Anindor

Distinguished
Apr 21, 2009
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18,510
Hi.

I'm a former computer power-user who went to college and lost track of the tech world. I last built a machine in '04 (and boy were we excited about 8mb cache on our HD's...lawl) and have been desperately trying to catch up with where things are now. I've been searching this thread and have definitely gotten some great ideas for parts and builds (looking in the 900ish range). My question is what is the current state of overclocking? What is the risk\reward ratio for my various parts? And, lastly, HOW DO I DO IT on the current generation of hardware without screwing things up?

Thanks,

recovering newb
 

MaDMagik

Distinguished
Oct 12, 2008
864
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19,010
Theres a great overclocking guide in Overclocking/CPU section of the forum, have a look. Things havent changed that much, but Id say theres way more potential now than before. For example my cheap as peanuts E5200 dual core that runs at 2.5ghz at stock, goes up to 3.6 without any hassle, and maxes at around 3.98ghz, not to shabby i guess ;] Also things like thermal throttling, crash free/dual bioses and all kinds of stuff also make it much safer than before.