why Overclock?

[rallyfan1986]

Sorry if this questions been asked before and its a bit of a random question,

but what advantages does overclocking give? obviously is boosts performance, but what does it give in a real life situation, such as in gaming?

does it give 5fps more? 10fps more?

Cheers

 

[Bad ConNecTioN]

Depends on the overclock, depends on the game, and it even depends on the rest of your hardware.

On CPU intensive tasks, the performance boost can often times be proportional to the amount of overclock. So, if you run test A at 2GHz, and test B at 3Ghz, you could potentially see around a 50% improvement. However, in other tasks you may only notice a small, or even no improvement.

It also depends on the technology being overclocked, and how powerful it is to begin with. If your hardware is old, an overclock may make no difference, or any difference may not change the situation much.


Overclocking is highly variable. What I can say is pretty much guaranteed when overclocking is that we get a feeling of money well spent. I know I am getting the most out of my purchase when its doing significantly more than it did at stock settings. By overclocking we are also buying time. My chip is already outdated, but by overclocking I can extend its life another cycle or so.

 

[rallyfan1986]

thanks for the quick answer.

I guess i'll need to do some benchmarks for my system - with and without overclocking to see what gains i will actually get.

For many people on this forum i would have thought the 'fun factor' would also be present.

thanks again

 

[Jayws]

I would agree with with Bad Connection, the results of overclocking are highly variable. I like to do it for the fun and for the added performance. I like building computers but I like tuning them even better because I feel like I'm getting more bang for the buck as well as something that is of a higher quality/performance level that an OEM machine.

To see differences in CPU performance I typically run a quick test through Everest as well as a 1M run in SuperPI. For graphics I stick to the 3dmarks. I think that these benchmarks are good at showing performance changes after tweaking but if you want to see how those changes reflect in your apps, you need to record some before and after data. When I compile a video clip with my Q6600 I noticed a significant reduction in the time it took to complete the task when running at 3.6ghz instead of 2.4. This partly due to the increase in clock speed but also due to the fact that my program can utilize 4 cores. As far as gaming goes, I usually run fraps and just watch the framerate in the top corner of my screen. The difference in some games (i.e. FPS) are just perceptionally noticable without even having to look at a frame counter.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

why not?

 

[Shiggity]

I just like to think that my 170$ overclocked CPU is better than your 500$ stock CPU

Overclocking GPU's also does yield a large difference in most games.

 

[deathman20]

I just like to think that my 170$ overclocked CPU is better than your 500$ stock CPU

Overclocking GPU's also does yield a large difference in most games.

Well my think I paid $216 CPU is faster than any Dual Core CPU on the retail market Defiantly not the fastest but 4.4Ghz was manageable on it so I see that as a good bang for the buck.

Hmmm overclocking. Some its for fame, some its the e-peen factor, some its a hobby, and some is for the value customer.

Fame is more of recognition around the community of what they do, can even become a good job getting hardware, going to shows and such.
E-peen is well don't think I need to explain this one.
Value Customer: Sorta ties into Hobby per say since I personally try to help people stretch there money as far as it will go and this is the way to do it, not extreme but just enough.
Hobby: Think thats what most of us on the forums are here for. Its part of a hobby for us. Squeezing as much as you can out of said hardware on what ever budget you can spare.

For me OCing is not only to stretch the buck, but as well to help increase performance when gaming. Powering a 1920x1200 monitor isn't cheap so I need some power behind my rig to get games playable at this res. There for I spend a few bucks to get the main components and OC it to squeeze an extra 10, 20, even 50% or higher on some parts.

 

[UmX]

Same reason you buy a mustang and add aftermarket parts to it. To go faster fast is good slow is bad

 

[gigabit]

Why not??????????????????

 

[tester3000]

It matters on what is the bottleneck. If you GPU is the bottleneck and you overclock it, you will notice a performance increase. On a 8800GT going from 625/1566/1800 to 750/1850/950 gave me a 5fps increase in crysis. When you are encoding vids, overclocking you cpu will make the process proportionally faster.

 

[rallyfan1986]

Why not??????????????????

well if the gains were only 1-2fps for a game then i would think that pushing expensive hardware to the limit, reducing its lifespan, would not be worth it.

However as has been said the potential gains can be quite high, therefore there is a valid reason to overclock

 

[muddocktor]

Just to give you a physical example of what gains can be made with overclocking, let's take a Q600 processor, which commonly sells for around $200. Stock, it runs at 2.4 GHz. Now, if we bump the fsb speed up to 333 fsb, it will be essentially the exact same as a QX6850 processor, which costs $1000. And since at least 90% of the Q6600 procs can take the bump up to 3 GHz without raising vcore from stock, you have essentially saved yourself $800. The 2 processors are built off of the same 65nm technology and off the same production wafers, so there is no real difference between the 2 except that the QX6850 was validated by Intel to be able to run at 3 GHz and it doesn't have a locked multiplier like the Q6600 has. With you overclocking your Q6600, you are validating it to 3 GHz by doing stability tests and save yourself quite a bit of money in the meantime.

If you look at the S-Spec numbers on these 2 processors, you will see that the G0 stepping Q6600 processors are rated at 95 watts and the QX6850, which is also a G0 stepping, is rated at 130 watts. That is directly due to the higher speed the QX6850 is running at and if you set the Q6600 to run at that speed (333 X 9) without raising the vcore, you aren't putting any more load on the circuitry of the processor or motherboard than what it was designed to run at in the first place.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

well if the gains were only 1-2fps for a game then i would think that pushing expensive hardware to the limit, reducing its lifespan, would not be worth it.

However as has been said the potential gains can be quite high, therefore there is a valid reason to overclock

no one can say how it affects life span, i had a pIII 533 @ 600 mhz running from the day i bought it until my mother passed in dec (she had it after i moved), that is 8 years it ran over clocked with stock cooler on it.. and a 533@600 was a BIG feat back then!

life span of a computer part can be decades! overclocking it may cut it's life in half... so now in 5 years say you may need something new..

sure if you don't cool properly and don't know what your doing you can trash it, but that is user error.

 

[metloaf]

For the same reason that people climb Everest, because they can!

 

[Finny]

Its silly to be concerned about lifespan of a new part you are overclocking. (as long as it is within reason, and you have good cooling) Otherwise A.) the part you are overclocking is probably high-midrange, therefore you want to maintain a high-midrange system. If the lifespan of the part was already 10 years (very unlikely, probably much higher) and you cut it in half (also unlikely, overclocking has negligable changes to lifespan) it will be 5 years. If you are still wanting to maintain the high-midrange segment, you will have given up on that particular piece of equipment by that time and got a new one. B.) Like I said, the lifespan probably won't be decreased.

-Mick

 

[metloaf]

I always like the lifespan argument by people who do not overclock. The reality is that the most of us who do push our PCs bulid new ones so often that it doesn't really matter. I personally ugrade at least every year if not every other. Yes I do resuse some of the componenets but not all. So it really makes no difference if I push a CPU to its max for lets say 1.5 years and then get another one. But I suppose everyone looks at it from a different point of view.

 

[deathman20]

Aye OCing and weaking life cycle of the equipment is crap IMO. Still have a Celeron 566 @ 800Mhz and that dates back a few years. Still lives,runs and best of all stock cooler.

Had a P4 2.4C chip that I had for a good 2 years at best and its still running in a friends rig today, stock cooling with minor OC.
Have another XP 2400+ chip still at work in a friends rig as well. Thats 5 years old if not mistaken, and to date is still nearly run 24/7 with aftermarket cooler.

When OCing the equipment will die due to a flaw in manufacturing, pushing it WELL beyond its means by pumping way to many volts or OCing way to far out of spec for said voltage. Modifiying the item (hardmods)... and the list can go on.

I've had 2 pieces of hardware die on me not knowing why it happened or what caused it but it wasn't due to me neglecting my hardware by pushing it well beyond its means. 1 motherboard fried due to a ram voltage regulator going up in smoke, a second motherboard went up which my guess is electrical traces where too close to the surface on the motherboard and came in contact with the heatsink mounting blocks, blew a hole in the board.


If there is no faults to the said comptuer or acts of god, the whole PC itself will last beyond the means to find dated parts in said stores with that will work in it. CPU's are a big thing that change rapidly in the market, once its out its out and a new socket comes along. Sure you can find parts from ebay or something like that but by commercial means the equipment will last longer.

 

[chop_wood]

well at least your asking the right people..
for me its just fun.. your first time to 4ghz is like sex, ure just like zomg 4.1 , 4.2 ...4.3 ......(splooge)

most of the time its more for the "mines faster than i payed and faster than yours" even if u dont necessarily really notice a diff, however sometimes like with these e8400's they scream it feels totally worth it. when i had a x800gto --> x850xt mod (i think it was) - the improvement was really insane , i felt like i saved mucho dinero. i got my opty 165 (1.8 -->3.0 2x1mb) years ago and upgraded once the newer am2 6000+(3.0ghz) came out. made me feel likie my rig wasnt old at all.

 

[rallyfan1986]

well at least your asking the right people..
for me its just fun.. your first time to 4ghz is like sex, ure just like zomg 4.1 , 4.2 ...4.3 ......(splooge)

haha. i think thats probably the best answer iv read! - 'why overclock? reaching 4ghz is like sex'

Just to let you know im not agreeing or disagreeing with anyone, im finding this to be a really interesting thread, but this thread (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=568547) suggests that applying more voltage to the cpu degrades the chip. Isn't increasing the voltage a common part of overclocking?

Thats a very good point about it reducing the lifetime- that even if it does half the lifetime from 10 to 5 years, most people will have upgraded long before any component reaches 5 years of age.

This leads me onto another question.. what are the disadvantages of overclocking?

thanks again for your answers this is a really interesting read

 

[metloaf]

Generally it's not the voltage but the heat that comes from the increased voltage that kills a CPU. This is why you can pump 1.6V+ while phase cooling it and still keep it functional and get incredible overclocks. It has been suggested that the 45 nm CPUs do seem to have some sort of degredation but I don't actually know how much of that has been proven.