EggXpert

Please use this post to discuss the aspects and impacts of overclocking with respect to system builds and the Sticky post that was made.

I agree with the general message. Overclocking is like a sport or hobby and is not necessary for high end computing. The serious overclocker requires a better than average power supply and extensive cooling equipment, maybe even water cooling and a firm grasp of all the details of how to do it and what to look for with temperature, stress testing, and benchmarks. I equate overclocking your computer to working on hot rods. You can certainly drive a car and get enjoyment and practical use from it without heavy duty shocks, turbo charged nitrous oxide injected engine and chrome headers but if you like to play with cars then its fun to experiment and try to get the most out of them. Same with computers. You can play all the games and run all the programs with a stock box, but getting 6 fps more from a game is nice if you know how to do it and are willing to learn the ins and outs. It might also save some money if you can buy a less expensive processor and clock it to the same speed as the current flagship CPU. Its not for everyone but it is a nice hobby with great folks online to help you out and share experiences.

Great post Sparker

 

The idea is always better than the execution.  Overclocking first became popular because it allowed people to make their computers faster without spending any extra money.  These days, if you want to overclock your CPU, you probably need a good aftermarket heatsink/fan setup, better-than-average airflow throughout the case, and sometimes memory that can be overclocked or is not running at its fastest rated speed.  All this extra junk adds up to the same or more than the cost of the faster processor.

Whenever I overclock my 3.2GHz Athlon64 X2 BE to 3.5GHz, my PC achieves minimal framerate gains in all my games...not worth it to compromise system stability and longevity of the CPU.

Very nice post sparker and I do agree with you OCing should be done carefully and with the understanding that you can cause damage to your CPU or even the system. Having OCed my Q6600 to 3.3 and kept it stable for several weeks I decided to back it down to 3.0 and have left it there for almost a month now, I also replaced my fans with 3 pin mobo connector type to allow the system to control the fan speeds which has kept my temps at a very satisfactory level for the last week that leaves upgrading the PSU to help reduce heat and increase the amperage to reduce wear and tear there. PS My temps are running cpu-40C med load, cores at tj max100 60/62/62/61 C, system at 33 C and HDD at 29 C.