Weekend Open Forum: Do you overclock?

[Julio Franco]

As I'm sure is the case with many of you, I've owned several desktop systems over the years that depending on the timing and the class of processor, I've built to run at stock speeds or from scratch with overclocking in mind.

Although I recall taking a few extra MHz on two different 486 processors back in the day, for me the golden age of overclocking came with the venerable Celeron 300A that received a healthy boost to 450MHz without much effort. If not for saving a few bucks, squeezing every bit of untapped performance in a processor has always brought a certain sense of enjoyment. In spite of that, my last two systems have run at factory settings as I haven't bothered to look past stock cooling options and simply gone with 24/7 rock solid stability. On the GPU front, I've rarely resorted to overclocking because I tend to upgrade often, but in certain special scenarios (think Crysis) every bit of extra headroom helps.

But how about yourself? Tell us what's your take on overclocking these days, whether you overclock your PC (or not) and why. Discuss.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/40322-weekend-open-forum-do-you-overclock.html

 

[madboyv1]

Heh, first comment? I'm typing on a e5200 with a 40% overclock, that is 2.5Ghz to 3.5Ghz with a craptastic heatsink, and idles at 42c (pre-overclock was 41c, so that's a win for me), and gets low 60s under load, not too bad honestly.

I overclock cuz well, I didn't want to buy a new CPU. I add new hardware much more often than replacing old hardware, and I don't like having wasted parts lying around. =o

 

[Leeky]

My first PC I overclocked was my Dell PC when I purchased the new Gigabyte motherboard recently.

I managed to eek my Q8300 from 2.5GHz up to 3.34GHz, with it still being stable in use. For cooling I just use a Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 (Rev2) with Arctic MX2 (or 3?) thermal paste. Temps are around 28-32'C at idle, and 48-52'C at full 100% load during stress testing with OCCT.

My reasoning for it was mainly to get a bit more power out of it, as purchasing the new motherboard has delayed my planned move over to a new chipset. With my GPU OC'd its made for a healthy improvement at medium settings in Crysis too!

 

[Guest]

intel Q8200 (2.33 GHz) @ 3.5 GHz, cause it was the cheapest possible quad core

 

[Stonos]

I used to overclock my E6400 from 2.13GHz to 3GHz, but I found out that my 3D speeds were slower for some reason... So, I had to run at stock speed
Does anyone why that's happening? My overclock was stable according to IntelBurnTest by the way.

 

[Fragrant Coit]

I overclock because I have a champagne taste & a beer budget!

 

[TomSEA]

Why yes, funny you should ask - I do overclock. I'm working on getting my i7-930 up to 4ghz a little bit at a time as we speak.

 

[Lokalaskurar]

I started overclocking simply because I wanted to know how to.

There was a PC nobody wanted standing around doin' nothing, so ofcourse I simply had to try it out.
Noticing something amazing; an abandoned PC with an Intel Q8500 CPU...

With some minor adjustments to my gaming gear, I currently run that Intel Q8500 (stock: 3,16GHz) at 4,00GHz. However, overclocking beyond 3,99 GHz was nearly impossible (still trying to figure out why).
When I swapped my PSU to something more suitable, I managed to go from 3,99 to 4,00. Yay!

 

[ruben1992]

Never really needed to.

 

[Guest]

I started OC'ing with P3's but i havent OC'ed anything in the last 2 years. I just lost the interest and the need/reason to OC.

 

[St1ckM4n]

I bought my system with overclocking in mind later on. My core i7 920 is currently stock (waiting to buy Noctua heatsink over Xmas) as it is too hot, but will definitely overclock once I get heatsink.

I have GTX 295 which I overclock sometimes, as it does this quite well. However, lately I'm doing assignments and playing basic games, so it's back to stock clocks.

 

[Guest]

I have not considered overclocking, because the CPU has not been the leading cause of my perfomance issues. The hard disk is the performance issue I have. The hard disk is naturally the slowest component due to mechanical movement. So my focus has been how fast can I work with large files.

 

[Clrabbit]

When you deal with huge images and lots of adjusting there is just no substitute for Overlocking get the CPU up as high as you can and your Cas# lat as low as possible. I've been an Overclocker sense the first day I picked up a 3D modeling program.

Currently Q9550 running @ 3.9Ghz
Ram Cas# Lat 4-4-4-12-21
I forget the numbers but my Video card is over 30% OC as well

 

[Guest]

No, I don't. I tend to overspend instead.

 

[dividebyzero]

Yes. Although I limit my CPU OC these days to whatever I can achieve on basically stock VID. Sometimes I get lucky and the first CPU out the gate will do 25-30%...and sometimes it takes a few CPU swap-outs to find the golden one. Thankfully with LGA775/1366 I've found a good cpu early - not willing to test Intel's 20 cpu fittings before possibly losing load plate tension recommendation.
Graphics cards on an application/game basis.

 

[bugejakurt]

No. I once overclocked my Core 2 Duo 2.83 Ghz to a 3 Ghz and the CPU heated up very badly.

 

[spikester48661]

my AMD 3800x2 overclocked to 2.8 and at 49c at load.all is good

 

[Didou]

I haven't over-clocked in a long time & I even remember having to under-clock an AthlonXP 3200+ to 2500+ speeds. I think it was a counterfeit part because it wasn't stable at its advertised speeds.

Currently running all my computers at stock speeds & satisfied with them.

 

[Didou]

Oh btw, my ATI Radeon is a Toxic edition which means it's over-clocked out of the box, does that count ? :-/

 

[Mikymjr]

I overclocked my Phenom II X3 from 2.6Ghz to 2.86Ghz just for fun. I noticed some performance gains and left it like that ever since. I'm not done yet though ;-)

 

[Alster37]

well I try to overclock my best was with my phenom x6 1055t which I got to 3.64 ghz it wouldnt go any further due to a motherboard hardware limitation

 

[BlindObject]

Q9550 at 3.8ghz. Air cooled by a Tower Tuniq. Solid. Once had a e8500 and it overclocked like a freaking NUT! from 3.16ghz to 4.2ghz on air!!!! That thing stood up to Crysis' face. Overclocking is always fun, I also overclocked my GTX465 (OMG WTF IS THAT!?) by a good 25% with even more room. but I'm happy with this for now.

 

[mailpup]

I don't overclock. Everything is at stock speeds.

 

[Tekkaraiden]

A friend of mine and myself tried overclocking back in the Pentium 3 days (He was a computer tech at the time), the speed gain although impressive in the 3d benchmark made little if any performance difference in games. Haven't bothered since then.

 

[Guest]

hey guys i overclock cause i want to play may fav games at a respectable fps n my cpu overclocks 2.9 to 3.9 n i think that's good enough to stretch the legs of my graphics card, i also overclock my graphics card but i hasn't given me a good result.