Why should I overclock? Convince me.

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
D

Damarius

Distinguished
Oct 10, 2011
9
0
18,510
Seems like everything is against you when you decide to overclock. The life of your piece of hardware decreases, your warranty is voided, heating increases in your case (which if you arent able to accommodate for can ruin your hardware and other hardware in your rig). Seems like the only benefit you get is increased speeds on an item that in most cases was probably already faster than you needed from stock.

So. Why?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
B

beenthere

Distinguished
Jun 23, 2011
1,849
1
20,160
Overclocking is a hobby not a destination. It's an attempt to get more than what you paid for. If you enjoy tinkering with your PC hardware it's fine. If not just plug it all together and it will run just fine at the default speeds - which is plenty fast enough for 98% of the world.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Energy96

Energy96

Distinguished
Aug 20, 2011
276
0
18,810
Because you can.

I don't consider the standard overclock of a 2500k or 2600k to be small to be honest. You can see boosts of over 30% extremely easily even at stock voltage and with a mediocre air cooler. At stock voltage and with a decent cooler temps only rise about 10-15C which is still far below what is even considered remotely hot. OC's like that will have minimal if any impact on a processors life and any impact will be irrelevant as you will replace it for a newer model long before that.

I will agree though that OC'ing without proper hardware is foolish.

It isn't for everyone but lots of people also find it fun, as well as rewarding.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
izoli

izoli

Distinguished
Apr 29, 2011
597
0
19,210
For that extra 5-15fps, because it is fun to see how far we can push them(and how far we can keep the overclocks at safe temps), because we like to get the most power out of our hardware such as buying a 560ti and overclocking it to get same speeds as a 580...

As said before overclocking your cpu as long as your temps are fine and you don't tinker with voltages much you will see no-minimal life-span decrease. As for GPU it is sort of the same, as long as temps aren't bad and you don't increase voltages much the life-span will last quite long. But with the GPU you may need to increase fan speed to keep it cooler which may lower life of the fan...


Sometimes people just overclock those memory timings to get that Windows Experience score from 7.8 to 7.9... Seeing that number go up 0.1 is very fulfilling, sometimes even more fulfilling than seeing that 1 FPS increase. =)

@beenthere... You really seem to like that 98% number ;) hehe
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Cygnus x-1

Cygnus x-1

Distinguished
Jul 28, 2011
901
0
19,060
First, mild to moderate overclocks can usually be achieved with stock voltage. So there isn't a big difference in heat output, just a small amount from the added frequency. Second, since your keeping voltage and heat under control, there is little reason to worry about killing any parts due to heat or excessive voltage.

Thirdly, think of it like a car...A Ford escort can make the speed limit and beyond. A Corvette can make it there faster even though you didn't technically need the rapid acceleration.

I have been overclocking pretty much everything in my PC's for over 6 years and never killed anything so far, you just need to know what your doing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
jsc

jsc

Champion
Jul 14, 2004
16,893
6
52,960
"Why should I overclock? Convince me."

I'm not going to. If you need to be convinced, you shouldn't.

I have been overclocking for more than 30 years (Cygnus, you noob :)). We just didn't call it that back then. I also have never had a system fail. I usually end up discarding them long after they have become obsolete.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
4745454b

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
Apr 29, 2006
29,241
437
93,590
I think the first reply said it best. Convince me I should ride a motorcycle instead of a car. It's a thinking/way of life. It's not for everyone. BTW, OCing doesn't mean your stuff is going to fry. If done correctly it might shave a few years off a chip, but you would have retired it because it couldn't keep up anymore long before this happens.

I've owned two very OCable CPUs. My last computer was an E6600 on an X38 board. Many people OCed it from its default 2.4GHz up to 3.2+. (making it similar to the E8400.) My current computer is an I5 750 on a P55 board. I always ran both of these systems stock. Both are fast enough for me, and I've never needed more speed. If you're like me just stay on stock settings. But I don't turn my nose up at people who are trying to do more. Its up to them.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
pckitty4427

pckitty4427

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2011
409
0
18,810
I'll try and convince you to overclock your CPU, but I'm not sure if I'll succeed.

Imagine this:

You recently bought a new game, and you made sure you met the system requirements, however; you notice that when you max out your settings, you get a bit of lag. You open the task manager and notice your CPU is working at 100%, and you notice your framerate is about 18 FPS. You wish you could have just slightly better CPU power so you could keep your settings maxed, but not have to suffer that lag.

You then overclock your CPU, and notice you are now getting 25 FPS - a framerate high enough to have no noticeable lag.

You are happy and have a doughnut. :D
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Cygnus x-1

Cygnus x-1

Distinguished
Jul 28, 2011
901
0
19,060


+1

Man you must have been hardware overclocking right? Jumper and mother board modding correct?

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
jsc

jsc

Champion
Jul 14, 2004
16,893
6
52,960
Cygnus, we didn't have jumpers back then. "Hardware modding" is accurate. Had to piggy back chips - spread all the legs except power and ground, then tack solder those to the chip underneath for the power and ground connection, then run jumpers and cut PCB traces. Fun days. :)

And I do not want hear people whining about memory prices. In those days, a set of eight 16 Kbit RAM chips cost $150. :eek: Not so fun. :(
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
assasin32

assasin32

Distinguished
Apr 23, 2008
1,356
22
19,515
Easy I overclocked my system because I could achieve a 50% boost in speed from my CPU. If I remember correctly I even did this while reducing the voltage from what the automatic setting was too at stock speed, if not I increased it barely.

The only real cost to me was a $15 heatsink I bought for the CPU to help me achieve this on a budget CPU, which made it very usable. Not exactly a hard decision on my part.

Though if you wanted to argue this, you could argue that the time I spend researching how to OC could have easily netted me a better CPU from the get go if I had invested that time in a job but thats another story. And not too much of an arguement these days if you are willing to use those annoying bad AUTO OC motherboards. One push of a button or run this software and select OC, and your set. Can't get much easier than that.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom