Why overclock?

[AdamK47]

Go to search at the top and search for thread titles "Why Overclock". This question has been asked year after year. Some of them are pretty funny looking back.

 

[Charlie98]

Go to search at the top and search for thread titles "Why Overclock". This question has been asked year after year. Some of them are pretty funny looking back.

Well, and I suppose that is true... I haven't been on here long enough to go through everything, and I wasn't really asking a 'how to' question, I was just scratching my chin and pondering. There is a lot of 'how to' posts...

The threads you see regarding stability issues are the vocal minority who can't move on to doing more fun stuff with their time until they get the OC straightened out, so they have time to expend on the matter, hence the threads.

OC'ing is easy to do, which means it is easy to get yourself up a creek without a paddle.

...and that is true, as well... I see it a lot on some of the other forums I visit (not computer-oriented sites...) everyone wants to complain, but you hardly ever see a post saying... "Gee, everything is great!"

OC'ing seems simple enough... but there is always more to it than meets the eye.

 

[drizek]

It seems like we have a thread like this every couple of months.

Answer: because you're willing to work for less than minimum wage and Intel engineers aren't. There is performance headroom in every CPU at a given TDP, but it is very time consuming to find it.

 

[deadken]

OC'ing seems simple enough... but there is always more to it than meets the eye.

Well, not always. I usually play things a bit conservative now and really don't have any issues. I used to tweak and test and tweak and test for hours and days to make sure that I got as high as I could go and still be ROCK SOLID. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed what I was doing at the time. Now, I play things more conservative and just get a free bump in performance.

I will tell you that sometimes I tell people not to overclock until their PC seems a bit 'long-in-the-tooth'. That i5 seems nice now, but in a few years you'll want more speed. Either you'll upgrade your system, or you'll Overclock your i5 and make it last even longer.

For what it is worth, my current CPU is a AMD PhII dual core. I was able to unlock it to a four core CPU and raise the speed from 3.2Ghz to 3.6Ghz (just a simple multiplier change, nothing complicated). The money I saved from NOT buying a faster quad core back then, is being put towards buying a hex core now. I saved a good deal of money by not spending it when I didn't have to, and now will spend it on getting a better CPU that is WAY cheaper then it was 18 months ago.

Lastly, I'll tell you about my friend. He only likes the very best. He built himself a system for nearly 3 grand about 18 months ago. The CPU he was looking at was $800 and the next lower one (which used to be $800) was less then $300. I told him to buy the cheaper one, and we could make it run as fast as the more expensive one. Now, he uses the 'turbo' button when he games and he put that $500 into getting better components for the rest of the system. Flat out, he would have wasted money on buying the 'fastest' CPU at the time and he would have to skimp on other components.

Enjoy your system. Enjoy your truck. I'll enjoy my system the way I like to and I'll enjoy my car the way I like to. It's all good.

-Ken

 

[Concillian]

It used to be that overclocking was exactly like putting in higher octane gas and adjusting timing and fueling to take advantage of that. It was like free performance sitting there waiting to be used.

However, these days it's gotten pretty commercial. You have to pay to have the privilege of being able to overclock, and you're paying just as much as you would have otherwise. It's somewhat lost it's roots, in my opinion, which was buying a $100 CPU and OCing it to perform close to a $300 processor level. Now you buy a $200-300 processor that the vendor is sandbagging and you OC it to get beyond the purchasable performance level.

It really made a lot more sense when there wasn't as much division in the product lines and when the highest end CPU still struggled to even give 30FPS at max settings in a modern game. There wasn't such a thing as a processor that was 'fast enough' and you could feel a 20% speed increase in general Windows usage as much as in a game.

Now you can get a 2500k or 2600k and get enough performance to play almost any game perfectly and you will barely be able to tell the difference between OCed and not. It's really a different landscape now. However, if you have a 2500k, you may as well overclock, it's not difficult and doesn't really have a downside since it can be done so that idle power is no different.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

The most critical thing to a new OC'ers effort is to find someone who has your exact same mobo and then learn from them as no two mobo's bios options are labeled the same. Eliminate the communications barrier and walk in someone elses shoes down a path they already marked out with their own trial and error.

This and being systematic and methodical, eg. for the i7, figuring out the max stable mem, then fsb / uncore, core, etc.
As for why overclock, if I didn't, my optics modelling software would take ages (single-threaded). To be more precise, it's already taking ages. If my i7 920 wasn't at 4.1GHz, it would take bloody ages.

 

[sandorski]

If you need the extra Performance, it's great. However, there are risks involved. Personally I don't bother because my current system runs everything I want sufficiently at Stock speed and in the past Overclocks have wreaked havoc on various bits of Hardware I had.

 

[Bryf50]

If you need the extra Performance, it's great. However, there are risks involved. Personally I don't bother because my current system runs everything I want sufficiently at Stock speed and in the past Overclocks have wreaked havoc on various bits of Hardware I had.

I don't know. It's pretty damn hard to kill a CPU nowadays. If it gets too hot or draws too much power it'll downclock or shut off. The only thing I could see killing a CPU is running some crazy voltage through it. But if you're well informed and only looking for a modest OC that shouldn't be a problem.

Really I don't see how overclocking could wreak havoc on your hardware unless you were doing something you shouldn't have or running substandard or defective hardware.

 

[bryanW1995]

Ah, no. My first overclock as a 4.77 8088 to 7.2 mhz, then a 6 mhz 80286 to 9.13 mhz, and then a AMD K6-2 166 to 200, etc..

I forget all the systems I have overclocked. And someone here probably has be beat with an even older system they overclocked.

My dad used to overclock the vacuum tubes on ENIAC when John mauchly wasn't looking...

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

My dad used to overclock the vacuum tubes on ENIAC when John mauchly wasn't looking...

Not as macho, but I remember overclocking my trusty old Adaptec 2940UW by replacing the clock crystal

 

[sandorski]

I don't know. It's pretty damn hard to kill a CPU nowadays. If it gets too hot or draws too much power it'll downclock or shut off. The only thing I could see killing a CPU is running some crazy voltage through it. But if you're well informed and only looking for a modest OC that shouldn't be a problem.

Really I don't see how overclocking could wreak havoc on your hardware unless you were doing something you shouldn't have or running substandard or defective hardware.

Not just CPU, but Motherboard(mainly these days) and in days gone by many other bits of Hardware were at risk.

 

[Zoom123]

'Fun' to me is a stable system that will last 5 years without the BSOD or system lockups...

Compared to my old desktop (a Pentium D Dell) my new system is a superhero...

My system is a Core2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz running at 2.8GHz for the past 5 years. I will soon get for myself a new system and pass this one to my parents where it will be used for several more years.

So I would reverse what you said: If you don't overclock then your system will not last 5 years because you will feel the need for an upgrade earlier. Therefore overclocking can actually extent the useful life of a system.

 

[biostud]

Good question... for the same reason I bought a V-10 in my pickup. I don't drive around with my foot on the floor, but the power is there if I need it. I bought the 2500K for the versatility.

The thing is that a 2400 all the way up to the 2700K is the same piece of silicon (with different features enabled or disabled). Processors also have speed step, meaning they only run at full speed when needed. So when you over clock you basically just enable extra performance when needed. When you just browse the web you don't run with "the foot on the floor" stressing all the cores, but when you game or do some video editing then you get some extra performance free.

If you overclock today and get BSOD's from it then you're doing it wrong.

 

[Charlie98]

The thing is that a 2400 all the way up to the 2700K is the same piece of silicon (with different features enabled or disabled). Processors also have speed step, meaning they only run at full speed when needed. So when you over clock you basically just enable extra performance when needed. When you just browse the web you don't run with "the foot on the floor" stressing all the cores, but when you game or do some video editing then you get some extra performance free.

That's interesting...

I'm slowly finding the utilities to keep an eye on the processor and memory use, and I'm not seeing anything that really taxes the system. The hottest I've gotten my CPU was 42C running MW2 (with mobo video.)

I went ahead an bumped it up a little, using the Gigabyte utility... it hasn't caught on fire yet!

 

[sm625]

I just bought an i5-750 for $120 and a asus motherboard for $30. It easily overclocks to 3.2GHz on the stock cooler. It is faster than an i3-2100 for less money. Thanks to overclocking. I am looking forward to making it faster than an i5-2400 when I get a cooler.

 

[know of fence]

Voltage coupled with frequency is basically a sliding scale.

power efficiency|---------------------------------------------(>OC>)--|performance
~~hybrid car~~|------------------------------------------------------| 4x4 pickup truck

 

[Idontcare]

Voltage coupled with frequency is basically a sliding scale.

FWIW, for those interested, that sliding scale is what is captured in a shmoo plot.

 

[Golgatha]

'Fun' to me is a stable system that will last 5 years without the BSOD or system lockups...

Compared to my old desktop (a Pentium D Dell) my new system is a superhero...

Why overclock?

Because I typically upgrade before the 3 year warranty is up.
Because I can get $1000 performance from a $200 CPU.
Because the overclock I have is 24 hour Prime and OCCT stable. I would never sacrifice system stability for a bit more performance.

 

[bryanW1995]

I mean, if I had a billion $, I wouldn't be wasting my time earning more (unless I had a goal to conquer space or something like that).

Check out self-made billionaires. They ALL want to "conquer space or something". It's human nature to want things to always get better if you already have "the best", and it's also tons of fun to buy something cheap but OC it to the performance level of a much more expensive item.

Running an E2200 (2.2ghz factory) @ 3.2ghz for 4.5 years solid with zero BSODs. I think I have the last of the functional ABIT IP35e's out there . That's fun. And I paid about $75 for the chip back in what seems like 1948. But...the damned thing is still pretty quick with a vertex 2 SSD, so I haven't upgraded yet. Next in line will likely be a 2600k/Asus combo. I used to upgrade every years, but haven't felt the itch.

My Q6600 has spent 4 happy years with an ip35e, and I just donated my old q9450/ip35e rig to my daughter's school. Those things were ~ $70 but have been awesome!

 

[IntelUser2000]

I don't overclock, because I sell it, and I don't want any chance at headaches.

Other than that though. Probably more than 99% of CPUs have pretty good headroom. No company likes having tons of RMAs, so they just put it at lower clocks than it most are capable of. I have indeed heard of some people that got a rare bad batch and the overclocking headroom was limited. They complained, but it was fine at stock. It would have been a problem for that specific chip if the non overclocked frequency was that high.

Both Intel and AMD did release chips that had very little headroom. The late Athlon XPs come to mind, and for Intel, the 1.13GHz Pentium III. Both are victims of the companies making desperate decisions to get back to being competitive, and didn't work.

You might have been lucky to get chips that clocked higher, but that's not always the case when shipping tens of millions of them.

 

[drizek]

The original Phenoms are a great example of chips that just wouldn't clock up.

Funny, Bulldozer has almost infinite headroom.

 

[CuriousMike]

Ah, no. My first overclock as a 4.77 8088 to 7.2 mhz, then a 6 mhz 80286 to 9.13 mhz, and then a AMD K6-2 166 to 200, etc..

I forget all the systems I have overclocked. And someone here probably has be beat with an even older system they overclocked.

TRS-80 Color Computer

POKE 65535,0

would overclock from 0.895 MHz to 1.79 MHz.

 

[AdamK47]

TRS-80 Color Computer

POKE 65535,0

would overclock from 0.895 MHz to 1.79 MHz.

Abacus. Added an extra row of beads.

 

[sandorski]

Abacus. Added an extra row of beads.

attach fire crackers

 

[Avalon]

I've got programs that benefit from extra CPU performance that makes my life easier and saves me from having to drop hundreds more on a CPU. I've gotten fairly conservative with my overclocks as I've gotten older, but I still usually do a pretty solid OC and I always run rigorous stress testing to ensure my system is rock solid.