Overclocking pros/cons?

Can anyone tell me the? pros and cons of overclocking your computer?

I've just orderd the parts for my new computer, it will be the first time that i build my own pc. I was wondering what are the cons and pros sorta thing so i can judge wether or not i will overclock anything.

So if you could give me your input or give me a link to something that has a guide about the pros/cons and such.

Thanks for your time.

Can anyone tell me the? pros and cons of overclocking your computer?

I've just orderd the parts for my new computer, it will be the first time that i build my own pc. I was wondering what are the cons and pros sorta thing so i can judge wether or not i will overclock anything.

So if you could give me your input or give me a link to something that has a guide about the pros/cons and such.

Thanks for your time.

Legitplaya

About overclocking, 1. You need the correct parts, motherboard, ram, cpu, and case being the most important things. The biggest pro is you can get the most bang for the buck, con you could kill your computer. Another con is you can't just wing it, you have to do so studying. Google is a great tool for finding good overclocking websites and info.

You could start here:

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardware/103676-c2d-overclocking-guide-beginners.html

Pros: Computer is all around faster, games run faster, better benchmark scores.

Cons: The part's lifespan is cut down some(normall not enough to before an upgrade, unless it has a weak point), if you're not careful you can seriously damage parts to the point where they are unusable, overheating, the OCed parts hurting other parts.

I would recommend you just worry about you get your computer built and your BIOs and drivers up-to-date. Once you've done that and read/watched ALOT of guides on OCing(preferably with the parts you have), then OC it to what you want.

Also, read forums where people post on/about your parts and how far they OCed their's so you know what your general limits might be.

PS- Don't ever forget this. DO NOT jump a speed up too quickly. Always OC slowly and steadily. That way, if you go too far, you'll know what you can get to and you won't get way out of what your part can handle and damage it.

Hey, thanks for your advice, i heard though, and this is what threw me off, was that if you overclock something that it voids the warrenty on that item or something, is this true, are there any other cons like this one?

thanks again

Hey, thanks for your advice, i heard though, and this is what threw me off, was that if you overclock something that it voids the warrenty on that item or something, is this true, are there any other cons like this one?

thanks again

Legitplaya

MOST video cards and CPUs dont, but I can't talk for all. Either way, I'm not sure there's any way for them to prove you OCed your CPU if it breaks and you need a replacement. (same with a GPU).

thats what i was thinking, but i thought that maybe they had a wat, i don't know.

But my processor is a e8400(3.0ghz) wolfdale(or somethin)

and i got a diamond hd 4850 video card

Does anyone else know wether overclocking voids your warrenty on that item?>

thanks

anyone know?Legitplaya

yeah, any OC void warranty, but there is absolutley no way for them to prove you've run them OC'ed.

And your CPU is a great OC CPU, to leave that on stock would be a shame. ;)

Intel and AMD both void warranties for OC'ing. I know XFX and EVGA cover OC'ing in their warranty, I am pretty sure BFg will cover it, even if it is not written in their warranty.

There are claims that CPU's have a "black box" that can tell if it has been OC'ed, but I have never heard of anyone being refused a replacement because of it.

There are claims that CPU's have a "black box" that can tell if it has been OC'ed, but I have never heard of anyone being refused a replacement because of it.

ch5richards

This sound like another PC myth.

This is a great thing for mythbusters to give a shoot at. ;)

making a such box is far to expencive, and why would there be, there is nothing saying a OC'ed CPU dies before a stock one.

[QUOTE="ch5richards"]

There are claims that CPU's have a "black box" that can tell if it has been OC'ed, but I have never heard of anyone being refused a replacement because of it.

swehunt

This sound like another PC myth.

This is a great thing for mythbusters to give a shoot at. ;)

making a such box is far to expencive, and why would there be, there is nothing saying a OC'ed CPU dies before a stock one.

Well I don't know if I believe it or not, leaning more towards not. But I still feel it is possible. Most of the people that say they can test it, say that they just don't bother checking, I have heard from people that had lapped the IHS and Intel was too lazy to clean off the thermal paste to see and sent them a new CPU.

But I still don't know.

[QUOTE="swehunt"][QUOTE="ch5richards"]

There are claims that CPU's have a "black box" that can tell if it has been OC'ed, but I have never heard of anyone being refused a replacement because of it.

ch5richards

This sound like another PC myth.

This is a great thing for mythbusters to give a shoot at. ;)

making a such box is far to expencive, and why would there be, there is nothing saying a OC'ed CPU dies before a stock one.

Well I don't know if I believe it or not, leaning more towards not. But I still feel it is possible. Most of the people that say they can test it, say that they just don't bother checking, I have heard from people that had lapped the IHS and Intel was too lazy to clean off the thermal paste to see and sent them a new CPU.

But I still don't know.

To the TC,well with a single 4850 you dont have to overclock your CPU.If you want to but are a lil curious about not pushing it too much then perhaps get it to 3.5Ghz.

Oh and as far as official warranties are concerned,it's also viod by using after market CPU cooling.

But like other posters have said,just forget about overclocking for the time being since it's your first build.Your PC will run games like a charm without overclocking anything.

[QUOTE="ch5richards"][QUOTE="swehunt"][QUOTE="ch5richards"]

There are claims that CPU's have a "black box" that can tell if it has been OC'ed, but I have never heard of anyone being refused a replacement because of it.

Spybot_9

This sound like another PC myth.

This is a great thing for mythbusters to give a shoot at. ;)

making a such box is far to expencive, and why would there be, there is nothing saying a OC'ed CPU dies before a stock one.

Well I don't know if I believe it or not, leaning more towards not. But I still feel it is possible. Most of the people that say they can test it, say that they just don't bother checking, I have heard from people that had lapped the IHS and Intel was too lazy to clean off the thermal paste to see and sent them a new CPU.

But I still don't know.

To the TC,well with a single 4850 you dont have to overclock your CPU.If you want to but are a lil curious about not pushing it too much then perhaps get it to 3.5Ghz.

Oh and as far as official warranties are concerned,it's also viod by using after market CPU cooling.

But like other posters have said,just forget about overclocking for the time being since it's your first build.Your PC will run games like a charm without overclocking anything.

How often do you change your sig?

a sec ago it was a quote from nvidiagamer abot assasins creed and crysis, and now... compleatly diffrent. ;) give us back nvidiagamers quote: it's funny.

Pros: Computer is all around faster, games run faster, better benchmark scores.

Cons: The part's lifespan is cut down some(normall not enough to before an upgrade, unless it has a weak point), if you're not careful you can seriously damage parts to the point where they are unusable, overheating, the OCed parts hurting other parts.

I would recommend you just worry about you get your computer built and your BIOs and drivers up-to-date. Once you've done that and read/watched ALOT of guides on OCing(preferably with the parts you have), then OC it to what you want.

Also, read forums where people post on/about your parts and how far they OCed their's so you know what your general limits might be.

PS- Don't ever forget this. DO NOT jump a speed up too quickly. Always OC slowly and steadily. That way, if you go too far, you'll know what you can get to and you won't get way out of what your part can handle and damage it.

Strifebringer

Great advice. And write everything down. I give out a number for each run. For example, Run # 6 - I write down the temperatures, voltage, frequencies, FSB, everything that you tweak. I jot down every run and I only go up in small increments. Some motherboards are kind to OC'ers and they have increments already set up for you. All you have to do is go to the next, or back down if you have to when things become unstable. When it comes to voltages, like say, CPU voltage, I press (+) once, and that increases the voltage by a hundreth or two, depending on your bios. Then I save and exit, boot into windows and see if everything runs stable. If it does, then I go back, rinse repeat. Keep in mind, you're trying to balance your overclocked settings. If you increase FSB, you will reach a limit. Once you reach that limit, increase CPU voltage. After you've reached the max with FSB and CPU voltage, you will most likely run into RAM errors. Now it's time to play with your timings. The term "Loosen-up" your RAM means to set your timings HIGHER. For example, your timings are 5-5-5-15. If someone suggests that you "loosen-up" the RAM, you should up the timing to (throwing out a number here) 6-6-6-18. I'm not saying those should be your exact numbers. I'm just throwing that out there as an example. Also check your RAM frequency. It should be low, so it can be gradually increased to stabilization. If all fails, try upping the RAM voltage, by small increments for each run. Write everything down as you go. It's a balancing game. Make sure to download Prime95 and/or Stress Prime 2004 or Orthos. Orthos runs stress test on dual-cores/Quads. With Stress prime 2004, you may have to run two applications, one per each core (for a dual-core). I like Prime95 because it can run multiple threads right off the bat. Orthos is great too. A little bit more torture stress than Prime95 but it's good overall. Your temps may run 1-3 degrees hotter than Prime95's stress tests.

When disaster happens, do not panic. If for some reason you dont get a picture on your monitor when booting up your PC, that means that you have to reset your PC. You can reset to default settings by either resetting your CMOS jumper (please refer to your Motherboard manual) or simply by taking out the CMOS battery located on your motherboard next to the CMOS jumper. Wait for about 1-2 mins and put back the battery into its socket. This should reset to default. Power up your PC again and it should show picture. Quickly, press the corresponding key to enter your BIOS. With mine, I use F2 to enter my BIOS, while some other motherboards require that you press or tap the delete key. Other Mobos may have different key(s) to enter BIOS. I find the battery method to be the easiest way of resetting to default. After you get back into BIOS, backtrack to your last stable run. See where you made the mistake and go from there. Good luck. OC'ing can be fun but nerve-racking. I know that it was for me. I'm still OC'ing at the moment to try and get the most optimal performance for my PC. You're in good hands though, some Gamespotters here are very experienced with OC'ing. They can help you further.

^^ Copy/paste what he said. It's a pretty good and simple guide to OCing your CPU(just a little general, but it's a forum post, not a complete guide). It will help you later if you decide to do it, but make sure you read up in more then one place.

GPU's are much easier. Just look for a good clocking tool AMD GPU Clock Tool is the only one I konw that works for the 4800 series right now. Rivatuner and ATI Tool are better ones once they support it. Just go up slowly and watch your card's temps(GPU-Z is great for this). The manual fan fix will also be needed for you no matter if you OC or not. the 4800's give off loads of heat.

Don't OC unless you need to,putting a lot of stress on your motherboard and cpu, is not worth it if you can run everything fine.

do a lot of reading up on OC'in run cpuz to see what stepping your cpu is. Read up on other people who have OCed the same cpu as you and see what temps they got and how far they could push it before crashing. Dont rushing overclocking enjoy your new rig for a while worry about learning to OC in down the road.

How often do you change your sig?

a sec ago it was a quote from nvidiagamer abot assasins creed and crysis, and now... compleatly diffrent. ;) give us back nvidiagamers quote: it's funny.

swehunt

Let it be for sometime and I'll then bring back some quote from a long list of quotes from nvidiagamer filled with massive failure.:lol:

[QUOTE="Legitplaya"]anyone know?swehunt

yeah, any OC void warranty, but there is absolutley no way for them to prove you've run them OC'ed.

And your CPU is a great OC CPU, to leave that on stock would be a shame. ;)

I run mine at the stock 3.0 ghz but for whoever is concerned if you turn up the bus speed to 400 mhz instead of the set 333.33 mhz you get a nice overclock at 3.6 ghz. That is the safest thing to go and is still a good perforamce boost. You can do that with a stock cooler pretty well worry free.

Hey, thanks a lot everyone for their input and suggestions, i think i'll go with the one post here that made a lot of sense to me was bascially, why overclock when you can run all games at high setting anyways? I figure instead of upgrading down the road, that i'll overclock my cpu and gpu then, or when i actually need a preformance boost.

Thanks for the mini guides aswell, i copy pasted it and saved it now, thanks a lot.

I'm still waiting for my parts to ship to my house, hopefully it will be here by like friday at the latest.

I just can't wait till everything gets here it's my first build so it should be a lot of fun, i have my dad who know a lot about putting parts into a pc, altough he's never made one from scratch( he's upgraded and fixed a lot of his friends' computers, replaced many parts, he's only scared about the processor, we'll just take our time, i've watched a few guides and videos on it, it seems pretty simple, if anyone knows of a really great place that helps out begginers put together their own pc from scratch, that would be awesome.

And hopefully everything works together and there are no broken or dead parts :D or else i will probably cry ;-(, well maybe not, but i'll be pissed, lol ;D.

well yah, thanks again everyone for their input :D

Hey, thanks a lot everyone for their input and suggestions, i think i'll go with the one post here that made a lot of sense to me was bascially, why overclock when you can run all games at high setting anyways? I figure instead of upgrading down the road, that i'll overclock my cpu and gpu then, or when i actually need a preformance boost.

Thanks for the mini guides aswell, i copy pasted it and saved it now, thanks a lot.

I'm still waiting for my parts to ship to my house, hopefully it will be here by like friday at the latest.

I just can't wait till everything gets here it's my first build so it should be a lot of fun, i have my dad who know a lot about putting parts into a pc, altough he's never made one from scratch( he's upgraded and fixed a lot of his friends' computers, replaced many parts, he's only scared about the processor, we'll just take our time, i've watched a few guides and videos on it, it seems pretty simple, if anyone knows of a really great place that helps out begginers put together their own pc from scratch, that would be awesome.

And hopefully everything works together and there are no broken or dead parts :D or else i will probably cry ;-(, well maybe not, but i'll be pissed, lol ;D.

well yah, thanks again everyone for their input :D

Legitplaya

Np man. To revise my post.. It wasnt a RAM issue after all. I just needed more CPU Voltage. And the way I went about it was too fast, too soon. Instead of using 9.5 mulitpliers off the bat, I used 9.0. As soon as I hit FSB 400 x 9, I changed the multipliers to 9.5. With 400 x 9.5, I gradually increased CPU voltage until it was stable under Prime95. I reached stability at 3.8ghz/1.325v. I will mess with it some more to reach 4.0ghz. :D

I will sum up for you...

Analogy to cars...YOU'VE GOTTA PAY TO PLAY! If you can't afford to buy new parts, or if you're concerned about your warranty then you absolutely SHOULD NOT be tuning (oc'ing).

[QUOTE="Legitplaya"]anyone know?swehunt

yeah, any OC void warranty, but there is absolutley no way for them to prove you've run them OC'ed.

And your CPU is a great OC CPU, to leave that on stock would be a shame. ;)

Not true for all GPU manufacturers. EVGA and XFX even let you do volt mods with OCing. I think some ATI manufacturers are starting to be more lenient too but im not sure.

As for CPU i think ur right.

yah, makes sense.

I Have a quick new question: If i'm not overclocking, do i need an aftermarket fan? or will it run at good temps with the stock one supplied?

and also my 4850 gpu, should i be altering the fan speed on it to keep temps down, even though i'm not overclocking it?

thanks again

yah, makes sense.

I Have a quick new question: If i'm not overclocking, do i need an aftermarket fan? or will it run at good temps with the stock one supplied?

and also my 4850 gpu, should i be altering the fan speed on it to keep temps down, even though i'm not overclocking it?

thanks again

Legitplaya

If you do not plan to EVER overclock, then all you need is the stock heatsink fan that comes with your CPU. If you do plan to overclock now or in the near future, aftermarket heatsink/fan is a must. There are people that have overclocked with a stock heatsink/fan but I do not recommend it.

Your HD 4850 GPU will run fine at the factory fan speed and temps, but I recommend doing the "fanfix." Personally, I like my GPU running nice and cool. The factory default speed is way too low and the GPU runs way too hot, for me. I run mine at 30% fan speed while I'm doing desktop stuff, but while I'm playing games, I may crank it up to 40% - 50%.

ahh, ok, i see, i think i'll up the fan speed a bit once i get everything loaded and such. I saw a video or two on the fanfix thingy, i never played full attention to it sinse i don;t even have my computer yet, but yah..

thanks again.

I Have a quick new question: If i'm not overclocking, do i need an aftermarket fan? or will it run at good temps with the stock one supplied?

and also my 4850 gpu, should i be altering the fan speed on it to keep temps down, even though i'm not overclocking it?

Legitplaya

No you don't need an aftermarket cooler, the stock cooler does a good job. And yes you should use the fan fix on my sig because the default fan speed is too low at 23%. My HD4850 fan is currently set at 35% speed, and it's idling at 47C. Up to 45% speed I don't hear it over my case fans.

You can create as many profiles as you need and activate one according to the situation. For example, I created 6 profiles: idle35, idle40, idle45, game50, game55 and game60. You can include 3D settings in a profile too, like AA, AF, Catalyst AI, etc. CCC loads the last profile that was used before the pc was shut down. You can activate a profile quickly by right-clicking on the ATI icon in the bottom right corner of your desktop:

[QUOTE="swehunt"]

[QUOTE="Legitplaya"]anyone know?JSDempsey

yeah, any OC void warranty, but there is absolutley no way for them to prove you've run them OC'ed.

And your CPU is a great OC CPU, to leave that on stock would be a shame. ;)

Not true for all GPU manufacturers. EVGA and XFX even let you do volt mods with OCing. I think some ATI manufacturers are starting to be more lenient too but im not sure.

As for CPU i think ur right.

I would like proof for that statement, why would annyone let someone do a "mod" to their card?

Ofc. you don't play with volt mods and tell Evga you did. cos warranty DONT cover that.

[QUOTE="JSDempsey"][QUOTE="swehunt"]

[QUOTE="Legitplaya"]anyone know?swehunt

yeah, any OC void warranty, but there is absolutley no way for them to prove you've run them OC'ed.

And your CPU is a great OC CPU, to leave that on stock would be a shame. ;)

Not true for all GPU manufacturers. EVGA and XFX even let you do volt mods with OCing. I think some ATI manufacturers are starting to be more lenient too but im not sure.

As for CPU i think ur right.

I would like proof for that statement, why would annyone let someone do a "mod" to their card?

Ofc. you don't play with volt mods and tell Evga you did. cos warranty DONT cover that.

[QUOTE="swehunt"][QUOTE="JSDempsey"][QUOTE="swehunt"]

[QUOTE="Legitplaya"]anyone know?Spybot_9

yeah, any OC void warranty, but there is absolutley no way for them to prove you've run them OC'ed.

And your CPU is a great OC CPU, to leave that on stock would be a shame. ;)

Not true for all GPU manufacturers. EVGA and XFX even let you do volt mods with OCing. I think some ATI manufacturers are starting to be more lenient too but im not sure.

As for CPU i think ur right.

I would like proof for that statement, why would annyone let someone do a "mod" to their card?

Ofc. you don't play with volt mods and tell Evga you did. cos warranty DONT cover that.

"This warranty is limited to the repair and/or replacement, at XFX's discretion, of defective or nonconforming Product, and XFX shall not be responsible for the failure of the Product to perform specified functions, or any other non- conformance caused by or attributable to: (a) any misapplication or misuse of the Product; (b) failure of Customer to adhere to any of XFX's specifications or instructions; (c) neglect of, abuse of, or accident to, the Product; or (d) any associated or complementary equipment or software not furnished by XFX. "

This in my oppinion says preatty clear that (c) tells you cant use the card in a inproper way? abuse is preatty much a voltmod.

No one can proove a sample of any GPU manufacturer that will still give you a refound for a modded card in such way as an "volt modded card". (if they can tell)