[spiderowych]

Simple question: What is overclocking?

[coastie65]

spiderowych, on 17 April 2012 - 02:32 PM, said:

Simple question: What is overclocking?

Hi. In short you are speeding up the processor or memory. Say you have a processor that runs at 2.8 Ghz stock out of the box, you over clock it to run at say 3.2 Ghz which is faster. Not something for the uninitiated.

This post has been edited by coastie65: 17 April 2012 - 03:31 PM

[mjd420nova]

Overclocking, as used within the context of increasing the clock rates of processors is a habit undertaken by those who feel they can make thier computers faster by changing the multipliers used to build that base clock from much lower frequencies. System speeds are most often quoted as the clock speed of the processor. There are many other multiples used to run memory banks and interface speeds of hard drives and CD/DVD drives, again based upon the main clock. Overclocking involves increasing the CPU clock to the point of instablity and backing off enough to get stable operation. Adjustments can have affects upon the other based clocks and in some cases, instability is overcome by increasing supply voltages. Increasing certain voltages also affects these other components and push them beyond their threshholds too. Some tinkering can lead to failure of peripheral chips which is a severe instability when it begins sending up smoke signals.

[LiveBrianD]

It's about increasing the frequencies that things like CPUs, RAM, and graphics cards run at to increase performance. However, if you do it too much the chip may be unstable, and you may need to give it more voltage (thus generating more heat; and more voltage and heat is beyond a certain point unsafe). Let's put it this way - a light bulb may be rated for 120V, but you may be able to feed it 140V, making it give off more light, but reducing it's lifespan. There is a risk of permanently damaging a component this way (though, most likely, safeguards will kick in before you manage to do this).

[Szczecinianin]

It's making chips work faster than it's written in their specification. Some of them are built with overclocking in mind, but only some. Given the risk that goes with overclocking, it's better to buy a faster card/CPU/memory. For some, overclocking is an extreme sport/hobby. Speeds gained here may be huge but liquid nitrogen is often used as coolant. And now, with ever faster chips coming out really fast, overclocking is a bit exotic if not niche.

[waldojim]

Ok, everyone here has pointed out the extremities involved. For many, overclocking is simply taking an inexpensive part, and making it do what a more expensive part was designed to do. There are different kinds of overclocking that go into this.

Back in the day, there were hardware mods to convert ATI X series cards from one model to another, completely changing how it behaved. My old 5700LE optima ended up outperforming most cards up to the 5800's as I could manage a 100% increase in clock speeds. Lately, AMD Phenom processors are all the rage, as you can buy a dual core Phenom II, and turn it into a quad! I have successfully done that twice now. On the Intel side, you have to remember that a 100Mhz change in frequency can sometimes cost as much as $500! Why pay $500 when you can change that clock speed yourself? You don't have to do anything extreme to overclock. In most cases, overclocked components will last just as long as stock - if you are reasonable about it.

[mjd420nova]

My first encounter with overclocking was on an Epson PC that took the 4 MHZ 8086 chip and boosted the clock speed up to 8, 10 and 12 MHZ. The 8 and 12 settings worked pretty well but the 10 setting made it very unstable. Then the users started having problems with hard drives, only 20 MB at the time. Floppy drives acted strange too. Then IBM entered with the 80286 chip running at 16 MHZ and the AT line of units was marketed.