Does overclocking save you money in the long run?

DeepBlue

Member
May 26, 2001
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I have talked to people on madonion.com, hardforums.com and seen web sites such as this one that claim that you can save money by overclocking.
The site pcstats.com says:


<< Let's be honest, we all want more than what we paid for. Overclocking is the most common method of getting more for your hardware dollars. Sure 800Mhz is darn fast, but what if it was able to do 1Ghz or more? Coincidentally, overclocking can save you some money too! >>



Yet what I believe they forgot to take into account was the cost of operating the equipment that enables them to overclock.

Let's say I purchased a 1.3GHz Pentium 4 CPU from Google Gear for $165. Then I purchased an 80 watt peltier for $25 from 3DCool.com. For a total of $190. After that I put together my system and with the peltier I manage to overclock my system to 1.5GHz for a gain of 200mhz. According to Anandtech's weekly CPU price guideI saved $39 by taking the original price of the CPU which is $165 adding the $25 from the cost of the peltier and subtracting that from the price of a 1.5Ghz which is $229. So it is: $229 - ($165+$25)=$39.

Electricity in my area which is San Diego, California costs about 8 cents per kilowatt hour. This comes from my local electric company's web site:

Historical Price of Electric Commodity

So if you do the math by multiplying .08 kilowatt hours (the amount of electricity the peltier uses to operate) by 8 cents (the price per kilowatt hour in my area) it costs about .64 cents an hour to run the peltier. So it is: (80/1000)*8 = .64.

At .64 cents an hour after I had the computer on for 6093 hours amount of money that I on overclocking would completely gone. Any time after 6093 hours I would actually start to lose money. I got this by dividing the amount of money saved which was $39 by the amount it costs to operate the peltier which is .64 cents an hour which gives you the number of hours until you lose the amount of money you saved. So it is: 39/.0064 = 6093. Or you can do it by multiplying .0064 by 6093 to get 39. So it is: .0064*6093=39. Since I leave my computer on pretty much 24/7 for cracking purposes after 8 months or 253 days the money I saved would be gone. Any amount of time after that I would actually start to lose money. Not to mention the fact that here in California the price of electricity can sky rocket at the drop of a hat and I could end up paying a lot more for that peltier than it is worth.

In conclusion I really don't see the point of overclocking in an economic sense. While this is only one particular overclocking set up the fundamental problem I see with overclocking is the equipment that enables you to overclock incurs a continuous cost due to the extra electricity it requires to power it. So after enough time the amount of money you saved by overclocking will be gone. After that point you will actually start to lose money by overclocking.
 

adams

Golden Member
Sep 12, 2000
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I bought a duron 600 and can run it at 900+ with just the retail heat sink/fan.
 

DeepBlue

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May 26, 2001
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<< I bought a duron 600 and can run it at 900+ with just the retail heat sink/fan. >>


That's cool you probably saved some money. I am talking about the overclocking that I hear a lot of people do which requires extra fans/pelitiers/waterblocks though.
 

DeepBlue

Member
May 26, 2001
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<< you are thinking too much >>


That is the funniest thing I have heard in awhile. LOL, so I should quit thinking eh?
 

scorp00

Senior member
Mar 21, 2001
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regular overclocking saves money, extreme overclocking is a hobby which ususally costs more than a regular system would of, but it's their hobby.

I have a duron 800@1000...just a $20 heatsink/fan on it. If you add a peltier and water cooling, that's easily over a hundred dollars, and your just spending extra money to have fun overclocking. :)
 

kami

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
17,627
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such wonders as the infamous Celeron 300a @ 450mhz (IMO what started &quot;mainstream&quot; overclocking) have saved me a LOT of money.

I remember searching for 3 weeks for an &quot;SL32A&quot; 300a, and sure enough, it did 450mhz @ default voltage :)
 

Alienwho

Diamond Member
Apr 22, 2001
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Most people overclock just to do it, and to see how high they can go, and for a hobby. Not to necessarily &quot;save money&quot; (that's why they buy AMD's in the first place).
 

adams

Golden Member
Sep 12, 2000
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When high-end processors first come out, they tend to be pretty expensive. If you buy one that is 200-300 Mhz less, than you can probably save substantially, even if you buy a decent fan to cool it, and still get the same performance as the high-end one.
 

atom

Diamond Member
Oct 18, 1999
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I still have my Celery 366@550 with $11 HSF running fine for 2 years straight. At that time a P3 500 would have cost me substantially more for similar performance. Peltiers, vapo-chill, and water coolers are for bragging rights only. :)
 

rc5

Platinum Member
Oct 13, 1999
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As long as you don't invest more than a decent fan/heatsink, you save money by overclocking.

Forget Peltier, peltier sucks.
 

DeepBlue

Member
May 26, 2001
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<< regular overclocking saves money, extreme overclocking is a hobby which ususally costs more than a regular system would of, but it's their hobby.

I have a duron 800@1000...just a $20 heatsink/fan on it. If you add a peltier and water cooling, that's easily over a hundred dollars, and your just spending extra money to have fun overclocking. :)
>>


I agree. There are some cases where you can save money overclocking. When you introduce a device that has considerable power consumption you do not save money in the long run however. I think that overclockers need to take the extra money it costs to operate this equipment into consideration if they are trying to save money.
 

JohnnyKnoxville

Platinum Member
Feb 24, 2001
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Well I see you've done your homework young man.
One thing you forgot to mention is that overclocking can sometimes cause stability problems which is OK if you're just some kid playing games but not if you're using you're computer to make money with.
 

DeepBlue

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May 26, 2001
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<< Well I see you've done your homework young man.
One thing you forgot to mention is that overclocking can sometimes cause stability problems which is OK if you're just some kid playing games but not if you're using you're computer to make money with.
>>


Yes, that is an important factor yet it is a different topic. For the purposes of this investigation I assume that the CPU works fine at the increased clock speed. Also, there are other problems that overclocking a CPU can cause such as damage to the CPU itself. Other investigations would need to be made in order to evaluate these risks however.
 

OS

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
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<< In conclusion I really don't see the point of overclocking in an economic sense. >>



For the most part yes. There are exceptions to the rule like (IE cpus like the old 300a, which were almost guaranteed overclocks). I used to overclock all of my old systems, my last 4 cpus were overclocked. It took me four overclocked CPUs to figure out all the time I wasted testing those cpus wasn't worth it. My current system isn't overclocked as a result. Overclocking can cause erratic problems that are hard to pinpoint. I've had situations where bluescreens came as few as once a week, which means you could easily spend a week on each overclock increment trying to figure out if a system is stable or not. The time/opportunity cost you lose trying to figure out if a certain overclock is stable, IE quake loops, stability tests, can very quickly erase any money you saved. Obviously if you do it as a hobby, that's a different situation.

Seeing how AMD cpus are dirt cheap now, I'd rather just pay a bit more and get the speed I want out of the box, in the first place, than waste many hours running stability tests trying to figure out if the crapshoot I just bought into paid off. Every future computer I get I have no intention of ever overclocking again. It's simply not worth it.

 

DeepBlue

Member
May 26, 2001
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<<

<< In conclusion I really don't see the point of overclocking in an economic sense. >>



For the most part yes. There are exceptions to the rule like (IE cpus like the old 300a, which were almost guaranteed overclocks). I used to overclock all of my old systems, my last 4 cpus were overclocked. My current one isn't. Overclocking can cause erratic problems that are hard to pinpoint. The time/opportunity cost you lose trying to figure out if a certain overclock is stable, IE quake loops, stability tests, can very quickly erase any money you saved.

Seeing how AMD cpus are dirt cheap now, I'd rather just pay a bit more and get the speed I want out of the box, in the first place, than waste 10 hours running stability tests trying to figure out if the crapshoot I just bought into paid off.
>>


Good points. I must say though that in order to do an investigation that would corroborate your points one would have to do quite a bit more research. The reason why is because like you pointed out different CPUs overclock better than others. So each type of CPU would have a different amount of money to be saved by overclocking. In fact the hard core overclockers look for a particular batch of CPUs made at a certain time during the year. Thus, one CPU could take 10 hours to overclock successfully while another could take 10 minutes.
 

thraxes

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2000
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Lil fools like me save some money, but then there are others that got to the extremes that few CPUs have gone to before, needing extensive cooling to get there. The cooling itself costs quite a bit of money to buy (waterblock, pelt or the most extreme case: vapochill unit) and at that point is no longer an economic factor cause' most of the people doing it, do it as a hobby.

Like tuning an engine in a car: tuning a 4cyl to run like a more expnensive 6cyl costs more than just ordering the car with a 6cyl in the first place, but it is a technical challenge that quite a few people enjoy.
 

SuperSix

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Peltiers and WCooling are extreme examples. Not many are doing that, so your argument, while well thought out, doesn't apply to many people.
 

tkdkid

Senior member
Oct 13, 2000
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Fuzzy math.

You want to divide 39 by .0064 ..not 0.64. 0.64 would be 64 cents, not .64 cents. Big difference. That means it takes 6093.75 hours to make up the difference. That's 253 days.

Using your math, the peltier uses $461 worth of electricity in one month! That's four times what it costs to run every single appliance in my house for a month. The real cost of the peltier is closer to $4 a month.
 

erikiksaz

Diamond Member
Nov 3, 1999
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yeah, not everyone runs a peltier. if overclocking is not &quot;economical,&quot; might as well turn off your whole damn computer.
 

erub

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2000
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heh i thought the cost of electricity sounded a little high...

I never did understand the point of buying a Vaporchill and other extreme OC stuff, spending $600 to overclock a ~$200 CPU? What the hell? :)
 

BuckMaster

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I agree with Alienwho and SuperSix.

Its more of a hobbie or atleast it is for me. I have O/Ced a few CPUS just because I wanted to see if I could do it. :) I currently have a Duron 600 that will do 1020MHZ with a FOP-32. But just left it at 1GHZ. Its really for people you are hardware addits. Its just fun to do the same with just installing extra fans and modifying cases. Some people have hobbies such as buying Hot Wheels, Baseball cards ect.. And on the other hand we have people that like to push there CPUs to the limit. Like you said some people really go over board buying pelitiers/waterblocks. If they have the money and the time why not. I will admit thats abit too much for me. :) Its fun reading up and buy cool H/S's connecting bridges on chips. Tweaking there BIOS. Again this could result in frying something but its part of the hobbie! ;)
 

DeepBlue

Member
May 26, 2001
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<< Fuzzy math.

You want to divide 39 by .0064 ..not 0.64. 0.64 would be 64 cents, not .64 cents. Big difference. That means it takes 6093.75 hours to make up the difference. That's 253 days.

Using your math, the peltier uses $461 worth of electricity in one month! That's four times what it costs to run every single appliance in my house for a month. The real cost of the peltier is closer to $4 a month.
>>



Whoops, those extra zeros slipped right past me. I will redo it.
 

MrCodeDude

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
13,674
1
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Still, it burns out hardware. I'd rather have my PC running 200mhz slower than it could be, rather than it frying itself in 5 years.. Plus, I don't want a loud fan..
-- mrcodedude