OCing Core 2 overkill?

Just a personal opinion, but these CPUs are already the fastest out there. Unless you really need the extra power or want to risk you warranty.
I've only ever overclocked my CPU's after the warranty has ran out and then more of a tweak.
In the long term it's personl choice, but if you choice to overclock and something goes wrong, it's like burning money.
8O 8O

For normal usage you are quite correct. Unless you are doing a large amount of encoding or 3D rendering you won't need the extra power. Of course 6 months from now there may be a game which challenges your CPU and then consider overclocking. Most games though challenge the graphics not the CPU.

Many people overclock for the same reason that they climb Mount Everest, because they like a challenge.

Also bear in mind that the pro-overclockers who post are not typical users and are amongst the most fanatical enthusiasts.

My friend ... here's the short answer/s. Two of them.

1) Bragging rights. Most of the time , after overclocking, people tend to don their favourite running shoes and run around the neighbourhood telling everyone about it. (I know approximately a million people who do. )

2) Deep Satisfaction. Yup , there's nothing like the feeling of being able to utilise "anything at all" to it's "MAXIMUM" potential.
I for one feel a strange sort of contentment that cannot be easily explained by using everyday events/things for comparison.

Bottomline is .. its more "effort" than "results". The result may be meager in actual real-life performace increase .... but when you have at the back of your mind a thought that you have just acquired an averagely priced product that rivals the "giants" (ie the best of the pack and the most expensive) ... most people tend to feel a little "EXCITED".
Some people may think this is utterly ridiculous (ie overclocking for the sake of overclocking) , but you can't deny the fact that many many people feel this way.

OK .... that was NOT very short at all , was it ?

Overclocking is a crazy thing to do, I don't know why people bother.

I imagine he would have swapped it out for a better one. Not really the same as overclocking, tbh.

Its all up to you. Can people ever take their cars down the quater mile faster enough?

Minimum framerate. A high max is nice, but it's nice not to worry about having your video card skip 10 frames just as the action gets heavy.
The X6800 was designed specifically with OC'ing in mind, so it's not really overkill. You'll always have something that will benefit from the extra juice. Check out the oblivion and encoding benchmarks.

are u saying a 700mhz overclock cut ur encoding time by 2/3. *sniff* *sniff* it smells funky to me.