Is it even worth overclocking

[Hass22]

All I wish to know if overclocking your computer components mobo, gpu, cpu etc will not have as long as a life compared to not overclocking any.

 

[TrippleNickles]

Its quite obvious the components of your computer that are overclocked will run down the life of it. If you overclock the CPU it will over heat and eventually die down I've been through roughly 3 computers because of over working it so I personally don't think it is worth it might as well get an upgrade. But if you don't overclock it your computer most certainly last longer. Also think of it this way If you make your self work harder than it already can you run the risk of hurting your self just like you run the risk of damaging your computer. If you need your CPU to run faster get speed gear its a use full tweak that has worked for me.

 

[jlan86]

Its quite obvious the components of your computer that are overclocked will run down the life of it. If you overclock the CPU it will over heat and eventually die down I've been through roughly 3 computers because of over working it so I personally don't think it is worth it might as well get an upgrade. But if you don't overclock it your computer most certainly last longer. Also think of it this way If you make your self work harder than it already can you run the risk of hurting your self just like you run the risk of damaging your computer. If you need your CPU to run faster get speed gear its a use full tweak that has worked for me.

I'm going to have to disagree. I ran an Athlon II X2 250 @ a 25% overclock (3.75GHz) on the stock fan with stock paste for 3 years and it rarely went above 45C, never had any bluescreens, and still works flawlessly to this day. Aside from mechanical drives and fans, computer parts don't really "wear out." Either you damage them or you don't. This is just the last computer I've overclocked. I've had similar luck with 4 or 5 overclocking builds as well. Never lost a patient. I overclock for my friends all the time and tell them that if I damage their parts, I'll buy them new ones. That's how confident I am in my overclocking abilities, and my friends have never had any problems with overclocked computers. If I can get away with all this on stock cooling, there's no reason someone with good hardware can't overclock risk free.

Even if I'm wrong and extreme overclocking without adequate cooling will decrease the life of a PC, how long are we talking? If a PC that would have lasted 10 years only last 5 years because of overclocking, were you really planning on keeping that PC for more than 5 years anyway? Conformation bias can also come into play here. Someone overclocks their PC and when it dies they say "Well, I guess the overclocking finally cracked it," when they have no way of knowing if the PC would have died anyway. Most of the computers I work on that stop working, it's because of a blown capacitor in the power supply, and even this is the result of extra stress from overclocking, the power supply is one of the easiest and cheapest things to replace. I've never seen a CPU burn out. CPUs burning out may have been an issue years ago when the die size was so much larger and CPUs produced more heat and cooling tech wasn't as good, but these days you seem to reach the point of instability long before you actually start to risk burning up parts. You have to do some serious overvoltaging to burn up parts these days.

In fact, what used to be just for crazy enthusiasts is even becoming more mainstream in the professional world. Big companies are actually overclocking now. If a professional overclocker can get an extra 10-15% out of existing hardware perfectly stable, a company might overclock their hardware 5-10% just to be extra safe, and that 5% might be all they need to postpone upgrading their hardware for another year or so.

Personally, I overclock because it seems silly not to get the most I can out of my hardware, especially if I know what I'm doing and there's little risk. The biggest drawback to overclocking is all the time and effort that goes into tweaking everything back and forth and testing stability every step of the way. If I were to tell someone that overclocking is not worth it, it would be because it's not were the days and long nights that you might spend trying to tune up a build, not because it's risky or might decrease the life of your computer. It's a labor of love, though. As frustrated as I get with builds that refuse to give me more juice, I do it because I'm passionate about it. It's like telling a car enthusiast that they're never going to get back the money that they've put into their cars. They don't care.