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Do you overclock?

Do you overclock?

  • Overclock CPU and GPU

  • Overclock CPU Only

  • Overclock GPU Only

  • Don't Overclock at all

Results are only viewable after voting.
Elganja

Elganja

Platinum Member
I'm curious how many people on these forums overclock...

I know over-clockers in general are the minority in the grand scheme of things (just like people who mod their cars)... wonder how it is on AT.

edit: would be nice if this could be mirrored in the CPU and Overclocking forum... is that possible with vBulletin?
 
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sitting on a 2500k and a 6950... and I haven't overclocked yet

somebody slap some sense into me :awe:

I've been meaning to get to it, though, really. This rig is just two weeks old now. Or something like that.
 
Gloomy said:
sitting on a 2500k and a 6950... and I haven't overclocked yet

somebody slap some sense into me :awe:

I've been meaning to get to it, though, really. This rig is just two weeks old now. Or something like that.
Click to expand...

Snap! 2500K and 6950 as well! 😛
 
I don’t overclock anything unless I’m running tests/benchmarks. Overclocking introduces another variable if something goes wrong. That and most of the time you don’t notice a difference outside synthetics anyway.
 
Both, over-volt 10% and see where it takes me. I found this to a be reliable way to achieve decent overclocks safely and quickly by fixing one variable, V.

I've been doing the exact same thing since Athon Xp days and never had a something break yet. I loop 3dmark and run prime at same time. during testing for 4-5 hours. Again same procedure since athlon XP days. I'm sure there is something better these days but I don't know about it.
 
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I overclock both, but I'm pretty conservative. If an OC becomes unstable, I generally just back it off, rather than try all sorts of things to get it to be stable at that higher setting, especially with GPUs.

With CPUs, I'm very conservative with voltage...I do not want to be anywhere near the maximum safe voltage, preferring to be as close to stock voltage as possible. I can easily run my 2500K at 4.5GHz (and if I get a better cooler, I'm sure 4.6-4.8 would be possible), but I'm just fine at 4.3...it's barely over stock voltage for stock speeds, and I'm running cooler than with the retail Intel HSF at stock speeds, so I feel good.

My GPU, I will NOT add voltage to...I just OC to where it is rock solid and leave it there. With my GTX 460, I was stable at 940/2150 for a while, but I'd occasionally get a 'driver stopped responding' error after heavy gaming, so I backed it off to 925/2125 (I think the memory could still run higher, but I don't care much)...and now it's rock solid for hours on end. I am not worried either, since the EVGA warranty on my card is 3 years (not the lifetime on this card, unfortunately), but it covers overclocking too, so if I fry the card, they'll send me a new one (not that I want to or ever intend to push it far enough to fry). In 3 years I'll have a new GPU, so no worries.
 
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I used to OC my CPU only but things got complicated for me with i7 (from Core2Duo, etc) so I gave up and bought a 940 i7 😛

I don't have the time or patience for OC'ing anymore; since I make enough I'd rather spend money to make things work out of the box.
 
Absolutely. It is so easy nowadays it's almost expected from the manufacturer that you'll overclock. Go into the bios, change a few settings with a mouse, and you're cpu is screaming. Same with the gpu, it's included in the software to allow easier overclocking.
In the good old days it was so much harder. Soldering, pencil lead tricks, third party software that may or may not have worked, constant reboots etc.
If you keep things cool there is generally no useable life taken from the part, unless you keep your stuff for 7 years or longer.
I sold a machine once with a 1.4 Thunderbird cpu overclocked to 1.5, and it's still going to this day, and that thing threw off a lot of heat, a lot.
The only reason I wouldn't overclock is that some games don't play well with overclocks.
 
You have to OC CPUs at least, just a slight OC and you get the next tier up in performance at half the price.

It's people that buy the top end CPUs that confuse me, it's a terrible value proposition, much much worse than buying top end GPUs.
 
CPU - yes
GPU - the Gigabyte 5870 I have with the custom cooler can't even do 5mhz over reference without artifacts.
 
CPU for sure, though I tend to not do it until I have aftermarket cooling (currently back on water).

GPU, have tried overclocking before but without much success. Once I put some blocks on my 7970s I will definitely see where I can take those, but not going to touch voltage.
 
CPU only at the moment.

I may give GPU overclocking a shot when I get my 580 in the loop, but right now it gets pretty toasty while folding.
 
I used to. But I liked to have my pc on 24/7 so I don't have to wait for it to boot if I want something done, plus I had a shared printer.
As I have aged, I have had less and less time for gaming, and most other tasks just need to be 'fast enough'. And then components needed to be replaced.
My last two builds are both 45W procs and still on 24/7. One of them is now a NAS box and has actually been undervolted, but not underclocked.

I'm sure I am in a pretty rare minority here.
 
I use to overclock all of my processors, I still do but I underclock as well now. My Phenom II 965 for example is usually running at 1.6Ghz cause it's all the speed I need, except when I open up BF3 than it's at 3.8Ghz. I actually undervolt for that 3.8Ghz too, motherboard feeds my processor 1.524V default, way too much.

I usually don't overclock my GPU, but I have in the past.
 
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