Overclocking over rated?

[.xXLucidXx.]

mr zig zag I could care less how long youve been sitting around playing with computers who thinks your an oc god and who dosent. I honestly dont care, sorry.
i was origonally talking about the guy at the poster's computer shop who says overclocking is over rated.
I notice a difference in the way my computer runs with even a slight overclock loading programs in windows so whoopty do im gonna keep it overclocked

 

[Susquehannock]

OCing over-rated? I don't think so.
How else would I have a $42 Athlon running at over 2.4ghz? More than a 60% increase.
And how else would my $180 graphic card pull the same benchmarks as cards costing
over twice as much?

I have pages of benchmark results from MadOnion (now Futuremark) but I basically agree with what you were told.

Oc'ing can inflate your E- penis by trying to achieve the ultimate benchmarking score & in that sense its worthwhile to enthusiasts who compare systems & try to improve their rigs.

However, in real world gaming & in running applications the performance differential is minimal at best. Very slight improvements in gaming, a few FPS.

I get where you are coming from, but I think it really depends on the OC we are talking about.

Overclocking & unlocking my 6800nu gave me a very significant improvement in FPS scores while gaming.
Some might say that OCing it not worth it because you parts don't last as long.
That may be so but I can say that I am extremely happy with the results of my $42 Athlons
after OCing them over 60% for over two years.

 

[altec]

Overrated??
http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/4605/speeds5pf.jpg[/mg]
[img]http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/9091/scores4fv.jpg[/mg]

Yea, OK.[/QUOTE]

Wow dude nice specs. :cool:

 

[lcboyee1123]

tell him to htink of it this way...overclocking is like a free upgrade of the model processor that u have...example: goin from a 3000+ to a 3200+ with overclockin...why would amd charge different prices if there were no performance increases...why advance processor speeds when there is no improvement...i see plenty of increased performance with my 3700+ SD

 

[board2death986]

good point in theory, but you forget that these companies don't give a shit about noticable increases in performance, bottom line is they will do whatever they can to convince us to buy their products. And the obvious answer to the reason he would put down overclocking is that any businessman would rather have you invest your money into higher grade products (preferably with their business). So they may know nothing or they may know more than you think, but regardless of their own knowledge they will try to convince you to take a course of action that involves spending money at their store.

 

[cre8chaos]

I agree with most of you, If you are only in it for the scores and can not show a "real world" improvement then what is the point? Bragging rights are all good for a show of feathers but short lived. I have not bench marked any of my computers ever. I don't care what the score is. I will not put up with loud fans screaming if I don't "feel" the difference.

Now yes I am over clocked 2.8 @ 3.2 and yes I "feel" the difference. I OCed my 9800pro
and did not feel anything so I upgraded to a 6800gt. It is a give and take, Not about numbers. It is all in what you expect of it.

Flame On if you feel the need.

 

[ZigZagZeppelin]

I agree with most of you, If you are only in it for the scores and can not show a "real world" improvement then what is the point? Bragging rights are all good for a show of feathers but short lived. I have not bench marked any of my computers ever. I don't care what the score is. I will not put up with loud fans screaming if I don't "feel" the difference.

Now yes I am over clocked 2.8 @ 3.2 and yes I "feel" the difference. I OCed my 9800pro
and did not feel anything so I upgraded to a 6800gt. It is a give and take, Not about numbers. It is all in what you expect of it.

Flame On if you feel the need.

I gave up benchmarking 12 months ago.......its pointless, really..

 

[RHollister]

"I gave up benchmarking 12 months ago.......its pointless, really.." - you sound like a recovering alcholic

 

[GoldenTiger]

I have pages of benchmark results from MadOnion (now Futuremark) but I basically agree with what you were told.

Oc'ing can inflate your E- penis by trying to achieve the ultimate benchmarking score & in that sense its worthwhile to enthusiasts who compare systems & try to improve their rigs.

However, in real world gaming & in running applications the performance differential is minimal at best. Very slight improvements in gaming, a few FPS.

.... so if I buy an FX57 instead of a 1.8ghz 3000+ and run a game with them, all other parts being the same, in a CPU-limited game, I'm not going to notice any framerate difference? My encodes will take the exact same amount of time with a 1.8ghz CPU instead of a 2.8ghz CPU!? OMG, what have I been wasting my money on all these years!? Why did I buy the lowest model X2 3800+ then to overclock past 4800+ speeds, with each core nearly as fast as an FX57, if they're all the same speed!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo.ooooooo.....ooooo..o....


P.S., my specs are:


3800+ X2 Athlon 64 Dual-Core CPU, stock 2.0ghz per core, now at 2.7ghz per core (35% clock speed increase). ($380 for the CPU, and it is faster than a 4800+ which costs nearly $1000, a $620 price difference!)

eVGA 7800GT nvidia-based video card, stock (reference is 400/1000) is 445/1070, overclocked to 485/1160. (10% core increase, and a decent memory increase, enough to make it as fast (and in some cases, faster than) as a 7800GTX which costs $100 more).

2x1gb Crucial "Value" PC3200 DDR sticks, stock: 200mhz 3-4-4-8 per stick, now running in dual channel at 225mhz 3-3-3-10. A 17.5% increase in speed. (Cost: $106 per stick, cost of Ballistix "guaranteed" to run at speeds of 250mhz 3-4-4-8, which would be about the same or less performance? About $156 per stick. A total savings of about $100.)

300gb Maxtor MaxLine III 7L300S0 SATA-native NCQ-compatible HDD (Can't overclock this puppy, oh well!)


all in a small-form-factor Shuttle SN25P chasis! If someone's going to try to tell me the framerate difference isn't large (and noticable to the naked eye), they're an utter moron. I easily was able to tell when doing initial dry-runs of clock speeds after having used it at stock for a few days to make sure everything worked fine. I simply wouldn't pay the prices that the top-end commands, but with overclocking and some skill, plus some luck, you can get top-shelf or better performance for a fraction of the cost.

 

[chrisf6969]

blaspheme!!!

OVERCLOCKING is the shizzle fo rizzle, my nizzle

OK, lets see..

I bought my 2.4C over 2 years ago when they were first released. I think the fastest CPU you could buy was a 3.0C. (or maybe a 3.2C)

Anyway, I've been using the same CPU overclocked to 3.6Ghz with a 1200Mhz FSB for years and is still one of the fastest CPU's around. A northwood at 3.6Ghz is as fast as a prescott @ 3.8Ghz.....

How can a $185 (when I bought it) processor thats like 2 1/2 years old that still keeps up with current $500-1000 processors be overrated??

It performs as well as P4EE's and current 570/670 processors.

I think he was talking about if you have a 3.0+Ghz or 3000+ AMD processor overclocking them to 4Ghz / 4000+ you won't notice a big difference in surfing the web, email, etc... and in gaming you MIGHT not notice a huge difference depending on your videocard.

But when you were marginal on your minimum framerates and you get a 50% overclock like me and you get a 20-50% improvement in performance (depending on bench/app) there's nothing overrated about that.

See my benches, etc: http://www.crowdcontrolusa.com/overclock/shizzy.html

Oh and my other system: (Shuttle) I improved my 3dMark2005 score about 50% between overclocking the P4, and then overclocking and unlocking my 6800nu to a 6800GT @ 380/800.

 

[GoldenTiger]

I've been clocking before most here at this site even HEARD of it.

You calling me an idiot?

Morley knows me since 1999 the year I set the world record in 3dmark2000.

Gibbo from overclockers uk knows of me & sent me a congratulatory email at the time.

You are talking out of ur ass.

So, I've been "superclocking" since the days of the 486, do I win a cookie? I don't take time spent to mean who's better at doing something or who has more knowledge , nor should any reasonable person.

 

[Unknown-One]

wasn't there someone who used liquid nitrogen or something along those lines and got up to 7ghz?

That’s how the P4's netburst architecture was supposed to scale...Unfortunately they were a bit off on what temperature was needed for that to work out

 

[ShuttleLuv]

Uh....nope.

 

[Unknown-One]

Uh....nope.

Uh...Explain? If I'm wrong I would sure like to know so I can correct the problem

My understanding was that netburst was designed to scale better than it turned out to, and it was because of the unexpected heat output.

 

[FrizzleFried]

I have a 3000+ Newcastle (2.0ghz stock) running at 2.5ghz. Do I notice the 25% increase...hell yeah! Do I notice just in benchmarks? Nope...i notice in gaming....primarily gaming. Battlefield 2 runs a bit smoother with my overclock, and when you add in the fact I am overclocking my 6800GT, it makes a VERY noticable difference. Enough of a difference that I can bump my resolution up a notch and STILL experience smoother game play than with the lower res while running at stock speeds.

A 3000+ Newcastle runs at 2.0 ghz and costs around $140 or so...

A 3800+ Newcastle runs at 2.4 ghz and costs around $250 or so...

Now, my 3000+ Newcastle runs STABLE at 2.5ghz, which means that I am sporting a faster chip than a 3800+ stock...saving the dough...and if anyone tells you there is no detectable difference between a 3000+ and 3800+, I have some beach front property to sell you....in Idaho.

 

[Enjoicube]

Oc'ing perfectly good stuf just for the sake of oc'ing is relly stupid, I really like oc'ing my old shit, but I will NEVER touch the HTT control in the bios, if i lost my 3500 my only other comp would be a k6-2. But other thatn that Ocing is fun ( i relly want a cheap celeron to push high) but I never mess with my good stuff.

 

[FrizzleFried]

Oc'ing perfectly good stuf just for the sake of oc'ing is relly stupid, I really like oc'ing my old shit, but I will NEVER touch the HTT control in the bios, if i lost my 3500 my only other comp would be a k6-2. But other thatn that Ocing is fun ( i relly want a cheap celeron to push high) but I never mess with my good stuff.

The dangers of overclocking are actually quite overstated. I have been overclocking every single piece of overclockable hardware I have owned since I learned about it back in the Celeron 300a days (one of my best overclocks BTW....450mhz or 50%). I have never once killed a single piece of hardware due to overclocking. Funny thing is that my wife, still to this day, uses that Celeron 300a....still running at 450mhz....still stable....(that said, she only uses it for email and web browsing though).

If you overclock wisely...by that, I mean overclock in small increments, there is virtually NO danger of killing your hardware....and I don't give a DAMN what anyone says....I know from experience.

 

[nst6563]

I myself don't overclock anything. I partake in speed margining.

 

[ZigZagZeppelin]

So, I've been "superclocking" since the days of the 486, do I win a cookie? I don't take time spent to mean who's better at doing something or who has more knowledge , nor should any reasonable person.

Just pointing out Im hardly a fucking noob, is that ok with u?



You too will get bored of bragging up ur benchmarks after 4-5 yrs of doing it.

 

[wee96]

Ive been overclocking for 12+ years now, to say its overrated and doesnt do anything is hard to grasp. When you increase the speed of any cpu, ITS FASTER. An Athlon64 2800+ overclocked to 3200+ speeds will literally produce the exact same speeds (benchmarking, gaming, etc) since its virtually the same processor which has a different multiplier (well, there are several different cores but im speaking of the same core, I think everyone catches my drift). There are certain people who feel overclocking causes instability no matter what you tell them, its kinda this weird paranoia that some techie nerds have and its not actual reality. When done properly, overclocking is the smartest thing you can do. Ive never fried a cpu in all these years except for one which was my own fault (peltier on an AMD K6-2 266mhz, was running at 525mhz which back then was insane). I was running linux on that box and forgot that the idle cycles are shutoff by default in linux, so I ended up developing condensation overnight from the peltier cooling the cpu too much, and bam short. Man, that cpu kicked butt too even being the underdog of the day. Point is, there are certain guys who, regardless of reality, are die hard set on that overclocking is somehow evil or think its 100% unstable no matter what, just ignore them or laugh at them....or both like me

 

[(cf)Eclipse]

When done properly, overclocking is the smartest thing you can do. Ive never fried a cpu in all these years except for one which was my own fault

exactly the same with me. if you're not stupid and do your research first, it's mighty hard to kill hardware aside from letting temps get to high or doing physical damage (rip newark )

ZZZ, i've only been oc'ing for 3-4 years, and i've never once had the urge to brag about my benchmark scores. the clocks i can hit.. that's another thing cause it's more meaningful imo. to me, overclocking is all about getting cool stuff and doing things it wasn't meant to do. the opteron i have sitting in front of my is perfect example of this.
however, with that in mind, i find that overclocking is a very knowledge and experience based game.. the more you know about your hardware, the more you can predict, and the easier it is to troubleshoot problems or explain anomalies. this is exactly why i created that revE oc'ing database that's stuck over in the amd forums, and why i plan on creating a rough guide that explains how various ram chips overclock. hell, my passion for finding things out and letting others know has gotten so great, i decided to start a website dedicated to overclocking. it's something i love doing, and it helps people who are not quite as knowledged at the same time. enough rambling, as i don't even really have a good point anymore

 

[lithium726]

And this is assuming you don't mind having your computer crash everyonce and a while...cause it WILL happen, (especially while learning/testing) if you push the speed far enough to make a big enough difference for it to be worthwhile.

not if you do it right...

if you can get the OC prime95 stable, the system will be just as stable as it was at stock.

 

[Aaron_ATX]

Uh-huh.

Doing it "right"


So you are telling me you test and tune every setting 1mhz at a time eh? No, its going to crash while you are finding max stable settings.

 

[ShuttleLuv]

Uh...Explain? If I'm wrong I would sure like to know so I can correct the problem

My understanding was that netburst was designed to scale better than it turned out to, and it was because of the unexpected heat output.

I was rolling my eyes and saying uh...nope to the original thread starter. Overclocking is not overrated.

 

[Unknown-One]

I was rolling my eyes and saying uh...nope to the original thread starter. Overclocking is not overrated.

oh! ok

 

[Bassist-X]

That guy is full of crap, I hate it when shop owners live under a rock and never test things or read publications. Maybe you wouldn't notice a difference OCing a video card 30-50mhz in game, in fact you'd probably only see a real difference in your benchmarking. From personal experiences I can say that OCing my GPU hasn't been really that beneficial. But you'll sure as hell notice a big difference boosting a 2.2Ghz A64 3500+ to 2.7Ghz. Note that an FX-55 runs at 2.6Ghz and an FX-57 runs at 2.8Ghz. Yeah there's a difference.

 

[Dan_D]

In all fairness, in Office style apps and in web surfing, you will not likely notice a difference. However, overclocking makes games, viruses and spyware all work faster. You should tell him that.

When benchmarks can show reproduceable results between an FX-55 and a Athlon 64 2800+, overclocking is DEFINATELY viable. A mild overclock might not yield much, but certainly a high overclock will.

 

[SpoogeMonkey]

I myself don't overclock anything. I partake in speed margining.

I like that. I'm not overclocking, I'm just utilizing my underbinned fx-57 (3000+). Now if I could figure out how to re-enable that extra 512k of L2 cache

 

[lithium726]

Uh-huh.

Doing it "right"


So you are telling me you test and tune every setting 1mhz at a time eh? No, its going to crash while you are finding max stable settings.

i thought you meant on a regular basis

thereby furthering the "an overclocked system will always be unstable"

my bad, i misunderstood.

 

[SpoogeMonkey]

I'm pretty sure he meant "it's gonna crash on your way to finding the sweet spot of mhz-volts." Once dialed in, you should only get a very rare "Windows wtf, omg, i just $hit myself" error.

 

[flynlr]

I'm pretty sure he meant "it's gonna crash on your way to finding the sweet spot of mhz-volts." Once dialed in, you should only get a very rare "Windows wtf, omg, i just $hit myself" error.

yup when I was oc my vid card i had a few of those. 2 reboots for drivers to get their head back on tight

 

[LadyMakoFox]

Hmmm....


That guy is full of it.


I notice a HUUUGE diffrence in preformance between my 2500+ mobile at stock speed vs. overclocked speed.

Sure to users who expect extreme gain for overclocking may be wrong, but you can extend the time you can bare to use your CPU's for a while by overclocking it.

 

[9mmx19]

yeah the guy doesnt know how to OC therefore he thinks its bad or useless. That and he would rather see you buy a more expensive part.

Indeed.

 

[Autochthon]

This is a very strange conversation. In regards to speed; If you have 2 processors with the same architecture running at the same clock speed and voltage It doesn't matter if one is "Overclocked" because it has a lower value printed onto it's surface. They are performing the same function. To say Overclocking is pointless is to say buying a faster chip is pointless. To paraphrase an earlier poster It's not like there are seperate manufacturing processes for the 2 chips.

 

[Karaya1]

I like that. I'm not overclocking, I'm just utilizing my underbinned fx-57 (3000+). Now if I could figure out how to re-enable that extra 512k of L2 cache

You bastard!!
I only got an underbinned Fx-55!
Lemme know about the 512k of L2 when you find something.

 

[booGamiHXC]

More charcoal to the fire.

That's like saying you don't notice a difference in changing guitar strings/pick-ups.

Or saying that adding syrup to pancakes is overrated.

Deng..

 

[flynlr]

More charcoal to the fire.

That's like saying you don't notice a difference in changing guitar strings/pick-ups.

Or saying that adding syrup to pancakes is overrated.

Deng..

or even ............putting non mfr ink in your printer will make it burst into flames.

 

[ZigZagZeppelin]

exactly the same with me. if you're not stupid and do your research first, it's mighty hard to kill hardware aside from letting temps get to high or doing physical damage (rip newark )

ZZZ, i've only been oc'ing for 3-4 years, and i've never once had the urge to brag about my benchmark scores. the clocks i can hit.. that's another thing cause it's more meaningful imo. to me, overclocking is all about getting cool stuff and doing things it wasn't meant to do. the opteron i have sitting in front of my is perfect example of this.
however, with that in mind, i find that overclocking is a very knowledge and experience based game.. the more you know about your hardware, the more you can predict, and the easier it is to troubleshoot problems or explain anomalies. this is exactly why i created that revE oc'ing database that's stuck over in the amd forums, and why i plan on creating a rough guide that explains how various ram chips overclock. hell, my passion for finding things out and letting others know has gotten so great, i decided to start a website dedicated to overclocking. it's something i love doing, and it helps people who are not quite as knowledged at the same time. enough rambling, as i don't even really have a good point anymore

If u notice, Eclipse, I still do overclock but I no longer enter the benchmarking threads or waste my time running Futuremark's tests......

One reason is I run AA and AF maxxed out in everything I play, I "need to" overclock to get nice frames...

The second reason is Futuremark gets $$ from Nvidia, AMD, Intel & ATI. Whichever company gives more gets bias from Futuremark rendering their results "skewed" or inaccurate in trying to figure out whose rig is more powerful running apps/ games.......

I oc out of need these days, basically......

 

[wee96]

Uh-huh.

Doing it "right"


So you are telling me you test and tune every setting 1mhz at a time eh? No, its going to crash while you are finding max stable settings.

I think he was trying to point out when you find your max stable settings, then its just as stable as stock speeds which is true. Of course you have to test and youll crash while testing to find the sweet spot, thats what its all about

 

[GoldenTiger]

Just pointing out Im hardly a fucking noob, is that ok with u?



You too will get bored of bragging up ur benchmarks after 4-5 yrs of doing it.

Do you know when 486's were out?