simple analogy to explain overclocking?

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[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 27, 2003
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I need an analogy to describe overclocking to a non technical audience. I was thinking about a regulater on a golf cart, but even that is semi-technical. i need a simple analogy for smart, but simple minded people(its for an assignment) let me know what you guys can think of! thanks!
 
*points to overclocked computer*

ddn7lc.jpg


These go to eleven.
 
Turtles usually move slow, but it you put 1.45 volts to them, they move faster.
 
Overclocking: when u make stuff go faster by making more electrons pass through them :D
 
Computers, like clocks, are set to tick a certain amount of times a second. Now, for a computer though, there's many MANY more ticks per second. A single gigahertz is about a billion ticks a second.

Overclocking is like increasing the amount of ticks the clock (or computer) makes every second. Since the clock is now moving faster, it can do more than it ever could before in the same timeframe.
 
Overclocking is like tuning a car. It comes with a stock HP, but if you start increasing its compression ratio it will deliver more HP (raise FSB). There will be some point that the fuel will start to counter-explode (stop POSTing), thats where you need to use a higher octane fuel (raise vcore).


Translating this sort of ideas from spanish is not too easy, but you get the point :p
 
overclocking in the cpu world is kinda like a certain general motors in the real world.

Back when they made the camaro, both the corvette and the camaro shared the same engine. One was rated at 350 hp and the other was 305hp. How could this be since they had the same engine? Well it turns out both cars were capable of the same horsepower, but the camaro had things against it like needing to be a bit lighter in weight or adding mods to make the car have more hp to match up to the speed of the vette.

It's the same thing with intel cpu, all of them start off similar dies, but some get branded as higher end cpu and others as lower end. In the case of the cpu, it just needs a bit more voltage to be able to run at the same speed. The benefit of the high end cpu is with that same bump in voltage it potentially can run even faster. Unfortunately there comes a point a sort of ceiling where you can't get faster. Due to heat and voltage requirements, it looks like 4.0ghz is still a bit out of reach on intel's stock cooling concept. You'd be lucky if penryn can touch 3.8ghz on stock cooling... but 3.6 seems more realistic after playing with some quad cores now.
 
I don't know whether your target audience is into cars or not, but I've always used the analogy that overclocking is like tweaking your engine to get an extra 10 horsepower; you get something out of it (more power in both cases) and it's a fun thing to do!
 
thanks for the suggestions guys, i went with one from another forum; running. as you increas speed, you put more stress on the components, but with training(better components, breaking in, proper maintainence, better cooling) you can go faster and faster. there was more to it then that, but that's the gist! the audience was completely non-technical, so a car analogy, while good, wouldnt be appropriate!
 
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