overclock and have a firm belief with as fast as todays stock parts are currently, that there is no need for a overclock at all..

"640kb of memory is more then enough for anyone!" - bill gates
Today's parts are not that fast, and the fastest of them are EXPENSIVE... that C2X 3ghz quad core costs 1000$, the C2Q 2.4ghz costs 250$. Ocing it requires a more expensive motherboard, psu, and ram, but its much cheaper then paying another 750$ for a CPU.

So your counterstrike loads faster?
So your WOW loads faster?

WTF kind of examples are those? Aside from it being a good thing that things load faster. Who plays those ancient games? How about crysis that no game can max?
Crysis should have the following issues:
1. Stutter/low FPS due to lack of CPU speed.
2. Stutter/low FPS due to lack of GPU speed.
3. Stutter/low FPS due to lack of HDD speed.
so overclocking is a good way to improve 1 and maybe even 2 (if you OC your video card). it will NOT solve it, it will reduce the harm...

and the higher frame rate thing is moot point with me.. I go mid to high end videocard for new technology and for beauty in games and 3d apps.. Frame rate is pointless above the point we cant even see it with the naked eye..

There are many, MANY games out there, formost among them is crysis, where max settings make the framerate drop into unacceptable levels... true in older games going from 70 to 80 fps doesn't matter because most LCDs display only 60 max... But many newer games do not... crysis, world in conflict, company of heroes, etc...

The questions I pose is this..

Why do you as an individual overclock your parts?

Do you care about your warranty?

1. They can't tell you overclocked
2. Overclocking without overvolting is safe.
3. We all fix and build computers by ourselves, so only individual parts have warranty.
4. Those individual parts that are overclocked are the CPU and GPU... overclocking gets you more out of them NOW, and 2 years from now when they break (instead of lasting 10 years) they would be worthless ANYWAYS... You would be upgrading to a newer tech... you SHOULD upgrade every year anyways...



The only valid argument is the one never made... it's not free, it costs you time intead of money!
I don't overclock because the amount of time needed to fiddle with it to make it work is not worth it with the amounts I make. I can more easily spend more money on a faster CPU to begin with... When I make enough to buy a 1000$ then I will consider overclocking... because then it would be a matter of not being able to get anything faster with money... only with work.

 

[AMDZen]

Originally posted by: IT Professional Ant

Originally posted by: angry hampster
Why do people buy Porsches if they never go faster than 100mph anyway?

you are compairing apples to oranges..

if you do 150mph in your porsche before the warranty expires it doesnt void your warranty of your car.. so moot point..

compiaring a Porsche to a PC is like compairing a Sunbeam toaster to a Harley davidson..

Well I think your original point is moot as well, OC'ing only voids your warranty if the manufacturer knows about it. Now personally, I've been overclocking processors since the original Pentium 90 I got to 100 Mhz and I've never, not even ONCE had a processor fail on me from OC'ing. So I've personally never needed to RMA a CPU after it went bad.

However, I know people who have had to and not a single one of them has been turned away by Intel, or AMD. I'm not sure if Intel or AMD can tell if you've OC'd a CPU or not, but my bet is that they can't tell or don't care.

 

[taltamir]

Actually the reasons people drive porches is completely different... mechanics fanatics assemble and turbocharge their own engine, they don't drive porches...
Porches are driven by men who want to showcase their monetary success by buying overpriced and VERY VERY expensive cars.

A nerd overclocking his CPU or a car fanatic installing a NOS in the 5000$ car his parents bought him when he graduated highschool isn't doing it to get laid.

 

[MikeSp]

Do all or most boards automatically read the memory and CPU and set themselves to default BIOS settings (timings, voltages, multiplier, etc.) so that, for example on an X38 board, an E8400 CPU runs at 3.0 GHz and the FSB runs at 1333 or 1066 MHz (depending upon memory used) when powered up for the first time?

Do any boards have dependable automated OC'ing by having choices in the BIOS to somehow allow the board to make limited choices to bump overall speed by say, 10% or 20% or ...?... (OK, I realize that this part is heresy for OC'ers, but I am curious...)

Sorry for these two mundane questions, but I have not built a computer for four years and have returned to near noob status plus I have a senior case of AAADD* in which I do not remember how I set up my P4C800ED four years ago.

(*Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder;-)

MikeSp

 

[Markfw]

Question 1, yes, question 2 , none that I know of, but some have OS utilities that sort of work. I never use those.

 

[AMDZen]

If you still don't get OCing after this thread, just check out this article

http://www.tomshardware.com/20...m_dual_core/index.html

You can get an e2160 for $70 now

 

[Dravic]

Here is my take?


Asking someone on these forums why they overclock is along the lines of asking someone who in interested in photography why would they buy an entry level DSLR, and use RAW images in Photoshop when they could by a top of the line $500 Point and shoot, and use the in camera processing with jpegs.


This is what we do, this is our hobby. While there are tangible gains from buying mid level parts and making them perform as well as if not better then high end parts, it?s as much about the journey as the destination.

It also teaches you an insane amount about computer architecture. I have NEVER been on the phone with tech support for a personal computer related problem EVER. Because of overclocking, when something is going flaky it?s easy for me to identify the symptoms and locate the cause of the issue. You can spend hours tweaking the instability out of your rig for those last 50-100 mhz. You isolate the performance limits of each component in order to maximize your overclocking ceiling. Are you hitting the memory limit, is the CPU limit, is it a cooling limit, etc? So when you see these same instabilities you know what?s causing them. You know the difference between a frozen screen do to a GPU, and a CPU lock up, you know the difference between flaky memory instability and flaky PSU instablity. And all that is actually fun. Especially when you switch architecture and have to learn something new like going from p4/athlon -> amd x2 -> core2duo.

As far as I?m concerned overclocking with the latest batches of 65 and 45mm intels has become too easy.. this kind of head room was never available in the past and serious time was put into tweaking. Now you just buy memory with enough head room, and decent HSF , and a multiplier change or two, and done 40% overclock? are you kidding me.. ?

I can have a family member call me and tell me the symptoms of there issue, and 9/10 times be dead on as far as the cause. This is also why I now recommend a dell type pc to people, because I?m so good at my craft that I become the defector help desk call?

Besides I would wager a guess that the majority of us also have a ?safe? computer they don?t mess with. A home office PC, a laptop, some other machine they don?t tinker with all the time.


also as far a warranties go.. no i dont worry, i dont buy things for their warranty. I havent lost a part yet.... goodwill/charity will see this PC before the scrap heap.

 

[Gaurav Duggal]

I overclocked my GPU so that I could run CRYSIS (obviously at the lower settings).
I overclocked my CPU to increase my boinc (distributed computing) score.