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Overclock: Why? and why not?


SiMoNsAyS

Have you overclocked your PC?  

57 members have voted

  1. 1. Have you overclocked your PC?

    • Yes
      19
    • Yes, I want to do it but don't know how
      6
    • CPU only
      7
    • Everything except CPU
      4
    • No
      13
    • No, I've downclocked it
      4


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Today I was talking with my friend XPero about pros and cons of overclocking.

We agreed, why not overclock it? Maybe the life of your components would be shorter but... is this so important? How many time can pass until you change your PC to a newer one?

I personally think that a safe overclock can speed up your system and if your components aren't having a serious damage it's ok.

Final question: +5fps on D3 / -15min coding divx or CPU 10º cooler? :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Today I was talking with my friend XPero about pros and cons of overclocking.

We agreed, why not overclock it? Maybe the life of your components would be shorter but... is this so important? How many time can pass until you change your PC to a newer one?

I personally think that a safe overclock can speed up your system and if your components aren't having a serious damage it's ok.

Final question: +5fps on D3 / -15min coding divx or CPU 10º cooler?

Is AMD processors better for overclocking or Intel's

doesn't the warranty get void if u overclock?

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i still preffer AMD processors, nowadays Intel processors are hotter although they give more perfomance (if we always look at the same price), but specially because i think AMD MOBOs are really better than Intel's.

technically yes, if you burn your processor because of overclocking or because something went wrong, you loose your warranty, but you can always revert back to default settings (with other processor of course) and argue that "simply happened".

i know this looks quite illegal but think that overclocking (alwyas doing it with common sense) stresses your components a little not enough to burn them, and in that case, the same thing could happen at normal conditions.

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Intel - more performance? Not really...

I'm not a big fan of OC'ing, but a couple days ago I stumbled across an article that tested how a cheap socket 754 Sempron 3100+ would overclock - with stock everything (just changing a couple bios settings) and the results were pretty unreal. They hit something like over 4000+ equiv, not bad for a cpu that sells around 110$ (the socket 754 mobos are pretty cheap too). Now that's value for the money, guess I'm not buying a Athlon 64 anymore B)

Found the link... Sempron 3100+ OC'ing

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  • 1 month later...

I've always thought of OC'ing as a bad idea. Especially for the fact that if something fries and you've OC'ed, then you're probably out of pocket a few hundred dollars. If your CPU is running at only 20 degrees C, then sure, go for it, but if you've got an (already searing hot) P4-HT processor, then I'd say no go.

As for the question: I'd say 10 deg cooler. I've got the patience to wait those extra 15 mins for a DivX movie, and what's another 5 fps if you've already got a system that can pump out 50... Personally, I've never been able to notice the difference between 50 fps and 55...anything above 40 or so all looks the same to me.

Also... I'd still rather go for an older Althon with more L2 cache over the Sempron anyday. 256KB L2 cache simply doesn't cut it anymore these days. My laptop (Pentium-M 1.4GHz with 1 MB L2) will completely kick-butt against anything comparable in the laptop field (i.e. P4 2.4, 512KB L2) pricewise (even when configured in a desktop. When actually crunching data, the L2 cache does more than most people think.

[Edit]

Apparently the L2 cache doesn't do as much as I thought... I know for a fact that the 128K that sits on most Celeron processors is what causes them to be a total pain in the a**, but when you're talking about higher end processors like the ones in the test, it seems that it doesn't make that much of a difference. Maybe I'll look into the 90nm Sempron next summer when I have some moolah to spend on a new desktop.

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  • 9 months later...

Intel CPU's are NOT better producers than AMD processors.

That's just NOT right. I thought everyone in the world already knew that. Cheeech!

Overclocking produces very little improvement in overall system performance.

Although it does: Produce more drain on your power supply,

Produces more heat for your heat sink and fan to try to get rid of.

Stresses out your RAM, and shortens the life of both RAM and CPU.

In general.......It just Ain't worth it.

Leave the clock speed set the way it's supposed to be and everything will not only work better, but it will work longer.

Cheers.

Andromeda43

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I have overclocked both of amd processors and noticed a huge gain in performance :yes: I have water-cooling so heat isn’t an issue,

My Amd 1700+ 1.47ghz to 2.2Ghz '

My AMD Barton 2500+ 1.8Ghz to 2.5Ghz and with my ram now running @ 250mhz instead of the default 166mhz I will never go back. My 1700 is more then 3 years old so im not to worried about it dying now. I must stress that these aren’t ordinary CPU's though. These where a specific batch that were well know to overclock well, The 1700 has the code dut3c which where high know to overclock massively , and my amd 2500 is a mobile model, know to overclock well and with out the heat issue as they require less volts to run then normal amd desktop CPU

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  • 3 weeks later...

I do overclock because why not!? Why not squeze the last 10% performance or more out of that pricy cpu?

In fact most cpu's can run faster than factory settings without getting much hotter than the stock cooler can handle.

I think it's well worth it, specially if you have an overclock proof mobo :D And without one? I have never ever seen a system burn, if you watch the temp and overclock the safe (but slow) way one mhz at a time, untill it's unstable. then you can end up with a much better performing system!

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I do overclock because why not!? Why not squeze the last 10% performance or more out of that pricy cpu?

In fact most cpu's can run faster than factory settings without getting much hotter than the stock cooler can handle.

I think it's well worth it, specially if you have an overclock proof mobo :D And without one? I have never ever seen a system burn, if you watch the temp and overclock the safe (but slow) way one mhz at a time, untill it's unstable. then you can end up with a much better performing system!

true true, i belive its not for the faint of heart but it does indeed set the enthusiasts apart from the average user, and it also lets you learn more about the ins and out of whats in your pc and its limits,

im for it, it really does no harm if your cooling methods are good and you take your time with little increments

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OC'ing can be perfectly safe >IF< you don't go too far and know what you're doing. obviously, the further you go, the greater the risk. as far as components wearing out sooner, that's not an issue as long as you're careful. do you care if your system lasts 14.5 years verses 15 years when you're going to be replacing components anyway in 5 years?

why it can be perfectly safe:

your favorite CPU company tests their chips to see if they'll run at the advertised speed. if it doesn't, what do they do? trash them? no -- let's say a P4 2 GHz chip only clocks at 1.98 GHz. the solution is to sell it as a 1.8 GHz (or whatever) chip. so now you have a chip that is perfectly capable of running at 1.95 GHz. why not use it? the margin of safty is no less than a chip that clocks at 2.01 GHz and is sold as a 2 GHz chip.

however, i can't even pretend to know the in's and out's of OC'ing. there's an awful lot more to it and a lot of studying to do if you want to be safe and not fry stuff. i'm not at all sure just how knowledgable some of well known "experts" are in OC'ing. for instance, there's a ton of guides out for OC'ing my chip, an AMD 64 3200+. i read several of them from well known authors, and then i found an articly by some off-the-street dude with a personal home page who proclaimed that they didn't know what they were doing. he went into great detail explaining exactly why the time and tested methods employed by the experts was wrong. he also pointed out that many of the experts shared similar results, all of which provided a minimal increase in horse power. then he explained his method and published the results. he out did them all by a very significant margin while maintaining a very stable machine.

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