Overclocking

[pcslookout]

Is overclocking a already fast Intel Duo Processor really worth it in the long run ? I mean 50 % overclock seems like a lot but is it really when it comes to term with being able to only get a little quicker speed ? I think it was well worth it years ago but is it really worth it today ? Even with a really great cooler won't your cpu still get less life out of it overclocked even if its kept very cool ?

 

[996GT2]

Well...I've had my A64 overclocked for about a year now at stock voltages...absolutely no issues for me and I just sold the chip a few days ago along with my DDR2. My X2 and HZs are coming soon, and I can say that I will be OCing those as soon as they get here. It does give you a noticeable performance bump going from 2.2 GHz to 2.8 GHz like I did on my A64. DVD encoding and other intensive tasks become faster, although in everyday use like web surfing you won't notice much of a difference.

Also, CPUs are good for ten or more years, so by overclocking and raising the voltage you are at most reducing their life by half or so. That's still a good 5 years, and your chip will be long obsolete by then anyway.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: 996GT2
Well...I've had my A64 overclocked for about a year now at stock voltages...absolutely no issues for me and I just sold the chip a few days ago along with my DDR2. My X2 and HZs are coming soon, and I can say that I will be OCing those as soon as they get here. It does give you a noticeable performance bump going from 2.2 GHz to 2.8 GHz like I did on my A64. DVD encoding and other intensive tasks become faster, although in everyday use like web surfing you won't notice much of a difference.

Also, CPUs are good for ten or more years, so by overclocking and raising the voltage you are at most reducing their life by half or so. That's still a good 5 years, and your chip will be long obsolete by then anyway.

Ok so if it mainly helps only with intensive tasks is there anyway to keep the overclocked cpu only overclocked during these intensive tasks, when you need the extra performance most, and have it run at stock speeds when you are on anandtech forums and the computer is idle ? This way it could save a few years on the cpu and could be safer during the summer time?

 

[996GT2]

Yes...I left AMD Cool and Quiet on, which allows the CPU to run at lower speeds when there is little load on the core. Intel has a similar technology called SpeedStep. However, changing the multiplier when overclocking (i.e. running at lower multi and higher HTT) requires these features to be turned off since the CPU will ramp up speed to the highest multi when load is applied, and thus the extra OC on top of the already OC'd chip will result in instability.

 

[Zardnok]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
Ok so if it mainly helps only with intensive tasks is there anyway to keep the overclocked cpu only overclocked during these intensive tasks, when you need the extra performance most, and have it run at stock speeds when you are on anandtech forums and the computer is idle ? This way it could save a few years on the cpu and could be safer during the summer time?

Yes. Most Motherboards offer a bios option that will automatically change the multiplier down to 6 (minimum) and reduce voltage when there is no load on the chip. Then whenever the CPU loads up, it switches the multiplier and voltage up to your OC speeds.

You will want to do research on C1E-Enhanced Halt State and EIST.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2725

C1E - Enhanced Halt State

"Whenever the OS executes the halt instruction, the CPU enters what is known as the halt state. Architecturally, what's going on in a halt state is the clock signal is shut off to the CPU for some period of time. With no clock signal, none of the logic in the chip will do anything and thus power consumption is reduced. Performance is also significantly reduced; however, the halt instruction isn't usually called during application usage, so the performance aspects of the halt state aren't very important.

The problem with the halt state is that it does nothing to reduce voltage, only current draw by stopping clocks from going to the CPU. Since Power varies linearly with both current and voltage (P = I * V), you're effectively only addressing half of the problem. The Enhanced Halt State, as Intel calls it, does two things: it reduces the clock speed of the CPU by decreasing the clock multiplier down to its minimum value (on the EE 965 series, that's 14x, or 2.8GHz), then reducing the voltage. The clock speed is reduced and then the voltage is dropped, to maintain stability.

Intel insists that the enhanced halt state is a significantly lower power state than the conventional halt state, thanks to the reduction in voltage in addition to the reduction in clock speed. While the standard halt state causes a linear reduction in power, Intel's enhanced halt state causes an exponential decrease in power, potentially offering better power savings than the standard halt state. The real world impact obviously depends on how idle your system happens to be."

EIST:

"What EIST does is very similar to AMD's Cool'n'Quiet. It is demand based reduction in CPU clock speed and voltage. Using the same mechanism of adjusting clock speed and voltage, based on the application demand, the processor will dynamically increase/decrease its clock speed between its minimum clock and its normal operating frequency, as well as voltage, in order to optimize for power consumption.

Because of the way EIST (and AMD's Cool'n'Quiet) works, there's inherently a drop in performance. The idea is this: if you're performing a task that's not using 100% of the CPU, the CPU will operate at a slightly reduced frequency in order to conserve power. So, while some tasks will require that the system run at full speed, others will run at lower speeds. "

 

[Pwntcomputer]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
Is overclocking a already fast Intel Duo Processor really worth it in the long run ? I mean 50 % overclock seems like a lot but is it really when it comes to term with being able to only get a little quicker speed ? I think it was well worth it years ago but is it really worth it today ? Even with a really great cooler won't your cpu still get less life out of it overclocked even if its kept very cool ?

I've had my computer up and running for about 1.5 yrs now. I noticed some slight slowdown in some games so I decided to take the OC plunge. It really made a difference for me even with a 10% OC. My chip does not like anything above 2.2 for some strange reason. Unstable Superpi @ 2.3+ even with extra juice.

With a little knowledge, OCing your rig isn't very complicated. I would suggest an attempt @ stock voltage.

 

[MarcVenice]

yeah, it's really funny when you can buy a 'low-end' chip, like my first OC with a venice 3000+ that runs at 1800mhz stock, and you crank it up to be in the high-end range at 2.4-2.7ghz. And since my mobo was giving way to much juice to my cpu on auto settings, it's even running less hot then it was before. It can be a money safer, or a nice performance boost to stretch a little extra life time out of your pc

 

[Mourngrym]

I'd say it depends on:
1. what applications you run
2. if your CPU or video card (or possibly other components) is the bottle neck. This also depends on for example which resolution you use for gaming etc. If your CPU is the bottle neck, then you will probably benefit a good deal by overclocking, but if your vid card is the bottle neck you probably won't notice much of a difference. Then you could always overclock the vid card though.

 

[Bateluer]

For CPUs, yes, it can easily be worth it.

For video cards, OTH, its usually not worth it. Granted, today's video cards an easily see 50 to 100Mhz OCs on just the core, but it usually amounts to a minuscule improvement in only a handful of titles. It used to be that video cards can only OC by 5 to 10Mhz, and barely got any performance boost at all. And yet, people still did it.

While OCing does cut down the life of your CPU/GPU, it doesn't really matter much. The life span of a CPU is likely measured in decades, I think I've got some 286s somewhere that still function. If I OC my C2D, and it cuts in life span down to a mere 5 years, then its the perfect excuse to buy a new CPU. A lot happens with CPUs in 5 years.

 

[GeezerMan]

I wonder if overclocking a CPU and not raising the voltages will shorten the lifespan? My Toledo core Opteron 165 is running fine at 2.6GHz on stock volts, and very cool too. The FX-60 is a Toledo core that runs 2.6GHz from the factory. Quite possible the lifespan of both will be the same. It's the heat and volts that kills.

 

[tigersty1e]

Yeah, I tihnk overclocking a C2D does nothing to improve your computer in today's apps. But on the flipside, I don't think that overclocking hurts the chip, especially if you don't raise the volts. And all this talk about the chip lasting 5 years. We just don't know how long the chip will last so it's all speculation.

But overclocking is an addiction. It's all about squeezing every last drop out of whay you buy. I think it's more peace of mind for me to know I'm getting everything from my equipment.

And OCing a graphics card makes sense when your card is struggling in today's apps. OCing my 6800 made a considerable improvement in BF2. My fps would drop down to 30-40 fps but after my OC, I get above 60 fps. In this scenario, it's definitely worth it. And if it breaks, then replacing this thing won't break my wallet.

So if you are already getting 60 fps with your video card and everything maxed out, then OCing your card to get 70 fps is just not worth it except for the fun of OCing.

I don't know about you guys, but the journey is just as fun as the destination.

 

[MarcVenice]

You're overly confident in your statement. I'm pretty sure oc-ing will get you a performance boost in a lot of heavy apps, like running matlab through a series of tests, and theres other applications that will see a performance boost when they go from 2.2ghz to 3.2ghz. Average day to day use, like browsing, a little bit of writing, emailing and such of course won't. But I very much doubt that most oc-ers are people who only use their pc for day to day stuff.

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
I wonder if overclocking a CPU and not raising the voltages will shorten the lifespan? My Toledo core Opteron 165 is running fine at 2.6GHz on stock volts, and very cool too. The FX-60 is a Toledo core that runs 2.6GHz from the factory. Quite possible the lifespan of both will be the same. It's the heat and volts that kills.

It shouldn't as long as u manage the heat.
Depends on the chip really, higher clock speeds do reduce the life of the chip but not nearly as much as voltage.

I've been running my x2 at 2.7ghz for 14 months now not a single problem, didn't even have to raise voltage after all this time.

 

[Noubourne]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
For CPUs, yes, it can easily be worth it.

For video cards, OTH, its usually not worth it. Granted, today's video cards an easily see 50 to 100Mhz OCs on just the core, but it usually amounts to a minuscule improvement in only a handful of titles. It used to be that video cards can only OC by 5 to 10Mhz, and barely got any performance boost at all. And yet, people still did it.

While OCing does cut down the life of your CPU/GPU, it doesn't really matter much. The life span of a CPU is likely measured in decades, I think I've got some 286s somewhere that still function. If I OC my C2D, and it cuts in life span down to a mere 5 years, then its the perfect excuse to buy a new CPU. A lot happens with CPUs in 5 years.

So is it your contention that my 7900GT would offer the same framerates in most games as a stock clocked 7900GT, and not, for instance, performance near or equivalent to a 7900GTX?

Because I would argue that you're wrong that it is not worth it/doesn't change performance, and the $35 cooler and free volt mod I installed were dirt cheap compared to the cost of actually purchasing a 7900GTX in the first place.

People were getting 5-10Mhz out of chips that were rated to run much slower than a CPU, and today they get 100-200Mhz out of chips that run stock in the 500 range. A 40% overclock is hardly anything to sneeze at.

 

[Bill Kunert]

Re: Cool and Quiet - It will not work on some mopther boards if the CPU is run at anything other than default speeds. My Abit KN8-SLI disables C&Q if I overclock even 1Hz.

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
Yeah, I tihnk overclocking a C2D does nothing to improve your computer in today's apps.

That doesn't make any sense.

 

[rothchilds]

so going from a stock 1.8 on an e4300 chip to 3.0, all with stock voltages, yields me no performance gains? Thats crazy talk. And if thats the case, why make chips from the factory with differnet speeds to begin with.

 

[Noema]

When you can get a $180 chip to outperfom chips that cost two, or three times as much, I think it's worth it, yes.

 

[MarcVenice]

noema, speechless ?

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
noema, speechless ?

Haha, pressed enter by mistake

 

[StopSign]

A lot of people these days think that if you have a really fast chip, it's enough.

But the truth of the matter is: YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH SPEED!

 

[lopri]

Other than some specific professional/scientific area, today's CPUs are way too powerful for majority of apps, IMO. I think, one of the break-through that's needed, to benefit from even more CPU power, is (wireless) communication bandwidth. This is only one area that I've been thinking, but imagine a totally new level of network latency/thoroughput that'll make everything real-time possible. For example, a bandwidth that can streem real-time high-definition cyber meeting (as if you're talking to someone sitting next to you, except that the person is on the opposite side of the planet), or something like a GPS that can provide a photo-quality data (you know, streets, buildings, or even trees) in REAL-TIME. (you will never get lost while driving, lol) When such a fast/huge bandwidth (light-speed? lol) becomes reality, we'll think of today's CPUs as something like 386/486.

 

[LAsick]

I belive most overclocks are OVER RATED!

 

[StopSign]

Originally posted by: LAsick
I belive most overclocks are OVER RATED!

Judging from your spelling...no.

 

[Edge1]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
Is overclocking a already fast Intel Duo Processor really worth it in the long run ? I mean 50 % overclock seems like a lot but is it really when it comes to term with being able to only get a little quicker speed ? I think it was well worth it years ago but is it really worth it today ?

Yes.