Over clocked last night, what's the big deal?

[Necronic]

Last night I started seriously considering buying a new PC due to low frame rates in PS2 and MWO. I was talking with friends on mumble and they suggested I overclock my PC. I've always thought about this but never done t because it seemed ominous. But after about 30s of explanation (I'm familiar with my BIOS), I turned off my PC and within a minute or so I had cranked up my FSB by like 25% (333 to 400) Game performance improved. No stability issues.

I just wanted to say that this is a remarkably easy thing to do. I know it's a very mild overclock do I didn have to mess with the voltage or my memory management, but still, that only increases the number of things I have to tweak from 1 to 3. I guess when you start scraping the upper limits of your voltage/heat things get trickier, but...honestly this was a breeze so far.

Is there something I am missing about this or is a mild overclock really this easy?

 

[strawman]

A mild overclock is really that easy. Just keep your processor temperature in check, and as long as you don't have stability issues (or they're infrequent enough that it doesn't bother you) then you're just fine.

The key to overclocking is that Intel doesn't actually produce, for instance, a. i7 2.3GHz and an i7 2.1GHz chip - they are the same chip. They are tested, and binned according to the speed they can run at, but even after that's done the vast majority of them work at the highest speed they were designed for. They are then packaged according to market demands, which usually require more of the middle speed than the higher or lower speeds.

So the processor you have can actually run at the highest speed - it just might be a bit more unstable, depending on atomic level flaws in the silicon.

They burn fuses on them after production so you can tell which speed the processor was sold for, but the motherboard and bios don't have to listen to that, so you can overclock them.

 

[Gilgamesh]

I'm considering doing an overclock on my system as well. It's a 2.93ghz out of the box setting and I know currently right now my bottleneck is my CPU.... I however am not very computer hardware savvy.

 

[Dave]

Overclocking is actually bad in the long run for a video card. But since you are thinking of ditching it anyway, might as well go whole hog until it takes a crap. Biggest thing as stieny mentioned is the heat buildup, which can kill it and right quick. Make sure you routinely check the heat sink for dust or the real killer - animal hair.

 

[PatrThom]

Gilgamesh , the i940 you link in your other thread is based on the Bloomfield design. What that means is that all of these CPUs are internally the same...except for the clock speed. Some were tested/rated for higher speeds, others for lower. It is also a pretty good indicator of the maximum possible speed you are likely to get from your CPU. Since the top end processor in that family is the i7-960*, you can pretty much expect that the best possible speed you are going to be able to squeeze out of your system is 3.20GHz, since that's the best speed that Intel determined they could reliably squeeze out of that design with your FSB.
To get that fast, you would have to enter your BIOS cell menu and change the 133 base clock to something higher. In order to match the 3.20GHz speed, you would need to increase it to 145. I don't recommend that to begin with, of course. Try increasing that number a little at a time and see what you come up with. I don't see any problem increasing it to 136-137 range, but of course if you start experiencing instability (or if you can't boot your system at all) you will need to dial it back (or reset your CMOS entirely if your system didn't boot). Your manual has more information on what to do (including instructions on how to reset the CMOS, if needed).

--Patrick
*Actually the i7-975 (3.33GHz) is the top model, but that chip tells the motherboard to run at a different (faster) QPI, so that's almost like cheating.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Gilgamesh , the i940 you link in your other thread is based on the Bloomfield design. What that means is that all of these CPUs are internally the same...except for the clock speed. Some were tested/rated for higher speeds, others for lower. It is also a pretty good indicator of the maximum possible speed you are likely to get from your CPU. Since the top end processor in that family is the i7-960*, you can pretty much expect that the best possible speed you are going to be able to squeeze out of your system is 3.20GHz, since that's the best speed that Intel determined they could reliably squeeze out of that design with your FSB.
To get that fast, you would have to enter your BIOS cell menu and change the 133 base clock to something higher. In order to match the 3.20GHz speed, you would need to increase it to 145. I don't recommend that to begin with, of course. Try increasing that number a little at a time and see what you come up with. I don't see any problem increasing it to 136-137 range, but of course if you start experiencing instability (or if you can't boot your system at all) you will need to dial it back (or reset your CMOS entirely if your system didn't boot). Your manual has more information on what to do (including instructions on how to reset the CMOS, if needed).

--Patrick
*Actually the i7-975 (3.33GHz) is the top model, but that chip tells the motherboard to run at a different (faster) QPI, so that's almost like cheating.

Would bumping up to that 3.2 really make a big enough difference to hold me over for the next few months? I'm seriously considering that because looking at upgrading that CPU/MB combo I wanted is going to be about $700....

Overclocking is actually bad in the long run for a video card. But since you are thinking of ditching it anyway, might as well go whole hog until it takes a crap. Biggest thing as stieny mentioned is the heat buildup, which can kill it and right quick. Make sure you routinely check the heat sink for dust or the real killer - animal hair.

No no, I want to keep my video card, as it's something I'm going to keep for a while....

 

[Dave]

No no, I want to keep my video card, as it's something I'm going to keep for a while....

That was directed at Necronic's wanting to replace his whole PC, not to your post. I suppose I could have, you know, QUOTED him or something so you knew....

 

[PatrThom]

Would bumping up to that 3.2 really make a big enough difference to hold me over for the next few months? I'm seriously considering that because looking at upgrading that CPU/MB combo I wanted is going to be about $700....

IF you are lucky enough to have a CPU capable of the max overclock (3.2 at 145 bus speed), then that would be about a flat 10% speed increase. Whether this translates directly to a 10% increase in FPS is something you would probably only find out by experimentation.

--Patrick

 

[Necronic]

That was directed at Necronic's wanting to replace his whole PC, not to your post. I suppose I could have, you know, QUOTED him or something so you knew....

I actually recently upgraded my GPU to a GTX 550. Not the most high end GPU, but a decent one compared to my E6850 processor and the 4 gigs of DDR2 Ram. Anyways, Planetside 2 is nice enough to identify the performance bottleneck, and it was telling me it was the CPU.

 

[Bowielee]

The funny thing about overclocking is that many of the budget cards out are just overclocked versions of the previous generation of cards.

 

[PatrThom]

The funny thing about overclocking is that many of the budget cards out are just overclocked versions of the previous generation of cards.

Actually true, though to be fair, many times the overclocking is made easier by the fact that the "new" cards are on a smaller design process, which means they can be run at higher speeds than the old ones without failing.
(8800GT/9800GT, for instance)

--Patrick

 

[Yoshimickster]

Whats the big deal? WHATS THE BIG DEAL?! Because then the card will end up melting because you made it improperly, even though your character previously has been shown being able to make a freaking robot, and you will have to loan your computer to Jade.

 

[The_Khan]

Whats the big deal? WHATS THE BIG DEAL?! Because then the card will end up melting because you made it improperly, even though your character previously has been shown being able to make a freaking robot, and you will have to loan your computer to Jade.

you know, I like the way ethan died, I'm glad that buckley is deciding to end his main thing, before moving onto different projects.