Advantages and Disadvantages of Overclocking

[JCX50]

Hello all,

I am planning on building a Gaming Rig after Christmas and after Santa comes
I just wanted to know the list of reasons why/why not I should Overclock my system. I have chosen the 3rd Gen Core i7 3770K CPU and I play games such as BF3, Dirt 3 and other graphically intense games. I would like to run these games on Ultra and I have chosen a good graphics card (GeForce GTX 670). Any Advice would be great,

Thanks

JCX50

 

[JonSmith]

Heat/power consumption/product life.

Really the main issue is getting enough heat away from the chip to prevent malfunction, so you have to buy a possibly expensive cooler. Overclocking also increases power consumption, which increases energy bills (but compared to an entire household, it is not significant). It also shortens the life of your chip (although your chip is still likely to last years past obsolescence, as my decade old and overvolted Athlon XP2400+ will attest).

Really it boils down to whether you feel the investment in an after market cooler is worth it for the increased performance. In pretty much all cases I would say it is.

However taken by itself, upgrading from an i7 2600 to a 3770k really isn't worth it, you should pile the money you save into an even better GPU and some peripherals instead.

 

[OpenToSuggestions]

Advantages:
- Extra performance, so your rig runs like one significantly more expensive, or quicker than what is actually available on the market.
- It is free.

Disadvantages:
- You can kill components, but only if you do something excessively stupid like sticking a significantgly higher voltage through a CPU.
- Will take time to find a stable overclock. It is always a game of trial and error.
- Need a decent PSU.
- Need good cooling if you are planning anything beyond a mild overclock.

Dirt 3 and BF3 aren't really graphically intensive games. My 6950 plays them both at 1920x1200 with everything maxed out plus AA and AF and it cost £200 on release day in 2010.

 

[JCX50]

I just want to build one, the one I have was from a shop and it comes with a terrible case and graphics card. If I upgrade to a better graphics card, I will need to buy a new PSU, Case and building a PC will give me more satisfaction. (and i can't overclock my i7 2600)

 

[joeyjojo]

- It is free.

It's definitely not free. For light use you might not notice, but e.g. for 24/7 distributed computing it can be hundreds of £/year.

I've settled recently for the max overclock on stock volts. Once you start upping the voltage your power consumption goes up as the square, which gets hot & expensive. You can easily get 25-35% on stock volts. I feel this is more consistent with the original aims of OCing, i.e. getting the same performance as a top of the range chip for less.

 

[snakefood]

Some good points here...gotta admit, I'd never actually considered the possibility of my electric bill increasing due to overclocking.

Shame I can't underclock my electric meter

 

[doyll]

Inline meter on my 920 overclock was 170w idle.
At stock settings it was 145w idle.

We 2 systems on 24/7 which calculates to £300+ / year electric. Add in another £100 for monitors and we are almost talking real money

Am now in the process of setting up a couple of old lappies for the 24/7 systems and only power up our towers for the heavy stuff