With so many choices in hardware products and endless ways to upgrade your PC, I wonder if overclocking is really needed today. After all, you can usually find an off-the-shelf GPU that will give you the performance you need. I have few friends that have overclocked their systems and are very proud about their performance, and yet I question its purpose.
I remember in the mid 90s people overclocked their CPUs to extend their lifespan and more importantly to avoid having to buy a brand new CPU. Heat became an issue, however, and many dollars were spent on auxiliary cooling systems, negating a lot of the savings.
I am just curious…Why do you overclock your rig? Is it for gaming? Or is it just because you can?
will it overheat the mainboard if i overclock ? any risk ? please guide the cons thankyou =)
Posted by: neutral | April 07, 2009 at 02:32 AM
can i do sli in different brand of vga card but desame gpu? example. Palit geforce 9800gt 1gb and Inno3d geforce 9800gt 1gb. what powersupply is recommend for that setup? 600w sli ready psu or 750w? thanks, i need help.
Posted by: anthony | January 05, 2009 at 01:27 AM
Overclocking pretty much equates to free performance. One can buy a $300 cpu and have it perfome like $1000 cpu. My htpc had a bit of hitching when playing a 1080p movie file, a small oc made the hitching go away.
I had to downclock my oc'd cpu cause of new ram (2.5 to 2.1Ghz Opty 165) and COD4 now has occaisional hitching when there's a lot of things going on in the map on a server with lots of people.
Posted by: [TMC]Kuyaglen | May 25, 2008 at 05:24 PM
Overclocking is mostly for gaming and 3d rendering...youl never need it for anything other then that (mostly)
i personally dont want to spend money, so id rather jury-rig an extra 2 fans and overclock my GPU and CPU and save the money
as soon as those overclocked system specs become obsolete then ill upgrade...and by that point my heatsinks will probably be ready for it
Posted by: Peace35 | May 25, 2008 at 12:54 PM
Over clocking is the same as suping up your neon just less gay
Posted by: braford shapiro | May 23, 2008 at 04:18 PM
Answer is simple you overclock because it's a way of shoving you 2.88ghz cpu in the face of the company who yhou just aid £70 for the 2.2ghz version as a sort of haha i just saved myself from giving u another £50 :D thats my perspective
Posted by: Devlin1991 | April 17, 2008 at 06:52 PM
I want to overclock my Q6600 G0, But I am still learning how. I never quit. My GPU's are factory overclocked. WHY? Cause my game play is seamless, No hickups.
Posted by: Mr_Scary | April 06, 2008 at 12:39 AM
A GT2, Antec PSall on a 980i? Wow I didn't know Nvidia released such new hardware!
Posted by: [TMC]Kuyaglen | April 04, 2008 at 02:40 PM
I have everyone beat!!! Quad SLI 9800 gt2, Q9450 2.66 OCd to 3.44
6Gb ddr2 800 mhz 1000 watt antec PSall on new EVGA 980i chipset board, just built no test yet
Posted by: Sam M | April 03, 2008 at 02:59 PM
who wouldn't overclock when you can get something more of what you have now..
Posted by: Pyuro! | April 03, 2008 at 03:02 AM
Take a koolance 1000W+ liquid cooling case, crank up triple-SLI and QX9775 with it and Phys-X all over-clocked, then look at Crysis ripping at 2560x1600 with over 70 fps with all graphics maxed out on a 30" monitor. Once that happens, it'll be worth every penny.
Posted by: Raven105X | March 17, 2008 at 10:30 PM
I overclock to get every last bit of stable power out of my system.. if an OC is any bit unstable, I clock down to a safe range, but I am not satisfied with running stock clocks on a video card or cpu.. I love to tweak and tune until I find the sweet spot.. also, with these new 65nm and 45nm cpus, the heat issues is not as big of a problem as it used to be.. heat will always be an issye, but the smaller the fab and the better the OCing headroom seems to be.. I am guessing due to lower thermal output.. granted adequate power and effecient cooling is present.
Posted by: rev | February 29, 2008 at 09:55 PM
i just bought an hp 6300 with the nvidia 7100, tried overclocking but my system froze. my windows graphics rating is 2.6 help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: tiddybaby | February 29, 2008 at 09:24 PM
just built 2 sli game system
xfx 680i lt sli, 2 evga 8800gt 512
and a core2 quad 6600 that clocks 3ghz allday. 61,500 in 3d marks 03
sec system same but 2 7900gs
e6300@3.0ghz yes a 1200mhz o/c
on this board icredible. 18,000 at 1.8
and at 3ghz 19540 with the 7900gs
Posted by: bob | February 25, 2008 at 10:55 PM
Why would a person want to buy a $320.00 cpu and change it to a speed of a $1,400.00 cpu?
There are some very demanding games out there.
A hobby initself.
Every time a person overclocks,they won,t know how high they can go because no 2 systems will come out the same.
You must be a very boring person to ask such a dumb question.
Posted by: Rob | February 16, 2008 at 08:28 PM
why not overclock? i mean, i got an extra 1.23 ghz out of my QX9650. u cant even buy a CPU with 4.23 ghz factory standard (yet). but u reallly need good cooling, a simple OEM fan will just melt lol
Posted by: Astroboy | January 25, 2008 at 06:14 PM
It's nice to see 3.46GHz in place where usually was 2.66GHz :)
I don't use it but... it just looks nice.
For normal use - 2ghz CPS does the job
for Photoshop - 4GB memorgy does
for playing - 8800GTX....
so in that case CPU speeds is just for fun (the same as 4 cores inside) :)
Posted by: Malcolm Feth | January 24, 2008 at 08:54 AM
People overclock because they CAN. My company is a systems builder, and I can tell you that we're overclocking machines on both the high-end (because EXTREME series Intel processors were MADE to overclock, ie they are unlocked for that purpose) and the low-end (even though you can now get an e8400 3.0GHZ for under $200, you can overclock and get the performance of a chip that WOULD be way more expensive). This is what the enthusiast market is about!
On the other hand, you're right that some people don't need to do it. On my gaming rig at home, I don't, because I do other things with that machine besides gaming and I don't consider myself an expert in maintaining an overclock (we have people we pay to do that :) ).
Posted by: edborden.blogspot.com | January 24, 2008 at 05:35 AM
Nah i dont need to overclock..just get a job..save your money and buy the best GPUS that your wallet could muster..and oh thats 2x evga e-GeForce 8800 Ultra Superclocked. Thank ya..Tigerdirect.com!!
Posted by: SemtexKhameLBomb | January 22, 2008 at 07:59 PM
i have 2 GB Ram,1 GB graphic card,Nvidia GeFORCE 8500 GT Professional,Super Multi Drive with LightScribe Technology and 420 GB 3G hard drive and intel core 2 duo processor E4400
Posted by: michael | January 22, 2008 at 04:54 PM
I overclock to get performance when i do 3d modeling. You get quicker renders.
Posted by: Doug | January 22, 2008 at 04:32 PM
i overclock my GPU/core mem because i cant affort a new vga, and upgrading it few months later!
i have 128MB 6200TC that runs NFS prostreet all settings to high at 1024*768
i am no overclocking master, i added 2 fans to the heatsink and used ATItools for the overclocking
now i saw crysis and so want it to work on my pc!
i am downloading the demo after io saw videos of people playing it on the same vga that i have with older hardware
i have 64bit intel cpu 3.0/1m cash/800bus
1G DDR2 4200
will it work?
excuse my english :)
Posted by: Hossam | January 21, 2008 at 05:49 PM
Who doesn't like buying a cheaper cpu and have it perform just the same as an even more expensive cpu.
Posted by: [TMC]Kuyaglen | January 20, 2008 at 04:11 AM
stupid question!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: tuan | January 18, 2008 at 09:09 PM
The primary reason I overclock - bragging rights and the experience. Because ovevclocking takes time and diligence, I feel it is a skill that not many can master.
The secondary reason - to expand the lifespan of my hardware. Being a college student, I can't just go out and buy the next best thing to keep up with times. So for me, when I upgrade I upgrade to what I feel can be overclocked to last.
Posted by: Jixxor | January 17, 2008 at 08:11 AM