Thread: overlocking pc's?

Has anybody overlocked their pc and if so could you tell the difference, performance wise?

Is it worth putting the pc under more strain to get a bit more speed?

i currently have my computer OC'ed i see a difference mainly when playing games but not much as i am running a 955 quad core and still cant max it out keep within voltages and you will be ok.

Overclocking really isnt that difficult there is a million tutorials floating around. and with the new dual cores and quad cores they do it perfectly. Depending on what you are doing you can see a nice boost in power.

Does it matter what kind of cooling system have ? Do you have to have a certain number of fans?

well it is always helpful to have more fans but it all depends on what kinda heat your processor or whatever you are trying to OC is putting out i would say to be safe have at least two case fans and for CPU OC upgrade you CPU cooling solution check out around the web you can find them for about 20-30USD also cable management is important too because if the fans cant push the air through all the wires then they are pointless.

You can use this program to monitor your heat
Core Temp

I cant speak for the stock cooler as when i built my pc i went with the asus silent knight 2 witch works wonderfully.

The program realtemp is a better utility than coretemp.

Real Temp - CPU temperature monitoring

Also, if you're going to overclock, definitely use an aftermarket cooler. Particularly for intel, their stock coolers are pretty much just the worst.

Also, you can definitely see a difference. For me, since TF2 is a highly CPU dependent game, i see a massive fps increase (on the scale of 15-25) when i overclock my Q9450 from 2.66ghz to like 3.8ghz

Is it worth putting the pc under more strain to get a bit more speed?

The strain isn't an issue unless you go over the voltage specs for the CPU. I believe for the Core 2 Quads it was 1.375V, but i don't know for for the i7/i5/i3 CPUs. You won't have to worry CPU degradation unless you go over that number. If you plan to overclock, i'd check out what the spec is for your CPU.

I think the biggest concern for overclocking is heat dispersal. You're going to want a good CPU heatsink/fan, I've always had good luck with Zalman's. I also recommend throwing away the crap fan that came on your expensive video card and putting on a good aftermarket one.

Then take a good look at your case. It has to have room to route wiring our of the way, it has to have good airflow patterns, and enough fan openings are a must. If you have a cheap case that has only one inlet and one outlet fan and no room to put in more, throw it away and get a better case. And don't overclock if your case is noise insulated (like some of the Antec cases) cause that insulation holds in heat like a biotch.

While we're talking about case fans, throw away the crappy stock fans. Invest in some good ones like Noctua. Get the biggest ones that you can put into the holes. If you're real ambitious and handy with a Dremel you can enlarge the case holes so they'll hold bigger fans, or even make new holes to put in more fans. If you try to get by using cheap 80mm fans you're going to find yourself sitting beside a computer that's so noisy you can't stand it.

And study the airflow patterns. Just adding more fans doesn't do a lot of good if all they do is recirculate heated air. You want the airflow pattern to move from front to back and it needs to direct the heat away from the video card and cpu into the air flowing out the exhausts.

Or you could just invest in water cooling and forget all of the above. :)

Has anybody overlocked their pc and if so could you tell the difference, performance wise?

Is it worth putting the pc under more strain to get a bit more speed?

I have all my desktops overclocked, I see huge gains, however I also do a lot of synthetic benchmark tests.

I would need to know your specks to get an idea of what kind of performance gains you could expect.

If your PC is oem ie) HP, Gateway,Acer,Asus or any other premade Best Buy type pc, then overclocking is out of the question. Same with laptops but that goes without saying.

Motherboard-Model
CPU- Model
Memory- Model
Cooling, HSF and or Some type of liquid cooling (As flutrose said the biggest factor is heat, you will need after market cooling)