Explain overclocking and whether it's necessary for me, please!

G

Gavinburt

n00b
Joined
Dec 21, 2006
Messages
15
Hey guys. This is my first post (well, second, seeing as I posted this in the wrong forum) and I have a question: what is overclocking and would it provide any advantages to a person like me?

I'm building a new system, with an Intel DG965WH (which I've heard is difficult to overclock anyway), an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400, and Kingston 2GB DDR2 SDRAM 667

Besides surfing the web, sending e-mail, etc., I do some music recording and I also like to play a few games. I'm doing this all on a Dell with 512MB of RAM and an Intel Pentium 4 2.13 GHz CPU.

So, should I really worry about overclocking? I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I play Call of Duty every now and then. Besides that, will I truly need this extra power that many strive for?
 
Overclocking is the process of running a component at a faster speed than its rated.
As a short answer to weather you should or should not overclock is most likely no, especially if you’re getting a new system.
People here do it as a hobby and the extra power is just for show sometimes, but where it really helps is with aging systems.
By overclocking said aging system you could get a little more power to play a new game that before had a hard time running on your computer. The increase is minor because overclocking requires some quality components but people have become very good at it.
 
"overclocking" is increasing the speed of your components(cpu,ram,video card) if you want to do it find a guide there are plenty of good ones out there just type in overclocking guide in google or there are probably some stickies somehere on this forum.
 
overclocking is fun because you squeeze every last drop of performance out of your hardware.

it can also be dangerous... you have to know your limits.

also remember this quote "A candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long".

i'm not saying all OCs shorten the life of the hardware, but only the rated speed can be guaranteed to last...
 
keldegar said:
overclocking is fun because you squeeze every last drop of performance out of your hardware.

it can also be dangerous... you have to know your limits.

also remember this quote "A candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long".

i'm not saying all OCs shorten the life of the hardware, but only the rated speed can be guaranteed to last...
Click to expand...

Thats a nice quote right there
sure it isnt always true but its nice.
 
You won't really benefit from overclocking with what you do.

Unless you're composing songs, previewing stacks of realtime effects (10+) you won't need any more power than your current processer provides.

I do ALOT of Digital music, regularly running 10-15 filters at once, so OCing was pretty necessary for me. It's also my hobby... Even my TI-83 is overclocked.
 
It really depends on your video card. If you have a top of the line card, you shouldn't need to OC as most games are limited by the video card more then the CPU. You can always try overclocking to see if you notice a difference in gaming. If not, you'd probably get more use out of overclocking your video card.

BTW, I have the same processor in my LAN party box. I decided to OC it and got it up to 3.2Ghz on air cooling. Pretty nice. However, it started having issues at a LAN party and I had to bring it back to stock. After testing it over a couple weeks, I finally got it to 2.6Ghz running stable. Not as high as I'd hoped, but a decent little increase. Point is, in some games I notice a little bit of a difference in my games vs stock settings, but not tons. I have a 7900GT in the computer and I would almost definitely see a bigger difference with overclocking the video card, or even with a faster card. Of course, now that I have a modest overclock on the CPU, now I'll see if I can get a little boost out of the video card. Hopefully that will make a nice difference... :D
 
Thanks for all the help guys.

Interesting about the GPU. I will be using Intel's GMA X3000 for a few weeks, possibly months. Are there any halfway-decent cards around $200? Please understand that I am not a hardcore gamer like I'm sure some are here and I don't need the "best".

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.
 
There are lots of great <200$ Cards now. This is the best time in history to be a mid-budget gamer.

From nVidia
7900GT, 7950GT or the 7600gt (best value card IMO)


From ATI any of the X1950 series cards are amazing for the money too.

That integrated card you've got? Reallllly doesn't cut it :).
 
The best ATI $200 video card is an X1950Pro. $190 at Newegg.
I overclock because I have 4 dual cores running Folding@Home. Its a distributed computing program to study protien folding or more correctly mis-folding which is the underlying cause of cancers, parkinsons ect.. I want all of my computers to do the maxium work they can (they all run 100% all the time). I can build more computers for less money and produce more work for the cause this way.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm looking at the 7600GT.

This is my first computer build, so I'm a bit nervous. Will the GMA X3000 last for a few weeks?
 
Gavinburt said:
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm looking at the 7600GT.

This is my first computer build, so I'm a bit nervous. Will the GMA X3000 last for a few weeks?
Click to expand...

It's fine for lowest detail games @ a fairly low res...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top