All you non overclockers tell me why you don't overclock?

[WJA96]

There is no vendetta

I think most folks accept that, although you can almost get to the point where you are ridiculing people posting here, which would put me off.

But there are people who do not overclock based on reasons that are just not accurate.

Definitely.

Statements like

"do i want a case with 12 fans noisily humming away for the sake of tiny bit of extra power "

Are just plain untrue and its old wife tales like this that need to be addressed.

The fact is you can have an heavily overclocked system that is quiet.

It's much easier to a have quiet under or non-clocked system

I have had many and on Air (WJA96)

I've only got 1 water cooled system - all the others are on air. Only the water-cooled one is silent though. It has no fans running at all at the moment.

 

[collisster]

I dont overclock becuase I dont know how I will benifit from it, I would have to buy a new cooler, and its complicated I need instructions in dumbasses terms

 

[FreeStream]

Overclocking can be done on stock cooler.

I had a 600mhz overclock on the Intel Stock cooler.

Thats 600mhz beats any AMD out there.

Didn't cost a penny to overclock.

Now im running at 3.525ghz. £40 for a New cooler.

I don't know if I got any FPS increases in games because I didn't look.

However folding power is increased, and now it beats even overclocked AMDs. (Probs about 3.8ghz AMD - where you gonna get one that does that on air stable - thats right, you can't).

So basically for £40 i thrash any air cooled AMD and most air cooled C2Ds.

I think thats worth £40...

Its soooo easy. I did it when I was 12 ffs

 

[OC_A64]

The problem people are having this thread is that this issue is wholly and unavoidably based on subjectivity. When it comes to overclocking, what one may consider extreme and unnecessary another may consider about as extreme as a tea party with their 4 year old niece.

Everyone has limits that they’re prepared to go to in order to overclock. For some it still remains the area of the hardcore enthusiast. Others see it has a means by which they can extract free performance from their machines to benefit the games they play, or tasks they perform on their systems. For some however, and I would class myself in this category, overclocking is a hobby in its own right.

My cooling costs more than any of the hardware I’ve used it on. I don’t game (not any more anyway), encode, edit video, fold etc. etc. All the power I need from a computer I have in my laptop, yet I still choose to buy high-end hardware and cooling, spending God knows how long clocking, benching and tweaking simply for the fun of overclocking. Now, I’m sure all but an extremely small minority here would regard that as a waste of time and money.

The point I’m trying to make here is two fold. Firstly, despite my love for overclocking it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that people choose not to overclock. Secondly, people can call the things I do pointless, but it's not going to change my outlook on it - just as people who choose not to overclock, in many cases, simply just don't want to. I agree, that there are quite a number of fallacies that need to be broken down – noise, heat, damage to components etc. and I hope this thread is able to take care of that in some way. However, should we berate people for not overclocking? Of course not, personally I’ve got more important things to do – like benching.

A-men to that post

 

[collisster]

if I overclocked my 3700 what would I be able to acheive ? what differences would i see?>

 

[FrostedNipple]

well i havnt got a clue about you but i have a pentiun d 805 stock at 2.6gigz adn atm it is at 3.32gigz, when i fix the fan on the side of my case its going up to at leaset 3.6gigz, thts a whole 1gig increase its the only reason i got the chip lol, cheap as well , already it knocks about 15seconds off super pi 1m

 

[collisster]

I dont care about pi what real life difference? I dont sit there in counterstrike wishing my computer could calculate pi a bit quicker

 

[Northwind]

Yep, but since everything in your system will affect in-game performance, you'll not get a sensible answer on that. Still, overclocking doesn't just make a PC better at benchmarks- if it does one thing 10% faster/better, then the processor element of your gaming is likely to be 10% faster.

 

[WJA96]

if it does one thing 10% faster/better, then the processor element of your gaming is likely to be 10% faster.

The sentiment is right, but I fear it might not pan out that way in reality. It does open up a whole new area though - overclocking graphics cards. I was able to extend the life of my 6800GS SLi setup by massively overclocking those two cards so they performed like a single 7800GT.

Instead of getting 9 months out of those cards, I got over a year. I was well chuffed.

 

[matt100]

I dont care about pi what real life difference? I dont sit there in counterstrike wishing my computer could calculate pi a bit quicker

superpi just shows your pcs number crunching ability in an easy to understand way, of course you don't give a monkeys that it can calculate however many prime numbers in whatever time span BUT.. the useful calculations will also be quicker by something like that performance margin.

So.. for example on a 1mb superpi run my pc completes the test in 19s, overclocked by 700mhz it does it in just under 15 so a straight number crunching improvement of about 25%.

Now apply that to decompressing files/encoding/gaming/booting etc and it starts to become worthwhile.

 

[matt100]

The sentiment is right, but I fear it might not pan out that way in reality. It does open up a whole new area though - overclocking graphics cards. I was able to extend the life of my 6800GS SLi setup by massively overclocking those two cards so they performed like a single 7800GT.

Instead of getting 9 months out of those cards, I got over a year. I was well chuffed.

the superpi thing won't bear out like that but another synthetic benchmark like 3dmark would and after all, you're now onto the world of graphics card overclocking which can be as much if not more fun that cpu overclocking because then you can really SEE the results if your system is tested at a particular resolution.

 

[easyrider]

At stock my pc can back up a DVD in shrink in about 8 mins.

When overclocked its more like 3mins.

 

[Sin_Chase]

Because I dont need to?

Everything I use my pc for, be it gaming, encoding whatever works fine.... if I felt I needed to squeeze more performance out of my system by overclocking I would.

Dont get me wrong, I have overclocked out of curiosity and for the fun of it but you make it sound like not overclocking is stupid?

 

[pegasus1]

The vast majority of posts on these forums nowadays are about who has bought the fastest card/chip.
When i joined the forums, it was full of posts telling of GFX bios flashing and CPU hardware mods. Now people just buy the fastest (or pre oced ) hardware and use software for a mild OC then wave appendage.
When was the last time somebody on here used conductive paint on their CPU to connect a bridge of flashed their GFX with a bios from a higher spec card.

 

[Insanity]

Well...

C&Q off + cpu fan 80% (from 60%) + HTT @ 230 = no post

Wont be doing that again anytime soon, my heart just cant take it!

 

[Mercutio]

I went through spending £100 most months on the poota for some form of random upgrade to get a tiny bit more out of it along with the overclocking.

It went air, high air, low water, normal water, custom water, custom water with a car radiator, vapochill PE in the space of about 3 months. It gets rather expensive quite quickly - its "free" but you start to get in the mindset of wanting to get more out of your kit and spend more time trying to get the computer working faster than actually using the speed.

In the end I chucked in the towel and went with the below, still on stock, still runs everything perfectly well (tho a graphics upgrade to get oblivion working well in native res).

There was just a bit more to life than spending time getting it all running well. Not knocking the guys who do but not really for me any more.

 

[Madwelsh]

Speaking from personal experience, I've found that overclocking is highly addictive!!! I've been clocking for about 5 years now, and I can't see me stopping anytime soon! I think most folks who don't overclock, usually have not done it out of sheer fear! The vast majority of people have computers costing a months wage, or a least a good whack out of your months wage, and they simply don't wish to risk it.

I agree that overclocking is not a 'black art' anymore, I mean I paid £84 for a 4000SD a few months back, it's currently sat at 3.2ghz at 48C max load, if you look on the bay, FX57's STILL at 250+. I clock for the performance I can search out of all my components, it's like taking the rev-limiter off, also it's great fun learning about the limits of your kit.

On the subject of time, I'm now quite strict with myself, before I'd only be spending hrs fiddling, now I limit myself to a couple of afternoons, then usually back it down 20% of max overclock, then leave it be!!!!

I overclock because I can, because I know how to, and I enjoy it. Those people who don't overclock, that's their look out, if they can't be bothered reading up a little on the net, that's their problem not mine. The guy with the fx57 and watercooling to run at stock speeds!!! LMAO you cheered up my day!

If you can steal more performance without damaging the components or spending silly money, then why not?

 

[Uriel]

This article on Extremetech seems to sum up why I don't usually overclock. I've only had a similar experience to some of these problems with one set of hardware but that's been enough to make me hesitate before overclocking for the sake of it again.

 

[Madwelsh]

This article on Extremetech seems to sum up why I don't usually overclock. I've only had a similar experience to some of these problems with one set of hardware but that's been enough to make me hesitate before overclocking for the sake of it again.

yeah but for example, if you are in a job where all you do is tweak systems continuously, surely when you go home, you won't be doing it in your free time too? It's like I have mates who work on computers all day 5 days a week, the absolute last thing they want to do when they are in their free time is look at a computer. Overclocking for many is a hobby, those that can be arsed and enjoy it do, those who are not bothered to research or find it's boring, don't.

 

[Uriel]

Well I enjoy overclocking but not as much as I enjoy gaming trouble free. Both of them aren't as important as the other use my PC gets. Priorities I'm afraid...