Do you guys run maxed 24/7?

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kaiweiler

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 19, 2007
Messages
314
Hey, I am wondering if it's worth running my system overclocked 24/7.
Honestly I don't really see that much difference between overclocked and stock speeds. I wonder if it would be worth running at stock speeds to increase the life and reliability of my hardware...
Also the decrease in fan noise would be nice.

My overclock is as follows:

OC.jpg


So opinions! are these increases of ~20-30% worth the wear and tear on the hardware?? I don't really see a huge difference except in synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark06....
 
up to you, matey. some guys just like the fact that they are getting something for nothing. some guys actually enjoy the challenge of getting every ounce out of it (me). my cases havent had side panels on them in years. as for yourself, you should be able to notice 20 to 30% bump in game framerates, or a corresponding increase in image quality. if you have no interest inmaxxing out your pc, and dont game very muc, dont overclock. i stopped overclocking my vid cards a while ago because 15 to 20% overclocks show only a few percent increase overall. and vid cards seem to not be able to handle oc as well as cpu/ram. they break a lot more often, and thats without voltage increases. and the stuff on my machine that i overclock will usually be replaced in a few months anyway, so the longevity factor doesnt enter in to it for me.
 
If your system is well cooled and you take the necessary precautions that your cpu or any other hardware that you OC is not overheating, then it shouldn't be a problem.

Idiots that run their chips at 60c+ 24/7 and wonder why it dies out after a year (give or take) should never be allowed to overclock.
 
The primary reason for shorter lifespans of overclocks is the increased heat generated and not dissapated correctly. Provided you have proper cooling you are probably ok, but if you don't notice a difference feel free to run at stock, unless of course you need the higher n3rd factor as well. :p
 
As far as my 2 cents go, a good use of your overclocked CPU would be folding proteins for stanford.

[H]ard|Forum just happens to have a team assembled (team #33) for this project. It should be no surprise that we have the highest output of any team in this world wide project.

In a nutshell, the project makes use of your processor's extra capacity when you are not using it, and performs some pretty complex calculations. When it is done, it sends a Work Unit back to the research lab, and they send you another one to do. It is all completely automated, and painless. The best part, is the research they are doing could some day lead to a cure for cancer, Alzheimer's, and others.

Hop over to the Distributed Computing section if you have any questions.

 
Yes, yes I do run my machine fully overclocked 24/7.


Go big or go home is how I look at it :)
 
I run 24/7 overclocked... I see about a 25% gain in gaming fps by doing such. Two GTX's can bottle neck a C2D is many games.

 
max 24/7 is determined by 1st stability 2nd temps 3rd noise
i run my e6600 3.8ghz 24/7 and my e6300 3.5ghz 24/7 both on water with good temps

If you are on air then noise might limit your OC ventures.

we all hate hair dryer sounding boxes
 
Yep.. I run maxed 24/7. And I am running on air.

Of course my full load temps are way lower than stock speed with the stock cooler.

System specs in sig.
 
I run whats in my sig 24/7. Im cheap so I love something for nothing, and Im also too lazy to have to reOC whenever I want to play a game or something.
 
It really is up to you, but I run oc'd 24/7, never gets shut down.

I figure if it reduces the life to even to 10 years, I will probably have moved on to newer and faster hardware before it dies :)
 
oc'd 24-7 here.. by the time your cpu take a crap 1 to 2 yrs, you already have an itchy finger for a new rig..
 
The real problem is that there isn't a reliable way to change the overclock on the fly - I'd love to run at stock or below stock when I wasn't doing anything interesting, and then kick it back up when I wanted to game or something, but having to reboot to change the BIOS settings is just too much of a pain in the ass. So I, like most everyone here, run overclocked all the time, even though it is "wasting" all that power.
 
Forceman said:
The real problem is that there isn't a reliable way to change the overclock on the fly - I'd love to run at stock or below stock when I wasn't doing anything interesting, and then kick it back up when I wanted to game or something, but having to reboot to change the BIOS settings is just too much of a pain in the ass. So I, like most everyone here, run overclocked all the time, even though it is "wasting" all that power.
Click to expand...

I run a modded SpeedStep profile. All the power, none of the waste. :)
 
I use Rightmark clock utility to set my CPU to the lowest speed when idling and the highest when gaming. Saves power and makes dynamic OCing painless!
 
i run maxed 24/7, my system is completely stable, and i have great cooling....


i idle as low as 20C with my max overclock, and it goes to mid 40's under load..... so why not... it's been running overclocked 24/7 for almost 2 years now, only going down for windows updates restarts/cleaning out the case when it gets dusty (and it does with as many high CFM fans as i have.....
 
It seems I am in the minority as I don't. Ocing to me is mainly a hobby. I enjoy tweeking to get the max OC I can. My parts and cooling are chosen to be able to run 24/7 without issue. However the reality of the situation is 95% of my computing time is simply surfing the net. So what I do is I have two BIOS profiles saved. One for max OC and the other stock speed but undervolted and tightened memory timings. I run the low power set-up most of the time to save on the power bill. On the mourning of a day when I am going to be doing heavy encoding I will boot up in the OCed profile and go to work.. The difference in boot-ip times for changing the BIOS profile, about a minute or so. More than worth it to keep the power bill down and more importantly the heat out of the room. Plus it is nice to have a pretty much dead silent system.
 
silent-circuit said:
I run a modded SpeedStep profile.
Click to expand...

How do you mean by modded? Just that it's turned on?

I've found that, unfortunately, if you specify a voltage (even though mine's currently at stock, 1.25V) it's not possible to get EIST/C1E to dynamically reduce the voltage. If I don't set the voltage, the BIOS overvolts ridiculously. I do have SpeedStep turned on though - reducing the multiplier is better than nothing, though I wish it would go down lower and dynamically ramp like laptops, rather than just flipping between 6x and 9x.

I'll probably go higher to find out what my chip can do when I get some time, but at the moment I'm happy running my Q6600 at 3.0GHz/1.25V, since it runs sufficiently cool not to require fans on high. I value a quiet system more than one that ekes out every last inch of performance.
 
dekruyter said:
Yes, but the trouble w/ that is the voltage still remains high, yes?
Click to expand...

True. The desktop CPUs don't seem to handle voltage change requests properly -- the Pentium M in my laptop will let you assign a different voltage to every step/multiplier.

It's better than nothing.
 
It all depends on what you do with your machine and whether you feel like leaving the overclock there.

I overclock my CPUs to the highest stable speed I can get out of them and leave them there. I have the systems on 24/7/365 and they are always under full load. Since I run F@H, every CPU cycle helps. The 50% overclock on my Q6600 makes a world of difference for what I do. I've been overclocking CPUs for years and leaving them in an overclocked state 24/7/365 at full load hasn't noticeably reduced their lifespan. I have an XP1700+ Palamino core still running like this. as long as the CPUs are cooled properly, you won't be able to notice a difference in their lifespan. Most people don't use a CPU for 10 years and a properly cooled overclocked CPU will last longer than that.

My video card is a different story. I stopped noticing performance increases with overclocking for the most part a long while back. I generally buy factory overclocked cards and leave them at those settings. I usually try to overclock them a bit more to see if there is a difference but in most cases there isn't so I just put the speeds back to stock and use them like that.

 
I've run 3 different PC's 24/7 @ max stable OC + max load for the past 2 years with good results.
 
I'm always overclocked but as far as the benefit, I guess I'd had to run at stock for a while to know ;)
 
Not much of an OC,

I went from 1.8GHz to almost 3.3GHz and believe me I can tell the difference. But no I do not run at 100% 24/7 I backed off the max stable OC by about 5 MHz FSB and run the specs in my sig 18/7 for last 16 months.
 
well of course i dont run my max bench clockspeed 24/7 but I do run with this max at 1.35V of 4.1GHz 24/7(well while the pc is on, have a crappy dl box on 24/7 with E4300) though of course most of that time is spent typing on internet forums such as this.
 
I bench at the ragged edge of what the rig will do but my rig crunches for the WCG in between bench sessions so I back down the oc to what my 24/7 cooling can handle...3.8ghz on the CPU and near stock on the cards. I have my volt mods set up so I remove a 2 pin jumper when not benching and it returns the cards to stock volts. If I game on this rig then I'll goose the cards a bit to get decent fps.
 
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