A bit of background, I started getting into overclocking in the late 90s, around the time it moved away from being done via physical jumpers and some motherboards started to offer some features like being able to set bus speed in BIOS. In those days, you had very few options to choose from, overclocking basically meant:
1) Research what CPU and mobo to buy
2) Get some overspecced RAM that could run at a higher bus speed than the default bus speed for your chip (FSB/RAM were linked)
3) [Optional] Invest in a decent cpu cooler
4) Increase the bus speed (in set increments like 66 / 75 / 83 / 100 / 105 etc), perhaps adding a bit of VCoreif your motherboard allowed (not all did), and maybe increasing CAS latency (just the one setting) to allow the RAM to go higher.
So after an ill-fated experiment on my old Cyrix CPU (which used to run baking hot even at stock) I cut my teeth on legendary combos like Celeron 300A, Abit BH6, 64MB PC100 RAM, crank it up to 450mhz+ and you had something that matched the top of the line CPU of the time, the P2-450.
Broadly speaking, whilst things evolved a bit with more options coming in, maybe some extra voltage or whatever, this patter stayed largely the same through the 00s. There were of course some stuff like golden fingers devices, pencil tricks etc for certain CPUs but by and large the BIOS options were just an evolution not revolution.
Now, what I'm finding these days on the Ryzen platform, is there is hundreds of things to keep track of. Multiple voltages, numerous RAM timings, IF Clock, memory clock, PBO, Auto OC, elaborate fan profiles, offsets, LLC etc etc. And CPUs seem to automatically overclock themselves with turbo modes, voltage ramping up or whatever, so it's really difficult to know how much I'm gaining / what the best route to go is. In the old days I'd basically upgrade and have a very clear 40%+ improvement over stock based on frequency vs stock.
On the one hand, back in the 90s I probably would've craved a bit more flexibility to tune overclocks, bigger range of bus speeds, more voltage headroom etc. So I shouldn't be too critical of giving that flexibility. But I must confess, part of me longs for the simpler time, when overclocking was really quite simple, you bought specific components like CPUs on lower speeds along with the relevant mobo/ram/cooler to be able to crank them up, that was about it. Nowadays, it seems a bottomless pit of possibilities, an endless cycle of tweaking until you muck something up and have to reset the CMOS.
Of course, just because the functionality doesn't mean you have to use it, but like many overclockers the OCD starts to kick in and you just can't help yourself, or if you just go for a simple fire and forget OC, you are then sitting there thinking you could get more out of it.
1) Research what CPU and mobo to buy
2) Get some overspecced RAM that could run at a higher bus speed than the default bus speed for your chip (FSB/RAM were linked)
3) [Optional] Invest in a decent cpu cooler
4) Increase the bus speed (in set increments like 66 / 75 / 83 / 100 / 105 etc), perhaps adding a bit of VCoreif your motherboard allowed (not all did), and maybe increasing CAS latency (just the one setting) to allow the RAM to go higher.
So after an ill-fated experiment on my old Cyrix CPU (which used to run baking hot even at stock) I cut my teeth on legendary combos like Celeron 300A, Abit BH6, 64MB PC100 RAM, crank it up to 450mhz+ and you had something that matched the top of the line CPU of the time, the P2-450.
Broadly speaking, whilst things evolved a bit with more options coming in, maybe some extra voltage or whatever, this patter stayed largely the same through the 00s. There were of course some stuff like golden fingers devices, pencil tricks etc for certain CPUs but by and large the BIOS options were just an evolution not revolution.
Now, what I'm finding these days on the Ryzen platform, is there is hundreds of things to keep track of. Multiple voltages, numerous RAM timings, IF Clock, memory clock, PBO, Auto OC, elaborate fan profiles, offsets, LLC etc etc. And CPUs seem to automatically overclock themselves with turbo modes, voltage ramping up or whatever, so it's really difficult to know how much I'm gaining / what the best route to go is. In the old days I'd basically upgrade and have a very clear 40%+ improvement over stock based on frequency vs stock.
On the one hand, back in the 90s I probably would've craved a bit more flexibility to tune overclocks, bigger range of bus speeds, more voltage headroom etc. So I shouldn't be too critical of giving that flexibility. But I must confess, part of me longs for the simpler time, when overclocking was really quite simple, you bought specific components like CPUs on lower speeds along with the relevant mobo/ram/cooler to be able to crank them up, that was about it. Nowadays, it seems a bottomless pit of possibilities, an endless cycle of tweaking until you muck something up and have to reset the CMOS.
Of course, just because the functionality doesn't mean you have to use it, but like many overclockers the OCD starts to kick in and you just can't help yourself, or if you just go for a simple fire and forget OC, you are then sitting there thinking you could get more out of it.
