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To Overclock, or Not To Overclock


GolfProRM

  

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Here's a topic that nobody's hit on yet.... Thought I'd see how people go about things around here when it comes to overclocking their PC's...I've tweaked mine a bit, but just the CPU and even then, not by much.

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Hehehe....I have melted down more than one cpu in my day. CPUs, memory and graphics cards are so fast and so far ahead of the vast majority of applications now-a-days that I do not even bother. If you have a newer system there really is no practical reason to do so. But then again, being practical takes away a lot of fun and learning. A message to anyone who has never overclocked. Please, please, make sure you educate yourself thoroughly before trying to overclock. In a matter of seconds you can completely destroy a perfectly functioning CPU. And that is if you know what you are doing. I have brought many to a smoldering, electrical smelling death......and yes I say that with PRIDE!!!! :lol: Here is a nice site for some overclocking reading. http://overclockers.com/home.asp

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Well I overclocked my Athlon once just out of curiosity.I did not feel any urge after that to overclock anything else.I reverted back and been happy with original clock speed ever since :)I can't see really point in overclocking other then pure fiddling around and curiosity.You might do more damage then good :lol: Anyway, that's me :)-edit-By the way Stryder, I like your new avatar ;)

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Guest Paracelsus

Haven't tried yet on the 1.1GHz Celeron that came with the Dell I bought in Jan. '02. (I was under the impression that Intel had eliminated the ability to do so when PentiumIII debuted.) This PC replaced "El Dinosauro", my beloved ancient P-B, when Dino developed "Brain Cancer" (Bad Sectors).I did "Clock the Box" on that one. Took it steps from the original 100MHz to 120...and then to 133 (max for the MB). It did start to overheat a bit at 133... But I installed a high efficiency fan, and all was well, for more than 3 years... 'til the cancer set in.So, QUESTION..."Is it still possible to OC a Pentium or Celeron??"

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I started overclocking my Pentium 166MMX back in the day when CPU/PCI dividers never kept the PCI bus at 33 MHz. But my SCSI and sound cards didn't like running at 37.5 MHz.I've oveclocked a Pentium II 333 to 450. This was one of the Pentium II before Intel locked the CPU multiplier. It was never particularly stable. Next, I took my Pentium III 700 to 933. This was my first prolonged overclock. Had it like this for 9 months until I killed my motherboard doing an upgrade. How? Pulling out a PCI card when the power was still on and shorting out the motherboard. Luckily that was the only thing that died. The 700 is still ticking away in my daughter's computer not overclocked. My next overclock last year wasn't as fulfilling. I took a Celeron 1.0A and had it running at 1.34GHz, but only when the weather was cool. In the summer, the heat made it very unstable. Needless to say, I built a new system in December and am a proud overclocker of a Pentium 4 1.6A running at 2.1GHz. I overclock because I can and I enjoy knowing that I can gain MHz for free. I don't keep processors long enough to see them fail.

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Guest ThunderRiver

I don't have much incentives to overclock. As long as I can get work done without feeling too much "wait time..you know wait for photoshop to load and etc" I am cool with the way it is. For AMD diehard, of course,they want to overclock to prove that AMD is better than Intel, but the point is I don't care heh.

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I got a mild overclock going. Got my TI 4200 running at 275/575. Got my system bus (external clock) speed at 143. Completely stable with no heat issues. System feels peppier, slighly better framerates in some games, and photo manipulation is faster. Basically it's like having a TI 4500 (if there was such a thing), and my AMD 1800 now shows as a 2000. More bang for my buck...why not?

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I just want to add that if you do your research, you may discover that the CPU you bought from Intel can be overclocked from the speed its sold to you at. It is well known within the overclocking community that Intel speed bins its processors. That is, if a processor can't run within a certain spec, it's tossed into the lower speed bin. Or, put another way, if a certain processor exceeds certain tolerances at say 133MHz it is packaged as a 100MHz part. Also, Intel will sometimes sell processors that work fine at a higher speed at a lower speed to meet market demand for a certain speed. That's why I chose a Pentium III 700 when I did, hoping to get one from the batch that was qualified to run at 933MHz but sold as a 700MHz part.The other clue that you may luck out is when Intel switches its manufacturing process from a larger to a smaller die or when it updates a processor stepping. Overclockers tend to keep an eye on Intel's web site for updates to processor stepping codes. Little changes like that indicate they have reached the point where they can manufacture high quality yields such that the difference in speed is based on front side bus speed rather than the clock multiplier. The Pentium III 700 and 933 are for all intents the same processor because they not only both multiply the bus speed by a factor of 7, but they could actually could have been manufactured on the same die! The variable is the bus speed. Because you can change the bus speed, you can get a higher processor speed by changing from 100 to 133 MHz on the front side bus.

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I do overclocking but I never leave it run overclocked for long period of time, usually switch back to original. Like said earlier, what is the point of running overclocked with these faster machines, beside just doing it and seeing how fast ya can go.

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Absorbine_Sr

I built my first "home brew" computer around 3 years ago and swore I wouldn't overclock. But reading info in several AMD forums got me to try it. Like a drug addiction it was that "first little taste"... I have been OC'ing ever since then. I have OC'd both Athlon and Pentium 4 processors, my current being a 2.66 P4 running at 3.2 Ghz. I ran a 1.6a Northwood P4 for about 9 months at 2.6 - 2.8 Ghz. It had to be "pin tricked" (wrapping wire around several of the cpu pins to provide a higher vcore voltage) to get to those higher levels. I have experimented with water cooling, even using a desktop water cooler to provide chilled water to the processor. Why? No reason really other than I like to tinker, and find it very satisfying to hit the sweetspot of any given system. I have a wonderful wife who allows me to purchase new toys quite frequently (she jokes that I am in the motherboard every 6 months club) and it keeps me off the streets. And it has helped me gain a much better understanding of computer assembling, cooling, parts interaction etc. So yes, I do overclock. :) A_Sr.

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what is the point of running overclocked with these faster machines
That's easy, to make them even faster. As software and and games become more demanding by the day, it's nice to be able to keep up for awhile without tossing your rig every 6 months. And not everyone can afford the very latest technology, yet with a few minor tweaks yesterday's hardware can come close.
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I can understand that if you have a slower machine yes, but if you have a higher end machine - it really isn't needed for todays applications :P

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The key to overclocking is to be sure you have adequate cooling and that your motherboard is able to tweak voltages in the bios. Usually overclocking will require increasing voltages to the core, as well as memory banks and even the agp slot in order to maintain a stable system. Adequate cooling means not having a stock heatsink and fan on your cpu. Something a little beefier. Also a high grade thermal compound applied between the cpu and heatsink. Artic Silver seems to be the choice nowadays. The system I built last fall is a p4-2.53 and I have it overclocked to 2.70. I don't overclock my video card which is a ti4600. I think video cards are somewhat easier to screw up if you try oc'ing them. My overclock can be considered rather conservative compared to some of the hard core OC'ers out there. But that's about as high as I can go without random crashes. I noticed I used to get a higher OC, but a while back I doubled my memory and filled all 4 banks and I was unable to get higher clocks. I suspected the additional voltage drain caused the problem. I used to think I'd never do something like overclock, but when I built my own pc, with the hardware I got, the opportunity was there, so I tried it. I wouldn't say I'm a fanatic about it, but I like tinkering with pc's. I find it interesting that cpu makers "officially" frown on this issue, but motherboard makers (besides pre-built) clearly design their boards and bios with overclocking in mind.

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