Windows 7: Overclocking

I can't stop laughing to this cause it's so true but I always tell myself enough is enough because I have a family and it works out all the time. I just set my initial goal and if I cannot hit in two tries, I use my two seconds tries to get it 100% stable with a lower overclock. This way I save a lot time, there's less bitching in the house and a lot less second hand smoke being inhaled.

True

Yep - that's why I've stuck to 4.0ghz. I can get more, but the thought of all the time involved in tweaking and testing - meh

I certainly can't disagree with your points, but I do believe that it isn't always worth it. There are good and bad reasons to overclock, because in some cases, the real world performance gain is small, and the potential for an expensive mistake is always there.

OCing should really only be tried if you know your hardware well, and do your research beforehand. With today's speeds on CPUs, most humans probably wouldn't notice the speed improvement. My stock speed is 3.2 GHz, and I OC to 3.8. It's a Black Edition Phenom, and I bought it for that reason, so why not? I can also afford to replace it, and I know when to stop.

The reason that I try to discourage wanna-be OC'ers isn't that I want to keep them from doing it. I just want them to read what I say, and maybe think "Okay, maybe it isn't so easy. I'd better read up on this." I want them to do it carefully.

I've been doing electronics for over 25 years, and IMHO, I pretty much know what you can and can't do with electronic equipment. There's nothing wrong with OCing, if you do it carefully. I hang out on an OC forum, and almost everyday there's a post from someone who has flamed out his CPU, or MOSFETS, or some other critical component. I hate to see that happen, because almost everyone there says "Take it slow and easy.", including me.

I don't want to discourage people, I want to encourage them to do it right.

I must be lazy as I think I'm the only one who hasn't gone 4+ gig with my 930

Between the CPU cooler & trying to keeping temps reasonable on load, I'll say at my paltry 3.3 (3.5 turbo mode) overclock and like it.... for now

At any rate, yeah, overclocking takes a lot of understanding, patience, and trial & error, most importantly understanding, especially when you start messing with voltages & BIOS settings.

You should view over-clocking as a hobby, just as you would in Hot Roding cars. And like all hobbies, they’re not always for everyone

Definitely.

Depending on needs, or limit achieved it isn't always worth it. At a certain level, the performance gain is not discernible. As for needs, just because you can - doesn't mean you should.

Quick example:

I Just rebuilt my old 775 socket + Q9550 that was a 24/7 OC @ 3.8ghz for over a year for my dad.

He certainly doesn't need an OC'ed machine for browsing and word processing etc, so that chip and board is now destined to live out it's existence @ stock speeds, with all the power saving features enabled.


Yep.

True. Unless you are specifically looking for the improvement, at certain levels most wouldn't notice it.

Ditto. I can afford to - and am prepared to replace something in the event something does give way, even though I'm still under the 'safe' on air threshold.

That's a good point. I didn't intend to come across as snarky in my post, but since I was tired I didn't consider that angle and I apologise if that's how it came across

Again, I couldn't agree more.



Mate, if you are happy with it - that's all that counts


It certainly can become a hobby - even an obsession. But on the plus side, at least it's cheaper than cars

you can do a soft oc with the tools given with the motherboard or aplication for oc but anything beyond that would be on you i soft oc'ed my 2.8 to 3.22 but in the future i was planing on uping my cpu which right now is running fine a little boost is fine but

boosting all the way to the max is a good way to be out of a rig in a few months most cpu and units have automatic shut off before you destroy it but when you go past the company limits and you damage it your pretty much stuck with what ever you did

dont do anything unless you have done this type of thing before or plain and simple experiment with a old system you dont particulary care for if you fry that you will have a better understanding of what your doing instead of messing up your main rig

someone correct me if im wrong

I disagree, OC done judiciously is well worth it. Why pay $1000 for an i7 965 when you can buy a i7 920 for $260 and OC it up to the 965 and higher. With stock air cooling only.
With the X 58's there is no more FSB, components are meant to be pushed now.
No different than working on a high end V8, you want the most out of it.

Just to put things in perspective….Overclocking DOES give performance boosts. The real question is is it worth the risk of damaging/destroying your components.

Overclocking done right can gain you a performance boost, overclocking done wrong can destroy/damage your system.

Those who say there’s no performance gains from overclocking are missing the data that shows quite the opposite. Sorry

And again, the only question is whether it’s worth the risk of damaging your components, or voiding your warranty.

My two cents.

Tell me about it, I gave up on the car hobby years ago due to.... expenses.

Ironically it was the money from a restoration project that I chose to forgo and instead used it to buy my first computer. And the funny thing about that is the guy that built my computer gave me some basic overclocking tips; in fact the MB was chosen for that reason

The rest as they say is history

Those of us who maintain this line of thinking....realize that with Benchmark test results there is certainly an increase. However, quite often in the real world just using the computer tests....these overclocks are often not terribly evident. Sure, if you do raw video editing continuously..you will see it...but I'm talking about the average computer user who might actually not see any difference at all.

Though you have a point, I must say that being tthis is a tech site... we're talking to tech users who want that extra sometin' somethin'

Overclocking is a hobby. We all have them, and not everyone is for everyone

I could argue that the avarage user doesn't need a 64-bit OS with 6+ gig of RAM.