why do you overclock?

drcrappants

Weaksauce
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Aug 26, 2011
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what uses do u have for it, and do you see a noticeable difference? i'm getting a 2500k i5, since it is cheap @ 180$ or so, but do not know if it would help me to overclock (fairly new so do not want to fry my parts). i'd be just above average setting new gaming, intense tabbed browsing, watching vids and the general sort. not much photo editing, no video editing. heard that vga card is the bottleneck anyways, so what good is going for 2.8ghz to 4.5ghz?
 
what uses do u have for it, and do you see a noticeable difference? i'm getting a 2500k i5, since it is cheap @ 180$ or so, but do not know if it would help me to overclock (fairly new so do not want to fry my parts). i'd be just above average setting new gaming, intense tabbed browsing, watching vids and the general sort. not much photo editing, no video editing. heard that vga card is the bottleneck anyways, so what good is going for 2.8ghz to 4.5ghz?

that is why you pay extra for the "k" model. if you arent going to oc dont spend the extra for the "k" model. can i say this drives me nuts. people with "k" models running them at stock speed.

3.3 to 4.5 is a big difference. it is more then a 33% increase in clock speed.

just look in the intel forum and there is a sticky on how to oc a 2500k/2600k.
 
that is why you pay extra for the "k" model. if you arent going to oc dont spend the extra for the "k" model. can i say this drives me nuts. people with "k" models running them at stock speed.

3.3 to 4.5 is a big difference. it is more then a 33% increase in clock speed.

just look in the intel forum and there is a sticky on how to oc a 2500k/2600k.

isn't it more like 3.7 to 4.5? that's a 21% increase in clock speed which I guess is still pretty good.

I only overclocked to 4.3 which is only a 16% increase which isn't really that much now that I've calculated it out.
 
3.3 is stock speed, 3.7 is turbo speed that only works under certain conditions.

I overclock because I run some applications that are heavily dependent on single/dual threaded performance (emulators mostly).
 
I overclock because I get more out of it than what I paid for it. Additionally, I fold for the [H]orde, so every little bit helps.
 
I overclock because it results in a noticeable improvement in nearly everything I do on the computer other than web browsing. Programs load faster; unzipping files takes less time, compiling is quicker, and most important of all is that the computer opponents do not take anywhere near as long in turn based games.
 
More horsepower :eek:)

I can tell the difference on E8400 going from 3.0 to 4.0+ghz. Fallout3 and empire total war if I set my machine back to stock it does not run smoothly maxed out.
 
I love to OC and I cannot lie, these are the things I cannot denie. when girls walk by with a 5.0ghz , damn those chips are hot
 
I overclock for teh lulz. :D

Well,beside the lulz,OCing give me what the CPU should have been,and helps me against bottlenecking with the video card.

And,isn't that fun when you come to a meeting with ordinary people and brag about your 4.5GHz CPU while they talk about their slow PC? :p
 
Getting ~46% more out of my i7 920 with a decent voltage increase is worth it to avoid bottlenecking the GPU's. Plus there is a considerable decrease in the amount of time encoding video's or rendering large files at the higher mhz.
 
thanks guys. personally, 'because i can' would not do anything for me. if it is noticable that things are faster (details plz) then that would make me happy. otherwise, why make the processor generate extra heat/waste electricity for an imperceptible improvement? thanks, people who also added info on what they see were faster.

i dont understand "avoid bottlenecking the gpu"; isnt the gpu usually the bottleneck (as in processor speed usually is not the limiting factor)?

one ything i do notice is slow is on my laptop from 07, 1.8ghz core2 duo cpu T7100, when i open folders that contain a lot of files, it is REALLY slow for them to all show up. is this ram related, frequency related, gpu related or what? (thumbnails i enable too, as well as preview plane)

also, do any of u buy unlocked ones just so that when they begin to be outdated, u can overclock to match up to the new processors? i think that's a good adv.
 
thanks guys. personally, 'because i can' would not do anything for me. if it is noticable that things are faster (details plz) then that would make me happy. otherwise, why make the processor generate extra heat/waste electricity for an imperceptible improvement? thanks, people who also added info on what they see were faster.
It really does provide a performance increase depending on the application and game.
i dont understand "avoid bottlenecking the gpu"; isnt the gpu usually the bottleneck (as in processor speed usually is not the limiting factor)?
Actually a lot of games these days are both heavily CPU and GPU dependent. As such, you need a faster CPU to keeep up with the GPU. Especially at high settings.
one ything i do notice is slow is on my laptop from 07, 1.8ghz core2 duo cpu T7100, when i open folders that contain a lot of files, it is REALLY slow for them to all show up. is this ram related, frequency related, gpu related or what? (thumbnails i enable too, as well as preview plane)
It's mainly the hard drives, CPU, amount of RAM, and GPU (especially if you're using Windows 7 or even Vista)
also, do any of u buy unlocked ones just so that when they begin to be outdated, u can overclock to match up to the new processors? i think that's a good adv.
Not necessarily match up but catch up. Then again, some of the newer CPUs outperform older heavily overclocked CPUS at stock speeds.
 
I have overclocked and can confirm the experiences of the other posters. I see better performance on CPU intensive tasks such as encoding and compressing. However I find that I am more often than not bottle-necked by Hard dive performance. This is especially noticeable for some circumstances such as moving files around, playing games and general tasks.

As you mentioned the extra heat/electricity might not be worth it in addition to the potentially shortened life span of the CPU. Its likely minor but might factor into a decision to overclock a component.
 
I have overclocked and can confirm the experiences of the other posters. I see better performance on CPU intensive tasks such as encoding and compressing. However I find that I am more often than not bottle-necked by Hard dive performance. This is especially noticeable for some circumstances such as moving files around, playing games and general tasks.

As you mentioned the extra heat/electricity might not be worth it in addition to the potentially shortened life span of the CPU. Its likely minor but might factor into a decision to overclock a component.

what aspect of the hard drive makes it slow bottlenecked? just rpm?
 
what aspect of the hard drive makes it slow bottlenecked? just rpm?

Well, old school hard drives are slowly on their way out. SSDs have reduced the bottleneck significantly, but they are still very expensive per storage unit compared to traditional hard drives. The SSD technology will eventually get cheaper, though, and it will continue to get faster as well.
 
Well, my CPU at stock runs 2.66. With a very easy overclock, I'm running at 3.7. Yes, without question, I can tell the difference in everyday usage. That's a huge difference. It takes my cpu from "not bad" to "pretty damn fast".

Pretty simple logic.
 
I don't overclock until I need a performance boost. My Core 2 Duo E8200 was fast enough stock for two years, but I eventually overclocked to 3.2 GHz to give me 6 more months of usability.

My 2500k is doing the same: stock for now, and then I'll bump it up to 4.5 GHz or so when I need it.
 
are you saying that SSD's will get cheaper and larger and thus replace HDDs?

same thing happened to harddrives. I remember the time when 80GBs were the biggest capacity available and they cost the same as the 2-3 TB HDDs now. wait a few years and the Harddrives will become obselete and the SSDs will take over the market
 
You get a significant performance increase, and the tweaking is fun.
It reduces chip lifespan, but for enthusiasts who are on a 1-2 year upgrade cycle, does it matter whether your chip lasts 15 years or 8 years of continuous duty? Probably not.
 
Other than a big performance gain, it just feels better. When spending x amount of cash on a rig and knowing there's a supercharger sitting underneath waiting to be unleashed, it just makes sense to utilize it.
 
I have a stable overclock of my 2600k running at 4.4 Ghz. Pushing crossfire 6950s at 1900x1200 I would probably often be cpu bottlenecked if I didn't OC. Also, since it's stable there's really no downside. I have a good air cooling setup going. Completely maxed out with 8 threads at prime95 I hit at most 65-66C, and during any other usage it never gets that high.
 
Cheap performance boost. I do a good amount of video encoding, so an extra 1 GHZ really makes a difference. Plus it helps with games, etc.
 
  • To establish an intimate relationship with my beautiful beast (her name is Savanna btw)
  • It is fun to work in a very intricate and multi-factored environment where adjusting voltages, clocks, ratios, etcetera
  • Emulators, especially for more modern consoles such as the PlayStation 2
  • ePeen (self explanatory)
  • Can and does make a big difference depending on how much you can and are able to overclock
  • Have nothing better to do for a hobby/past-time/pride about
  • Nowadays CPUs are more reliable and durable than ever; overclocking will not necessarily decrease its lifespan so much as to be significant given a proper, adequate cooling and operating environment

The part about making a significant performance difference is the primary reason why. At stock 2.66GHz clock for my Q9450 I get about 36 GFlops in IntelBurnTest. At 3.6GHz I get about 55 GFlops. Just to put some perspective by illustration into this, at stock clock and an optimized and tweaked PCSX2 (PlayStation 2 emulator) I received unplayable to barely even playable framerate for a particular game. After overclocking to 3.6GHz I received astoundingly very playable framerates. Just imagine what she could do at 4GHz.

In addition, I do a lot of video/audio encoding work with AViSynth and MeGUI, and work with VMware very much. I need the horsepower (and every MHz does count), the memory, and the storage.
 
Because I can. Really it's abotu getting the most out of my hardware and thus the most for my money.
 
one thread to rule them all, one thread to find them? Anyhow, it's more a hobby than anything. If you decide to try and overclock make sure you get a decent cooler and stay within reasonable limits if you are afraid of damaging things. If it doesn't work you can always clear the settings.
 
Get better performance out of my machine without spending money. And because I know how to and its not illegal :) (yet lol?).
 
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