Poll: Is Overclocking Relevant?

[Th3D0n]

Off Topic:

Haha, don't take it personally, I've lived within 500 yards of stamford bridge for over 35 years so basically they are my local team!

Haha ok still feel sorry for you tho

Say it as "liquid cooled CPU" and that's entirely correct.

That's because the entire argument revolves around definitions, what defines watercooling.

Is it home made systems only because they were doing it first? If so, it's elitism only.

1) It's a heatsink that can leak - but has two years of guarantee that it won't. Home plumbed loops can leak all over components as well

2) The rad is inside the case blowing air into/out of the main compartment therefore no better than a heatsink - and a lot of custom loops are exactly the same. Void. Also if you put some effort in, the rad could be outside the case anyway.

3) Can't top up coolant - exaggerated issue. It's designed to minimise coolant loss because it's sealed for life. Home plumbing isn't using the same sealing methods or tubing. Hence, again, the guarantee that evaporation won't be a problem.

I'm seeing people becoming wound up because its similar enough that comparisons between custom and prebuilt have enough weight to bother them.

So for the same reason, arguments that custom loops are "real watercooling" can be seen as less than watertight (excuse the pun).

So like I said, why bother with the hate. There's nothing to win, just egos to defend

i totally agree with you here .

A H50 is still water cooling hence the fact it uses water to cool

 

[sandeep]

A balance for me.

Cool and Quiet helps me out there.

 

[JonJ678]

Say it as "liquid cooled CPU" and that's entirely correct.

Sure, perhaps I should have said referring to the normal arrangement of radiators and blocks as "liquid cooling" strikes me as pretentious as well and annoys me just as much.

That's because the entire argument revolves around definitions, what defines watercooling.

If watercooling is cooling things with water as well as air, sensibly, then the H50 qualifies. However computer watercooling has a long history of outperforming air cooling and the H50 doesn't. I suspect you follow this objection really, it's an irritating association to draw as the H50 fails to do the main thing watercooling is required to, i.e. beat air.

1) It's a heatsink that can leak - but has two years of guarantee that it won't. Home plumbed loops can leak all over components as well

If a home plumbed loop leaks, it's almost always user error. Sometimes blocks leak, like the one I broke. However someone who has bothered putting a loop together is likely to know how to deal with this, someone who bought a H50 off the shelf is less likely to. A few people on here have had to return them for leaking, so the two year warranty is unsurprisingly fallible. I don't follow the reasoning which puts the H50 as safer.

2) The rad is inside the case blowing air into/out of the main compartment therefore no better than a heatsink - and a lot of custom loops are exactly the same. Void. Also if you put some effort in, the rad could be outside the case anyway.

I can't tell what you're voiding. The main issue with the H50 is small radiator surface area. A custom loop with the same crap radiator, weak pump and cheap block will perform the same as the H50 and I'll have just the same contempt for it as it performs no better than air.

3) Can't top up coolant - exaggerated issue.

Yes. However some people like to be able to strip a system down and fix bits, others don't want the hassle and would rather replace it when it dies.

My annoyance is that watercooling, in my definition, has to cool better than air otherwise you're introducing risk with no benefit. The H50 doesn't cool better than air, so I consider it undeserving of association with the superior approach.

 

[easyrider]

Sure, perhaps I should have said referring to the normal arrangement of radiators and blocks as "liquid cooling" strikes me as pretentious as well and annoys me just as much.



If watercooling is cooling things with water as well as air, sensibly, then the H50 qualifies. However computer watercooling has a long history of outperforming air cooling and the H50 doesn't. I suspect you follow this objection really, it's an irritating association to draw as the H50 fails to do the main thing watercooling is required to, i.e. beat air.

If a home plumbed loop leaks, it's almost always user error. Sometimes blocks leak, like the one I broke. However someone who has bothered putting a loop together is likely to know how to deal with this, someone who bought a H50 off the shelf is less likely to. A few people on here have had to return them for leaking, so the two year warranty is unsurprisingly fallible. I don't follow the reasoning which puts the H50 as safer.


I can't tell what you're voiding. The main issue with the H50 is small radiator surface area. A custom loop with the same crap radiator, weak pump and cheap block will perform the same as the H50 and I'll have just the same contempt for it as it performs no better than air.

Yes. However some people like to be able to strip a system down and fix bits, others don't want the hassle and would rather replace it when it dies.

My annoyance is that watercooling, in my definition, has to cool better than air otherwise you're introducing risk with no benefit. The H50 doesn't cool better than air, so I consider it undeserving of association with the superior approach.

Agree 100%

 

[Hotwired]

My annoyance is that watercooling, in my definition, has to cool better than air otherwise you're introducing risk with no benefit. The H50 doesn't cool better than air, so I consider it undeserving of association with the superior approach.

I believe this sums up your argument against it.

It is as I said, how it is defined. You want "real watercooling" to be systems which are notably better than air. But they are even more bulky than high end air, heat exchange surface has to go somewhere, ditto pump, reservoir, couple of metres of tubing.

The H50 is equal to high end air but is more compact and flexible than the comparable air cooling which would achieve the same temperatures - it's not a massive stack of fins over the cpu.

That is the advantage to offset the risks of watercooling on a compact level whether its an H50, a Swiftech H2O-120 compact or that thing the H50 looks like a clone of.

Everyone whose opinion matters knows the differences in cooling potential between a standard 120 rad and two 2x120 rads driven by an appropriately larger pump.

There's no point getting wound up at the little 120 rad systems for being watercooling as well. There is a point in having them even if you won't see it.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Where's the 'What's the point' option?

The only CPU I've overclocked was a Celeron 300.
Not so long ago I built a Q6600 system for a friend and we did a few tests with the main one being encoding an AVI into a DVD which took 8 minutes.
My mate overclocked it and got it going to 3mhz and I told him to carry out the same test with exactly the same file and it was 25 seconds quicker.
This to me doesn't make sense to put a strain on your system when there is so little gain.
I realise Gamers may tell me that the difference between 2.4 and 3 is a matter of life and death in a game (or does it?).

 

[JonJ678]

I can see some advantages to it, this was hinted at by "(certain imaginative uses aside)".

Specifically I like the approach you've taken, and someone is cooling a sugo m-itx system using one which is also excellent. Cooling a small case is very difficult, the H50 simplifies this.

I'm not sure it follows that it's smaller than conventional watercooling can be, you can use the swiftec cpu/pump block with a 120mm radiator, without reservoir, and achieve much the same thing as the H50. It'll cost more unless you go second hand. But equally, you can use a 60mm thick radiator instead. Or you can fit a ddc almost anywhere, and again you have all the expansion options.

For example, take your excellent use of the H50. If a 120mm thermochill fits where the radiator is (pretty sure it will, would love it if you measured it for me though ), then you could use one of these in each hard drive bay, put the graphics card under as well as the cpu, and put the ddc down with the psu. Cooling performance will then be far superior, and the solution will be almost as elegant. It'll be quieter too, in case you care about this.

However the vast majority of uses are in a case where a TRUE would fit quite comfortably, when performance is equivalent but risk of failure is much higher. There's nothing to go wrong with a heatsink.

 

[the_electrician]

[QUOTE=Hotwired;15698287

The H50 is equal to high end air but is more compact and flexible than the comparable air cooling which would achieve the same temperatures - it's not a massive stack of fins over the cpu.


I agree The h50 is more compact than high end air coolers. But would disagree on performance. It may be on par with the Mega or True but the Noctua NH-14 beats all of these by +7 degrees.
Horses for courses though!!!

 

[BIGBC]

but the Noctua NH-14 beats all of these by +7 degrees.

This is only true when 3x140mm fans are in use. 2x120mm and performance still goes to Megahelems and TRUE.
NH-14 is has a considerably larger footprint too.

This thread has become pretty silly, everyone uses there PC for different things, have different tolerances with noise, different amounts of time to spend on overclocking and different tolerances/interests in doing so.
Its part of the fun of overclocking - it is versatile, you can get what you want.

 

[golwg]

Where's the 'What's the point' option?

The only CPU I've overclocked was a Celeron 300.
Not so long ago I built a Q6600 system for a friend and we did a few tests with the main one being encoding an AVI into a DVD which took 8 minutes.
My mate overclocked it and got it going to 3mhz and I told him to carry out the same test with exactly the same file and it was 25 seconds quicker.
This to me doesn't make sense to put a strain on your system when there is so little gain.
I realise Gamers may tell me that the difference between 2.4 and 3 is a matter of life and death in a game (or does it?).

Agreed 100%

 

[Big.Wayne]

A *balance* of the above to suit my personal needs means what exactly?

You could ask the same question about the poll choice #1 and #2

1. Yes, its important to run my PC as fast as I can.
2. No, Noise ,heat and energy saving is more important.

There is a certain amount of ambiguity to your questions and I think if you had put a bit more time into the choices and perhaps explained them in more detail the poll results maybe would have been a bit more accurate!

I'm happy to give you my personal interpretation although it's only the way I am seeing it . . . not fact!


#1 Yes, its important to run my PC as fast as I can

rjkoneill, gurusan yourself many others fall into this category, you will use your overclocking skills to *Max* your hardware and literally squeeze every single last drop of MHz, the resulting speed increase is worthwhile because:

• Your embracing your Human Need For Speed
• Your a competitive Benchmarker striving for World Domination
• Your an Engineer running advanced modelling simulation software
• Your games of choice perform much better with a whack of extra MHz
• Your a serious Folding@home contributor and PPD is where it is at
• ePeenie is good, mine is bigger than yours baby!
• Your PC is only switched on a few hours a day, max it RAW!
• All the cool people overclock, if not then you may as well buy a DELL
• Energy saving!! . . . HAHA! don't make me laugh, friggin hippies, get a life, I can afford to pay my energy bills, who gives a **** if my PC uses 100 watts or 1000watts? . . . . don't even start on things like disappearing rain-forests and global warming, if I see another post in a supposed overclocking/technical forum about being green I will blow a fuse!, doesn't matter if we run out of trees or coal as will never run out of power or have an energy crisis, ridiculous especially as we got more than enough nuclear power plants to power our needs . .
• I run my hardware at max because I can and I know how, I been doing this for years and know pretty much everything about overclocking, I just want raw speed and I have no fear of the boogeyman, I *do* however give a fig about energy usage vs. green issues so I signed up with an Energy company that sells me 100% renewable power i.e every kWh unit I pull from the grid is replaced by a clean kWh unit that is produced on a wind farm in Cornwall . . . . only slight downside is a 100% renewable kWh unit cost more than one produced by burning carbon fuels/nuclear fission, hopefully that will change but I'm happy to pay the premium as it seems the only logical choice . . . I also feel less guilty that my rig is pulling nearly 800watts 12 hours a day!
• I'm a teenager, I just want to have a fast computer so I can play games, I don't have a lot of money so I always have to buy slightly cheaper components and juice them up! . . . luckily I don't have to pay any energy bills and I'm not concerned with noise as I wear a headset when gaming and I switch the PC off when I'm kipping, I've got a laptop that I use for facebook and iTunes
• ad infinitum

People voting in group #1 all have their own perfectly valid reasons for unleashing-the-beast, doesn't matter if it's budget kit or premium components, water-cooling etc, no matter what the hardware it will be running as fast as it can run. stability will sometimes be a tiny bit ragged but will preferably be running 100% rock solid stable with that persons chosen data set i.e the bencher can complete benchmarks, the engineer can run his simulations, the folder rakes in the PPD without ever getting an EUE, etc.

Users in group #1 will also likely not utilize any power saving technologies or auto overclocking technologies, speedstep/C&Q/Turbo Boost etc are disabled . . . the computer is rarely at idle so these features are not needed . . . if not that perhaps there is some issue with an overclock becoming unstable if the power saving tech is [enabled].

Basically whether the computer is switch on 24/7 *or* if it's only switched on for a few hours a day . . . while it is switched on it is running extremely demanding applications at the fastest speed possible with that particular set of hardware . . .


#2 No, Noise ,heat and energy saving is more important

This was your counter to question #1 . . . again quite ambiguous so here is my interpretation of *possible* users answers . . .

• You don't know how to overclock and you're not sure you want to put the time in as your computer needs are quite modest, if it runs stable out the box and the power-saving/auto-overclocking features work fine then your happy to get on with doing other stuff
• You know how to overclock like the best of them but your RAW power computing needs have become quite modest these days and you found out that if you don't overclock your stuff and undervolt it also the machines power consumption drops by a noticeable amount, your monthly/quarterly electricity bill has dropped by 33% which is nice
• Your not sure if overclocking will damage your hardware or shorten it's lifespan, a lot of people say its ok but a lot of people talk of degradation, they talk of Safe Max vCore, Safe Max load temps, Blue Screens of Death etc, it's all a bit worrying, someone mentioned something about a boogeyman that eats overclocked hardware? . . . . so until I understand the subject better I'm playing it safe . . . actually I'm playing a game Dragon Age Origins, seems like a much more interesting use of a PC than all this overclocking malarkey
• I'm a bit short of money atm so couldn't really get all the premium kit I would have liked, no extra funds for things like premium air/water cooling and swish 120mm fans, pretty much using the stock cooler which is noisy as hell at full whack and loses any ability to cool when modulated down by the motherboard . . . once I get a better cooling solution gonna max my hardware but until then it seems to be quite nippy and above all else quiet! (My PC is next to my bed, downloading, folding while I sleep)
• I am very eco and have recently become a lot more energy conscious , yeah I know I shouldn't really have a PC at all and live in a cave growing my own chickens and wheat but I still need to interact with a modern society and a computer is pretty important for me as I'm a web-designer and PhP coder, I've got both a laptop and a nice workstation which I spend many hours at coding away, my machine is running at stock speeds but I undervolted it as much as possible, 30watts idle and 64watts load (not inc monitor) is pretty good going for a reasonably high spec triple core

A *balance* of the above to suit my personal needs

I think given the first two questions (which are a bit vague) this was a worthy ammendment as possible third poll choice . . .

• Yeah I'm a old school overclocker and bencher but the latest tech from both AMD and INTEL are super fast out the box so really there is no need to overclock . . . well overclock much anyway, once I've worked out the hardware's max clocks, once I've run the benchmarks, once I've basked in the light of forum adulation for my technical achievement and my ePeenie is in good standing, then I am happy to settle on a much more reasonable overclock for 24/7 usage, yeah I am aware my processor isn't maxed and I'm running it 500MHz slower than it could be but for my personal workload and my personal software set I really cannot tell any difference, heck it's a lot faster now with my mild overclock and memory tweaking than it was when running bone stock. I've got all the power saving features [Enabled] and even though my system is running overclocked when I'm not using it the speedstep/C&Q tech kicks in and I'm saving energy . . .does anyone really need a Core 2 quad running at 3.6GHz when reading the forums or running light tasks? . . probably not!
• I used to be a hardcore overclocker but now I have a family and three kids that all share my PC. I know roughly how to overclock still although things have changed since the good old AMD Thunderbird days! . . . anyway I splurged on a Intel® Core™ i7 860 as I only really upgrade every 4-5 years so it's always big money for as much future-proofing as possible, anyway the Lynnfield has this new Intel® Turbo Boost Tech which seems to work really well! . . .most of the software me and the family run is either single threaded or dual threaded so it seems the processor knows this and overclocks two cores and almost switches of the redundant cores to save power, how clever is that! . . . I therefore choose option #3 *balanced* as even though I haven't max my hardware myself the computer is overclocking when I need it to be and underclocking itself when I don't
• I do both, I have two overclocking profiles, one with a mild overclock for day to day usage and one with a record breaking overclock that I *unleash* at the weekend where I literally spend about 15 hours gaming. The RTS titles I favour really respond well to an extra 1GHz on all the cores (3GHz > 4GHz), it's not a massive boost but it's enough to give a little extra smoothness when I get involved in a large siege sometimes involving 10,000 AI units bashing the **** out of each other, classic!
• Tough Poll choice as I need both RAW power & low power consumption in one computer that kinda does everything (Workstation/Gamebox/HTPC/WHS/Downloader/Cruncher etc) therefore I had to find a *balance* between RAW power and 24/7 running costs £££, I would like to keep everything running at max speed if I could, it's all water-cooled and very quiet no matter if it's maxed or at stock but regardless the difference between a *fully* overclocked Bench/God machine and a Perpetual Pandora's Box is like 300watts! . . . that may not sound a lot but let me tell you as its running 24/7 that's £1.00/Day or nearly £368.00/Year! sod that, I'd rather run my system at it's sweetspot and save some cash to put towards a nice vacation, that would be nearly enough for me to spend a week or two surfing in Cornwall during the summer, so many babes there!
• I can't tell the difference between my best stable overclock and a mild overclock if I don't run a benchmark! . . . ok I can tell the difference when I am doing my weekend Encoding runs (knocks at least 60mins of the batch encode times!) but most of the time I am gaming or surfing where I literally cannot perceive any difference whatsoever so I pretty much run it with a mild overclock. Don't get me wrong I've done the benchmarks and stuff and some games jump from 94FPS to 121FPS but I can't seem to be able to sense that during actual use. My monitor is capped at 60Hz @1920x1080 so I'm not sure if those theoretical max frames are visable anyway, the thing I would notice is the *minimum* frame rates but I don't think I've ever seen them go below 60fps . . . at least I didn't have a game judder once and the FRAPS FPS Counter seems to be stuck at 60 all the time!
• I use the new [Auto] overclock button that seems to do a good job, that combined with the new TurboV feature on ASUS motherboards means that once I have a stable overclock I save it as a profile in the BIOS along with a tweaked-stock config then all I have to do is press the Power Button on my PC tower and the system goes into overclock mode, press the button again and it's back to stock, this all is in Real-time so it's really like a [RAW SPEED] button, I mainly hit the TurboV when I'm doing my Maya Renderings as that saves me a lot of time.
• I love being an Overclocking Enthusiast but I decided that if there was any truth to this global warming stuff then I should really do my little bit for the cause. I've made my home as energy efficient as I know how, I no longer take a plane twice a year on holiday, I've traded my fuel powered car for a protype electric car and a couple of nice mountain bikes and finally got myself a Solar Photovoltaic system installed, it's as good as I thought it would be but not good enough yet to power a computer much over 100watts, I can still overclock though but not as much as I would like, hopefully either I can improve my solar system or maybe get a new processor with less than 45w TDP . . . until that point I am happy as things are, got a nice undervolted/overclocked dual core in a low voltage DDR3 system and been playing quite a few older games using the motherboards IGP which seems to work great @1920x1080. Gaming aside the most demanding thing my computer seems to be doing atm is some JAVA compiling, that certainly speeds up quite a bit when I overclock the chip 500MHz! . . .that's all for now, if anyone fancies a new technical challenge and you have some spare time/money then do a bit of research into Solar Photovoltaic panels, it's not cheap to begin with but once you know how it works there is scope to do it on a smaller budget if your prepared to build the panels yourself!
  
  

Disclaimer: The characters and incidents portrayed in the examples above are fictitious and any similarity to the character and history of any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

 

[easyrider]

Where's the 'What's the point' option?

The only CPU I've overclocked was a Celeron 300.
Not so long ago I built a Q6600 system for a friend and we did a few tests with the main one being encoding an AVI into a DVD which took 8 minutes.
My mate overclocked it and got it going to 3mhz and I told him to carry out the same test with exactly the same file and it was 25 seconds quicker.
This to me doesn't make sense to put a strain on your system when there is so little gain.
I realise Gamers may tell me that the difference between 2.4 and 3 is a matter of life and death in a game (or does it?).

Mobos and GFX cards are all designed for overclocking.

Thats why they have the options in the bios.

Manufacturers even sell pre clocked hardware.

And a 3ghz overclock on Q6600 is hardly straining the chip or the system.

So I can't see anything in your post other believing all the hype that overclocking will kill your system.

 

[easyrider]

Snip

To much text stopped reading 3 lines in


YAWN

 

[JonJ678]

Ah. Not sure if it was the intention, but after working out where I come in that list, I think I'm going to try to turn the energy saving things back on.

Epic post Wayne, thank you.

Go back and read it easy, it's amusingly insightful

 

[BIGBC]

To much text stopped reading 3 lines in


YAWN

I found it quite interesting Wayne.

 

[kmufc77]

Big Wayne,very interesting post,you know your stuff!

 

['Wes]

Gah, the 3rd question wasn't there when i voted.

 

[golwg]

Great reading Wayne

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Mobos and GFX cards are all designed for overclocking.

Thats why they have the options in the bios.

Perhaps they are now but they didn't used to be.
I can remember shifting jumpers on a motherboard to get a 486DX100 up to 120 and I remember Overclockers drawing on chips with pencils.
Cyrix chips were famous because after a year you had to underclock them to work.

 

[easyrider]

Perhaps they are now but they didn't used to be.
I can remember shifting jumpers on a motherboard to get a 486DX100 up to 120 and I remember Overclockers drawing on chips with pencils.
Cyrix chips were famous because after a year you had to underclock them to work.

Exactly

Hardware is designed for overclocking so why not overclock it?

You may not see any point but some of us do.

Why not have more speed if its there to use?

All these engineers tweaking motherboards and bios.

Their hardwork should be embraced and celebrated not ignored.

Overclocking is fun. its not hurting anybody. It brings people togther to share ideas.

Where is the harm in that?